Ammo is hard to come by right now. That’s probably the most obvious statement I’ve made in the history of this blog. That’s bad news. But the worse news is that industry experts don’t expect that shortage to end anytime soon.
There are several contributors to this current shortage. We saw a similar shortage several years ago, when the political winds in Washington, D.C., seemed to be changing. Gun owners were worried the government was going to change the laws and make it harder, if not impossible, to buy guns and ammo, so they started buying as much as they could and hoarding it.
The manufacturers ramped up production for a while, and the ammo was bought as quickly as it hit the shelves. But then when it became clear the rules were not going to change, everything went back to normal. Some of those manufacturers ended up taking some losses on the extra ammo they produced.
They’re not going to do that again. With the current political climate once again posing the danger that new laws are going to make buying guns and ammo harder, the manufacturers now are hesitant to spend extra money to make more ammo. They don’t want to get stuck with a bunch of product they can’t sell. They’re just going to keep producing it at the normal levels, hoping the world returns to normal soon.
It would be great if someone with the know-how and the capital to do it would start making new ammo. If the ammo situation doesn’t get better soon, you might want to start doing more practicing with your bow. The only good news is that if you do have ammo, you might have the woods to yourself on opening day of the 2021 rifle season.
