Inflation of goods and services is here to stay and is affecting ammunition prices. This leads some to speculate that the prices you pay for ammunition these days will continue to increase in the next 12 to 24 months. With this in mind, some industry spokesmen are asking gun owners to buy now or spend more later. Demand will decline at some point and manufacturers will have to lower prices to move the product.
This correspondent is not willing to predict whether the price of ammunition will rise or fall in the immediate future. The future seems especially murky right now, with many tendencies toward instability. The war in Ukraine, supply chain problems and rising energy costs have the potential to drive up ammunition prices. If the American Republic survives, consistent dollar ammunition prices will likely decline in a few years, but inflation may have risen at nominal cost as the value of the dollar deteriorates.
With the start of the pandemic last year, ammunition became very expensive and very difficult to find. Like many other products, ammunition prices are higher than before COVID. What people wonder is if the cost of ammunition will ever go down again. I know that I can't definitively answer that question.
In most cases and places, it's manufacturers' prices that are criminally high and they don't care about the consumer as long as someone buys the ammunition, even quality control has dropped. The people in the ammunition manufacturing business had excess capacity that they could have used to produce ammunition for anyone who wanted to get into the ammunition speculation business. One thing ammunition buyers can do is form groups or clubs in person and online to share experiences and find out who has supplied at affordable prices. Oliva, from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said many people have turned to the Internet in hopes of finding quality ammunition at low prices.
Over the past year and a half, the influx of new gun owners and the widespread storage of ammunition have contributed to empty shelves and high prices, Oliva said. However, prices continue to skyrocket and industry leaders estimate that it could take 12 to 24 months before the cost of ammunition returns to pre-COVID levels. Supply will take some time to catch up, and ammunition manufacturers understandably are nervous to increase capacity when demand may fall again. Rooftop had to defend itself after government employees were already paid for this service, but yes, that's one of the reasons it's a good idea to have ammunition.
Any company or speculator that gradually built an emergency inventory in an orderly manner when ammunition and labor were normally priced and available, would have done a great killing during the panic. So right now I have a lot of things that I don't normally wear, brands that I don't consider good, poor quality ammunition in my opinion, but that's all you can get. Woodbury said for his part, that he is also starting to see more ammunition come in, but that is not the quality he would normally have in stock. He said the problem was compounded when second-hand dealers began loading ammunition to sell at flea markets and gun displays on steep margins, which in turn influenced retailers and suppliers to increase their prices.
