If you shoot guns or have been even remotely tapped into the gun world over the past 18 months, you know that ammo supply has gone way, way down. Thus, prices are now way, way, up.
Why is there an ammo shortage?
The most common explanation I’ve heard is that it’s a perfect storm of conditions, similar to the Great COVID TP Shortage of 2020. Factories that have limited staff and materials can’t make the stuff fast enough to keep up with demand. But the ammo shortage has a few more factors that play into it.
For starters, the experience of COVID opened a lot of eyes to the fact that our situation can change really, really quickly. Many have been putting off getting properly prepared for a situation that previously seemed improbable. The effect that kind of thing has on most people who like to think of themselves as prepared and ready for bad things is that they realize they are lacking in one or many areas of what they would see as their ideal state of preparedness. In the US, for many, the first thing that comes to mind is the thing that initially helped us gain independence from the most powerful country in the world at the time: our guns.
Some would consider this silly, or misguided, but there’s a strong argument for making sure you have at least a few key weapons (pretty easy to get nowadays, even through the prices are inflated a bit) and ammo (kind of easy to get, but prices right now are extremely inflated). The main argument for having guns and ammo be a priority for preparation for a really bad time is that they serve a couple very critical purposes: to protect the family, and to feed the family. Like, you certainly need TP, don’t get me wrong, but it won’t keep you safe or alive.
So, it’s easy to see how an event like COVID could generate a great demand for guns and ammo, but the whole situation was compounded by the 2020 election (leading up to it and the aftermath). You see, there are plenty of people in the US that were not anti-gun, but didn’t actually own any guns (and of course people who owned only one or two). Suddenly they realized they no longer had the rest of their lives to get the ones that they wanted or needed in order to support their plans for preparedness. The shift in power in both the executive and legislative branches instantly increased the demand that was already very high. In January 2021 alone, 2 million guns were sold in the US (yeah c’mon!).
The guns themselves are certainly less plentiful than they once were, but you can generally find what you’re looking for at around MSRP (expensive by pre-2020 standards). That’s assuming you live in a somewhat free state that allows you to buy what you’re looking for.
The ammo is a different story. You now have all the new gun owners who need ammo to train and to have on hand for hunting and protection, and you also have all the existing gun owners who have to continue training with their weapons.
The demand for ammo has been somewhat constant up until this point. Of course we had some blips when Obama came around and 22LR was hard to find, but it came back and prices dropped back down. It was nothing compared to this. Demand is higher than ever and supply is low because of the hit we all took early on in the COVID thing when we had to stay home (can’t WFH when you make factory ammo).
So here we are. Prices for ammo are nowhere near MSRP (usually multiple times that), and you cannot be picky about what you get. So how do you get what you need without getting had? It’s a combination of technology tools, timing, and luck. Let’s cover the best ways to get ammo at reasonable prices in 2021.
Buying Ammo Online for Cheap
So, there are tools that I have personally used for years that use data feeds to monitor ammo prices and link to all the deals from the site. The two main sites that a lot of people use are AmmoSeek.com and WikiArms.com (formally AmmoEngine, I think).
Basically, these sites categorize the ammo and then allow you to filter by type of casing, keywords, etc. This was pretty much all you needed pre-2020. Now, it’s more complex.
The companies that sold ammo for years online at reasonable prices with great service (like sgammo.com and laxammunition.com) realized very quickly that if they wanted to have any ammo in stock, they needed to raise their prices, limit the quantities allowed in the cart, or both. This is understandable, and it’s just a result of the times. Because of this, though, simply watching WikiArms for the best deal on 9mm is no longer sufficient.
You see, ammo manufacturers (like Sig, CCI, and Federal) actually do sell their ammo for pre-COVID prices on their website often, but as you can imagine, they sell out extremely quickly. It’s almost impossible to be online when they do a “drop” (that’s what the kids call it when the manufacturers mark the ammo as in stock and allow you to purchase it on their site).
Enter the awesome gun community banding together and sharing deals on ammo via sites like Reddit. One subreddit specifically, /r/InStockAmmo is a shining light in these dark times. It was created to let users post deals for their fellow gun owners to see when online ammo sellers had ammo in stock (duh). What’s even cooler is when someone like /u/Ammo_God makes a bot that monitors ammo manufacturers’ websites and posts those deals to the subreddit for all to access.
One great way to find good deals on ammo online is to monitor sites like these for new posts and jump on them when you can. Setting up alerts for certain keywords gives you an edge and lets you know quickly when a good deal is posted. There are several tools out there that let you set alerts for posts on Reddit. One that I use is an iPhone app called Pager. Very easy to use and setup new alerts.
This is, by far, the best way to find good deals on ammo online.
Finding Ammo Locally for Cheap
This one is a lot harder to make happen, but it’s not impossible. Remember when I was talking about how great the gun community is at banding together and helping each other in tough times? Well, of course there are exceptions, like those who have no problem screwing over their fellow gun owner by “flipping ammo.” (these douchebags are referred to as flippers). They contribute to the ammo shortage problem.
Ammo flippers are those who seek out ammo they don’t need with the express purpose to resell it to others, often for multiple times what they paid for it. Maybe you’re thinking “Well, these guys are putting in work to get good deals, so they deserve it,” or “Oh man, it’s capitalism, deal with it. What are you a commie?” While these arguments are very well thought out and strong, there’s another dynamic here that complicates the issue.
Some retailers like Academy Sports (God bless them) are trying to keep the prices down and sell ammo for very reasonable, pre-COVID prices. This is truly an awesome thing to not gouge their customers, but they do limit how many you can buy per day (usually two or three boxes – again, understandable). But, these deals are typically only in-store so you have to be there when they stock the ammo, which can be hard for those of us with full time jobs with normal hours.
This is where the flipper shines. He shows up at 9:00 am (since he’s retired), buys his three boxes and goes to the next store on his route to check there as well. Sounds ok, but he does this every day, switching from store to store since they re-stock on different days, and piles up boxes of .22LR that he gets for $0.02/rd and then turns around and sells it to his fellow gun owners locally for many times that amount. Of course this is legal (in most states), but it’s a douchebag move, because all it does it ensure that those who need the ammo (and can’t make it to the store every day when they open to check on stock) will certainly find the shelves empty. Flippers (of course) aren’t the only problem. Like I said, they just make the situation worse for everyone but themselves.
Finding deals on ammo locally nowadays is mostly just finding out when stores that do sell ammo for reasonable prices (like Academy and Wal-Mart) restock and trying to get there around that time. It’s a pain, but sometimes it pays off.
Of course, you can avoid all this hassle and just check in at WikiArms or AmmoSeek and pay whatever the going rate is, but of course if you shoot a lot, this will get very, very expensive. And even if you do find good deals using sites like Reddit and going to stores like Academy at just the right time, these deals will almost always have a limit on how many you can purchase, which leads us to the hard truth that mag dumps probably need to be a rare treat for the foreseeable future for us.
