Ammo Prices...Seem to be coming down

[Ingomike]

Yeah. The "hunting" calibers like 30-06 and 300 winmag, etc are definitely harder to find and more expensive when you do. I believe the manufacturers really aren't producing it as much and gearing more towards standard/popular calibers like 223 and 308

An analogy might be that GM made the engine blocks for Mercruiser marine engines. To do so required shutting down the line quickly changing out tooling and in one day the made all the engine blocks for the majority of the entire marine market for a year plus.

They probably want to keep churning out the in demand calibers...

 

[gregr]

Yeah. The "hunting" calibers like 30-06 and 300 winmag, etc are definitely harder to find and more expensive when you do. I believe the manufacturers really aren't producing it as much and gearing more towards standard/popular calibers like 223 and 308

Something`s more popular than .30-06?

 

[SheepDog4Life]

So, I think we've hit an inflection point on 9mm ... I'm seeing case prices on Gunbroker (CCI Blazer brass) now closing at 55-56 cpr. Anything above 61-62 cpr is zero bid.

THAT is not a great price by any means, BUT it means that scalpers can't buy up every case of this ammo and flip it on GB for hundreds in profit on each case. Barely at break-even now.

Without the scalpers buying up everything in sight... things will start to improve.

GunBroker.com - Error

GunBroker.com - Error

 

[sheepdog697]

Yeah. The "hunting" calibers like 30-06 and 300 winmag, etc are definitely harder to find and more expensive when you do. I believe the manufacturers really aren't producing it as much and gearing more towards standard/popular calibers like 223 and 308

Yea they are definitely trying to meet demand on the popular stuff.

 

[ajeandy]

So, I think we've hit an inflection point on 9mm ... I'm seeing case prices on Gunbroker (CCI Blazer brass) now closing at 55-56 cpr. Anything above 61-62 cpr is zero bid.

THAT is not a great price by any means, BUT it means that scalpers can't buy up every case of this ammo and flip it on GB for hundreds in profit on each case. Barely at break-even now.

Without the scalpers buying up everything in sight... things will start to improve.

GunBroker.com - Error

GunBroker.com - Error

Yes and no. Yes availability will improve, no prices won't improve by much. The reason I say this is because I have access to just about every wholesaler and I can see their prices for 9mm and anything brass cased is being sold at wholesale of 30 cents per round and up. I know margins on this stuff used to be very low but I doubt many are willing to sell at anything lower than 20% markup currently. I believe more price hikes are set to happen within the next couple of months and Vista is pretty much trying to set the price at 46 cents per round and up. They want to dominate DTC (direct to consumer)

 

[WebSnyper]

So I just got into 17 HMR and bought a rifle that came with some ammo. I'll start looking for additional ammo (have seen some in several local shops and will start looking online as well). Didn't write down their pricing.

What I don't know really is what 17 HMR ammo (Hornady or CCI for example) was running pre pandemic. Even though that won't be the current price, I'd at least like a baseline of where it was before.
Anyone have a baseline of what it was running before covid?

Sgammo seems to be about $30 a box of 50 before shipping/tax for Hornady. Federalpremium.com doesn't have any in stock currently.

 

[Hawkeye7br]

I flew in 2019 with loaded ammo, but zip tied my suitcase shut after baggage check approved of the packaging. I never tried with components.

Just a follow up....I looked up ammo on the airline website. I can fly with loaded ammo up to 11 lbs, but powder, black powder, primers, and percussion caps are forbidden.

 

[ajeandy]

So I just got into 17 HMR and bought a rifle that came with some ammo. I'll start looking for additional ammo (have seen some in several local shops and will start looking online as well). Didn't write down their pricing.

What I don't know really is what 17 HMR ammo (Hornady or CCI for example) was running pre pandemic. Even though that won't be the current price, I'd at least like a baseline of where it was before.
Anyone have a baseline of what it was running before covid?

Sgammo seems to be about $30 a box of 50 before shipping/tax for Hornady. Federalpremium.com doesn't have any in stock currently.

These prices haven't really moved I don't believe. You could probably have found them less in the days of $9-$10 boxes of 9mm and .02-.03 cpr .22 lr but those days are long gone.

Shop products in CCI Site Catalog today | CCI Ammunition

CCI Ammunition

www.cci-ammunition.com

 

[CharlesGoodnight]

Stopped by a Dunhams Sports in Coldwater, MI last week. Very limited stock but I bought two boxes of Blazer Brass .38 Special 125 gr FMJ for $34.99 each.

 

[ajeandy]

223/556 in pmc, tula, and red army seem to be plentiful right now. I have “wholesalers” trying to push it at .65 cents per round but that send to be what it’s retailing for right now. Tons of it in gunbroker so don’t pay more than that right now.

 

[bdybdall]

Was at Dunhams in Richmond and they had a fair amount of ammo on the shelves and being received. Bought two boxes of Magtech .38 Spc. LRN for .60 cents a round/

 

[DMTJAGER]

Feel free to call me a pessimist, paranoid or a doom-n-gloom-er but ammo has essentially across the board for 223/556, HG and rimfire gone up anywhere from 3x for HG and 223 to 10x for 22lr as soon as those prices go down by 50% or more Comrade Premier Bidan will as if on on que make some earth shattering announcement concerning gun and or ammo control and the prices will skyrocket right back up.

LGS near me have some ammo mostly the least popular rifle calibers, VERY little to no 308 win, some 223 no 9mm some 40/10mm 45acp. Almost no reloading components and no powder or primers for at least 6 months most over a year now. No heavy 308, 6mm, 6.5 7mm few of anything else and no 9mm bullets only 40/10mm and 45acp. HG brass once in awhile.

I'm still shocked at how few HGs cabela's has VS my other smaller to mis sized LGS who had a pretty good selection and prices while high weren't ridiculously high. They also had a good amount of 223 38/357 40/10 44spl/mag and 45acp ammo but at Preperation H prices.

My feeling is the ammo prices have hopefully topped out at what the market will bare. I was at Cabela's yesterday and they had WW and Fed eagle 223 at $14 a box of 20. Last time I bought 223 OTC it was at Cabela's and it was Fed BLK/red box and Fed American Eagle was no limit and 40c/ea $8/20 so I bought 1k rounds.

 

[foszoe]

If it's 2x what it was 3 years ago, it's a bargain.

If you are an active shooter, I don't care what your inventory. Sooner or later, you have to buy. That includes reloading and primers.

 

[d.kaufman]

I'm seein the cheap stuff(tula) in 7.62×39 down to .37cpr, 223 down to .45cpr, 9mm down to .45cpr, 45acp down to .65cpr, and 308 down to .78cpr. , 357 down to .70cpr Online and not factoringin shippingor tax. Most of these were double that just 3 months ago.

It's nice to see prices retreating and more and more places having it in stock. However I have a feeling in the coming months something will happen to drive the prices back up

 

[DadSmith]

I'm seeing more ammo on shelves now with a slight drop in prices. Now that the stimulus money is gone maybe more ammo will be back in stock and prices dropping faster in the next 6 months.

 

[Brian's Surplus]

When this thread was started, I wasn't really seeing much of a drop in prices. In the last week or 2 though, I think things are finally easing up. Hopefully we don't have another event that will drive things back again.

We have finally been seeing ammunition at the distributor level staying in stock for over 30 seconds. I've even seen some stuff at decent prices (for the times) staying in stock for a week or more. I've still been placing lots of orders and we still have a massive backorder, but we have more on the shelves at lower prices.

The big benefit for me and my customers, is that we will be able to start using secondary suppliers less often. Using secondary suppliers drives the price up to unreasonable amounts, but it also allows me to keep pretty much everything in stock, all the time. When I'm able to get items from regular distributors, the prices are always much more reasonable. There will still be a few calibers we are having difficulties getting for some time, but most of the common calibers on the shelves have already seen pretty big price drops. There are even some items that I'm selling below cost (ones that I payed way too much for) since I can replace them at a much lower price now.

I would say that it's probably not time to start stocking up with big quantities yet, but people can afford to buy ammunition to go shoot now.

 

[mmpsteve]

...
What I don't know really is what 17 HMR ammo (Hornady or CCI for example) was running pre pandemic. Even though that won't be the current price, I'd at least like a baseline of where it was before.
Anyone have a baseline of what it was running before covid?

Sgammo seems to be about $30 a box of 50 before shipping/tax for Hornady. Federalpremium.com doesn't have any in stock currently.

For a long time, 17 HMR used to run $15 to $17 a box of 50, or 30-35 cpr. Also, for a long time, it was always available even when other rimfire rounds had dried up. The supply of HMR always seemed to outpace the number of people shooting it, so I think the current price is directly impacted by speculators, even more so than the more popular rounds.

.

 

[WebSnyper]

For a long time, 17 HMR used to run $15 to $17 a box of 50, or 30-35 cpr. Also, for a long time, it was always available even when other rimfire rounds had dried up. The supply of HMR always seemed to outpace the number of people shooting it, so I think the current price is directly impacted by speculators, even more so than the more popular rounds.

.

Yeah, the prices I'm seeing at the LGS in my area for 17 HMR that has it are not bad for LGS ammo pricing compared to what you mention. They are not right there, but again for LGS ammo pricing not bad.

 

[Bill2905]

Yesterday morning, Cabelas in Hammond had a decent stock of ammo. There was actually stock left after the morning rush ended. Plenty of 5.56x45 on the shelf. Price was 70 cents/rd for either Winchester M193 or Green Tip. It's still up there but at least coming down.

100 packs of Winchester 22LR copper plated round nose were $9.99.

 

[SheepDog4Life]

Over on GunBroker I'm seeing the scalpers "dumping" their inventory.

Buy it now price on Blazer brass 1000 rnd case is $495 and they've dropped the 3% CC fee and the shipping lowered to $20 instead of the $35 soaking they were charging a month ago.

Seeing about a dozen of these from this seller:

GunBroker.com - Error

www.gunbroker.com

It's a double whammy, in a good way, additional supply as they dump, and reduced demand as they don't buy everything in sight as the "gold rush" is over for 9mm.

BUT, there is still a price "inversion" on pretty much all popular ammo... premium/higher price per round on case/half case ammo... so the market is still pretty fragile, no where near equilibrium, and likely to go whacko again when Biden starts making noise.