True; it just seems this one is much larger than the Clinton era panic. I seem to recall many small manufacturers going under back then, along with the larger ones laying off a substantial portion of their workforce. I wonder how much worse it would have had to have gotten to have left a permanent impact. I hope we don't find out this time.

And yes, I agree it could have been worse for the industry if everyone had inspanned and quit buying. Had McSame been elected, this probably would have been their fate. No reason to panic, no reason to buy - gun industry goes into recession along with the rest of the economy.

I guess we will never know which would have been worse - a post-McCain yawn or the post-Obama panic. I think the panic; it definitely forestalled their turn in the recession, but I think it will make their turn very much deeper, very much longer, and very much more damaging. I know they will survive; it's just a matter of at what capacity.

That depends on who you talk to.

I get what you're saying, but it sounds an awful lot like the "tyranny of the majority" cloaked in legalese.

Who decides what "reasonable" is then? And more importantly, what the range of "reasonable" behaviors is? Do we identify a median and then establish what one standard deviation is from that median? Is that "reasonable"? Two standard deviations? What exactly?

Oh, I know - we'll just continually re-test it in the courts, ensuring a non-stop endless supply of money to lawyers.

"Reasonable" in this sense only exists to make lawyers rich and keep the courts busy (I suspect it indirectly encourages our society to be as ridiculously litigous as it is today too...)

Maybe we should just accept people's right to be different and decide what's best or "reasonable" for them, rather than trying to prescribe and dictate it to them. One of the things I love about America is that we (supposedly) value individuality here. If I wanted homogeneity, I'd go to China.

I have always had a couple boxes on hand for all my firearms and was fine with that, but last spring I got a .22 target pistol and was going thru several 550 packs of once easily found cheap plinking .22 a month. I NEVER thought the day would come that I cannot buy a cheap box of plinking .22 at any gun store.

Now after purchasing a Glock 34 9mm for IDPA competition, I find myself needing/wanting at least a few hundred rounds a week to practice with. I thought I was fine and was able to "limit out" (6 boxes) at Walmart several days in a row when I got my new gun, but now I can't find it cheap (about $10/box 50) anywhere again. The on-line places do not have the cheap stuff either.

Just this week, I almost ordered reloading equipment until I found out that Federal primers (best primers for my newly modded competition gun) are backordered for over 6 months... same goes for Winchester and CCI.

I sure hope I can continue to occasionally luck out get some more $9.99 Federal or $12.00 WWB over the next month or two at Walmart. If not, my new hobby, IDPA competition, is not going to happen. Ideally, primers will become available again and I can buy 10,000 or so to allow me to reload and practice this winter so I can compete this spring and next summer, but it is not looking good.

The question is, will they get a bailout? I'll bet there's some lobbying to that end going on right now.

Not from the Obama administration. It'd be a cold day in hell before they'd do that.

I think it'd be very interesting if one of the big manufacturers openly announced their intention to "offshore" all their ammo production to China - just to test Obama's resolve to "keep American jobs here".

It would be very telling indeed.

I have a very hard believing the day will ever come when stores will sell ammo dirt cheap again or have a hard time moving inventory. Ammo sales are not due to gun nuts like me or the survivalists out there. They're due to the millions of people taking up shooting for the first time and getting really into it. Not all of them will stick with it, but no one has ever fired a gun for the first time and thought, "Na, this is no fun. I won't be doing this ever again." Lots of the new gun owners will grow their collection and also ammo inventory. I see no downside to stockpiling. At the very worst, you'll have a ton of ammo to get you through months or years of trips too the range.

The govt is not prohibiting companies from moving jobs to lower-cost locations, laying off workers, using more automation, or otherwise making their operations more efficient.

Why would they attempt to do so with ammunition mfgrs - who are small potatoes in economic terms.

I check my Walmart from time to time, sometimes 2-3 times a week, sometimes just once a week. I pretty regularly find ammo there. Usually either $9.47 for 50 Fed FMJ or $20.97 for a box of 100 WWB. It seems like it's getting more common too. Not only are the 9mm more common, but other calibers. Some folks on a Texas board that I'm on have started seeing .380 bullets too.

I haven't seen .22LR for sale in Bloomington since last November.

I think with Wal Mart's wonderful inventory system, since it hasn't been stocked, it hasn't sold. Because it hasn't sold, it is no longer stocked.

Take two guys living in the same neighborhood. They obviously have the same risk of their country experiencing societal breakdown, civil war, zombie uprising, invaders from Mars, whatever. You think one guy has a "reasonable" need for a .38SPL and 100 rounds and the other guy has a "reasonable" need for a .50BMG and 100,000 rounds? That devalues the word "reasonable" so that it means nothing. What you're really saying is that each guy is free to have as much or as little ammo as he feels like and our society allows that freedom. I agree with that. Just don't pretend there is a rational, reasonable, or logical way to justify a "need" for both 100 and 100,000.

That exactly what I did after getting my gun a few weeks ago, but for whatever reason, the shipments have dried up to a trickle again. One local Walmart did get a small shipment of WWB/50 ($12/box) last night, but they will likely be all gone by the time I get there after work today. A few weeks ago they had a couple shipments of something like 100 boxes of the Federal/50, WWB/50 & WWB/100. With their 6 box limit, they lasted several days. I hope start getting the bigger shipments again soon.

The internet/mailorder ammo dealers are pricing 50-round boxes of 9mm for $20 (S&B stuff, nothing special) to $40.

That is 2X the 50-round for $10 at WMT you're seeing.

A substantial part of the gun industry is gouging the hell out of their panicked customers. I hope you all remember them kindly when the ammo boom is over and ammo sellers are hungry for business again.

I have heard from a couple different sources that the big difference this time is the big players are being smarter about it than last time. They know this is great for their business, but it will not last.

Everyone is running at 100% capacity, but nobody is adding capacity because they know demand will return to normal, and when it does they won't need it.

Are there barriers to opening an ammo factory? I don't understand why we haven't seen any new ammo manufacturers.

I'd imagine the environmental regulations (with handling lead and gun powder) would be pretty immense.

Also, from what I understand, there aren't any companies left that actually make the machines that make ammo. The machines in use today are decades old.

Besides good business sense? See my post above.

I suspect there are several issues. Under normal circumstances, do we need another manufacturer?

If you're going to start producing Ammo, that sounds like a pretty big deal ($$$). I suspect it would take a while for the initial cost to pay off. If the bubble bursts before then, ouch.

Considering it's explosive materials and ammunition, I suspect there may be some extra regs.

I can't imagine that it's that cheap or easy to open an "ammunition factory".

Makes sense. The industry has the Clinton precedent to look back to. I think they are adding shifts because workers can be easily cut when the boom ends, unlike facilities/equipment.

Last I checked, S&W was still cutting costs and consolidating facilities. The big PE guy who was buying gun companies (Cerebrus) has had its wings clipped. Everyone sees the potential for the war(s) to wind down. Credit for expansion and working capital is not free anymore.

Sig Sauer has a Guns for Clunkers program.

They will pay $200.00 for any trade-in toward the price of a new Sig Sauer.

9 billion rounds of ammunition this past year is hardly small potatoes.