Holy Crap, Ammo Prices Are Up In The Us!

[Steiner]

I hope American milsurp shooters appreciate how cheap they can get ammo for. If I could pay those prices I would be much more active in this hobby. It really is outrageous how much milsurp costs us in Canada (due to our feds) - silly rules only allow our importers to bring in a dribble of ammo whose costs is inflated due to all the hoops and hassles the vendors must comply with.

Ammo is like gas - you can never have enough and the price only keeps going up.

 

[CALIFORNIA]

I don't fully agree with EDGE

Joe- NWT,

Your arguments about metal prices are BANG ON!! I appreciate what EDGE is trying to say, but I don't fully agree, As I stated on the opening post on this thread, a 100 .40 S&W box of White Winchester went for $15.99 U.S a few months back, today it is $19.99 U.S., a 25% increase. Forget Cdn currency, so there goes the 10% argument given by EDGE.

While it is dramatic to state that copper is up 300% !!! the last few years, it is far less dramatic to state that copper is up only $2 U.S. per pound. Given the small amount of copper/lead/zinc used in factory rounds, these increases do not fully explain the 25%+ increase. There is much more here, here is my read on ammo prices:

1) While the prices of all base metals are way up, the fact is that these increases did NOT happen overnight, in fact metal prices have been consistently increasing over several years now. Did ammo consistently go up over the last few years lockstep with metal prices? NO. Probably since a pound of metal goes very far, the unit cost of a round did not go up as much a the raw metal itself, so manufacturers probably absorbed most of this.

2) The price of base metals have FALLEN in the last few months, not unlike oil which is also down from $70+. How ironic, now that metal prices have slipped, ammo prices suddenly jump 20-30% OVERNIGHT. COPPER AND LEAD are up, guess what, they were up a lot more this past summer!!!

3) For more than a year now, Le Baron has been consistenly backordered on 100 round boxes. It is not getting any better. I believe this has to do with the fact that manufacturers are diverting their production towards the more lucrative "War Effort" contracts. This is the MAIN reason for sudden increases in ammo prices, metal prices are the infinitely smaller reason. Cdn $ fluctuation ?? I don't think so. Why is it that the cost savings are never fully passed on to Cdn. consumers when the dollar is going our way, but the fu-king second our dollar drops, all of a sudden we have immediate, and direct pricing impact??

Our rising dollar didn't commensurately lower Cdn ammo prices, (or gun prices for that matter) , because ammo was much cheaper in the US all along, so now let's not blame a lower Canadian dollar on higher ammo prices.

I am with you Joe-NWT !!

 

[blindman]

You know, I have no idea why this isn't talked about. No one seems to care that for a while now, years even, China has been building it's armies and military equipement ie: Tanks, planes, missiles etc. at an exponential rate!!! No government or country has mass produced their military in this manner since Hitler did when he was in power in Germany. Scary stuff folks, VERY scary stuff.

Who do you think is buying all of our metals, and fuel? China...who do you think is the most populated Country in the world?..China...Yes you are right, and we all need to be worried. I am glad there are some of us who have noticed this.....what to do is another story.

 

[redleg]

Joe- NWT,

Your arguments about metal prices are BANG ON!! I appreciate what EDGE is trying to say, but I don't fully agree, As I stated on the opening post on this thread, a 100 .40 S&W box of White Winchester went for $15.99 U.S a few months back, today it is $19.99 U.S., a 25% increase. Forget Cdn currency, so there goes the 10% argument given by EDGE.

While it is dramatic to state that copper is up 300% !!! the last few years, it is far less dramatic to state that copper is up only $2 U.S. per pound. Given the small amount of copper/lead/zinc used in factory rounds, these increases do not fully explain the 25%+ increase. There is much more here, here is my read on ammo prices:

1) While the prices of all base metals are way up, the fact is that these increases did NOT happen overnight, in fact metal prices have been consistently increasing over several years now. Did ammo consistently go up over the last few years lockstep with metal prices? NO. Probably since a pound of metal goes very far, the unit cost of a round did not go up as much a the raw metal itself, so manufacturers probably absorbed most of this.

2) The price of base metals have FALLEN in the last few months, not unlike oil which is also down from $70+. How ironic, now that metal prices have slipped, ammo prices suddenly jump 20-30% OVERNIGHT. COPPER AND LEAD are up, guess what, they were up a lot more this past summer!!!

3) For more than a year now, Le Baron has been consistenly backordered on 100 round boxes. It is not getting any better. I believe this has to do with the fact that manufacturers are diverting their production towards the more lucrative "War Effort" contracts. This is the MAIN reason for sudden increases in ammo prices, metal prices are the infinitely smaller reason. Cdn $ fluctuation ?? I don't think so. Why is it that the cost savings are never fully passed on to Cdn. consumers when the dollar is going our way, but the fu-king second our dollar drops, all of a sudden we have immediate, and direct pricing impact??

Our rising dollar didn't commensurately lower Cdn ammo prices, (or gun prices for that matter) , because ammo was much cheaper in the US all along, so now let's not blame a lower Canadian dollar on higher ammo prices.

I am with you Joe-NWT !!

Well I don't buy my ammo from the US but rather from the Cdn distributors. Their prices are 20% higher this year.
Also you may want to consider that ammo manufacturers don't vary their catalogue prices over the year. They set them and live with them. It really does not matter what the day to day prices on commodities are, they need to project the worst case for the year. Similarly, Cdn distributors need to catalogue items based on a projected $Cdn value.