Colorado shoppers are looking at empty shelves–and empty magazines!
If you've gone shopping at the gun store recently, you've likely noticed that shelves are looking a little bare. It's not your imagination: Colorado is facing an ammo shortage that's making it difficult for firearm suppliers to get ammo onto shelves–or keep it there!
The reasons for this shortage are twofold. First, supply chains haven't completely recovered from COVID-19 disruptions. Second, there's a surge in consumer demand that's making it difficult for firearm retailers to keep up with the inventory that they have available.
Although people tend to think of bullets as relatively simple pieces of metal, there's a surprising amount of engineering from each one. The case of a bullet and its projectile(s) are all made from different types of metal, which renders supply chains vulnerable to disruptions. For example, the lead cores in a shot might be sourced from a smelter in Missouri while its copper jackets are rolled in Arizona, while the bullet itself is machined in another state entirely. Ammunition requires large resource networks in order to mass-produce, and disruption on any step of the process can translate to months-long delays in catching up production in rifle, handgun, and shotgun ammo.
It's also difficult not to see the sudden explosion of copper on the commodities market as a major risk to these supply chains. According to Forbes reporting, a surging demand in copper that was driven by gun sales early in the pandemic has rippled into a massive spike in prices. Now that international trade has resumed, manufacturers in the United States are competing with newly energized foreign commodities groups for an increasingly expensive supply of copper that remains lagged by pandemic disruptions.
Even though supply chains are experiencing disruptions that prevent supply from matching demand, the United States is actually manufacturing more ammunition than ever right now. You read that correctly; manufacturing is actually higher than it was at pre-pandemic levels, these disruptions are preventing it from scaling to the sheer volume of customer demand on the market today. In a press release, Remington President Jason Vanderbrink stressed just how dramatic this situation is.
“Seven million new shooters since March, times two boxes which is a conservative estimate, is 700 million new rounds of ammunition our three factories have to help produce,” he states.
As noted above, firearm sales skyrocketed at multiple intervals during 2020, and it's impossible not to feel this surge reflected in the limited availability of products. An estimated 8.4 million people purchased firearms for the first time last year, and it goes without saying that they purchased ammo to accompany them. As a result, any deals that gun stores push almost always lead to their shelves being picked clean.
To get a sense of how retailers are responding, we took a look at DCF Guns in Castle Rock (a locally owned gun store that we've written about before), recently got a full shipment of Magtec 9mm ammo, and they're expecting it to be gone within a matter of days. Given that customers are buying ammunition so enthusiastically, they offer discounts of $24.98 when shoppers buy five at once. For shooters south of Denver, limited-time sales like these represent some of their best chances to get ammunition without having to pay scalper prices.
There's no end in sight quite yet for the ammunition shortage, and we don't expect to see it fade anytime soon. Although rates of firearm shopping aren't quite at their peak-2020 levels, the momentum that picked up last year hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. It remains to be seen how this will translates to prices–and availability–in the future.
Have you been hunting around for ammo? Share in the comments what kind you're looking for.
