Ammo Hoarding Fallout
It's been awhile but I've been hugely busy. I wondered out to my ammo locker the other day to make a trip to the rang and realized I was starting to get low on a few things. Start running my ammo boards (I really recommend GunBot and AmmoSeek) The current ammo pricing still blows.
Former President & yet to be prosecuted as a felon B.O. was the greatest gun salesman in history. More guns were sold under his Presidential Administration than at any other time in history. The gun grab he caused sent prices on firearms spiraling into the stratosphere where they remained and are only now really starting to return to pre-gun grab pricing. Though they will never completely recover. He wanted to keep guns out of the hands of criminals but what he accomplished is keeping guns out of the hands of poor people who could no longer monetarily afford to purchase a firearm to protect themselves or their loved ones.
Once that calmed down he started going after ammunition. Through over reaching E.P.A. regulation he closed the last lead plant in the US back in 2013. While only 3% of the lead smelted went into ammo, that 3% represented the bulk of lead used in manufacturing bullets and shells. And lead is not easily imported into the US these days because all the soccer mom's think if their precious brat touches a piece of lead they will die a horrible death. Thanks E.P.A., your Pravda machine is effective.
So the same folks who started buying up firearms for twice the price seemed to have no problem buying ammo at 3 to 4 times the price and hoarding it like a leprechaun with a pot-of-goal. I spoke often during this time period on the fact the "grab" was an illusion and that hoarding would just cause a price hike and shortage. Well here we are 5 years later and... I WAS RIGHT. ammo leveled out o where it is almost too expensive for the average person to practice as they should.
.22 LR .04¢ a round. 9mm .24¢ per round. .45acp .40¢ per round* And there is no sign that they will get lower. Before the hoarding .22lr was .005¢ per round. As opposed to .04. a box of 50 9mm was $6 as opposed to $12.
Maybe the smelter will be restarted under Trump's Administration. Maybe they will relax the importation regs... but it's doubtful. I don't have the solution for the high prices now except that the manufacturers are selling enough at current prices that they don't have to lower them to be competitive.
*(at the time of the writing of this article)