When all this crap hit months ago everything in the NE shut down, gun and ammo manufacturers both. Several are still shut down. Companies that have offices in the south are in better shape. Glock has a new plant in Bainbridge Georgia that is helping them a lot. S%W has a plant in the Carolinas, Mossberg has a big plant in Texas and of course Ruger has a plant in the Carolinas plus the Prescott AZ plant. And so on. These are putting out a few guns every day, but not enough to supply the demand. The guns and ammo that do come out goes to distributors. Gun shops have to buy thru distributors. Every morning the distributors call and tell us what we can have, like maybe 1 or 2 guns, and if we are lucky 10 or so boxes of ammo. In most cases we cannot "order" anything or if we do it goes on a never ending back order. Leupold announced last week that they have cancelled all orders for scopes and binocs for the rest of the year.
As far as the prices, they have gone up a dollar or two, and some considerably more but there are still shops that are gouging with ammo running at least a dollar a round. Recently at a gun show near here 9mm ammo was going for $80 to $90 a box of 50. Bricks of 22 LR for $70 and more. And other ammo just as much or more.
Our rifle rack is maybe one 4th full. Our handgun showcases maybe half of what is normal. But again we can't just get on the horn and order more. Most companies have a recording telling us they are not open for order taking.
So it isn't gun shops holding ammo back to jack up the prices, it is the fact that we can't get product. Everything from our distributors is allocated. If a distributor gets 6 S&W revolvers (which ain't gonna happen) and they have 15 sales people somebody gets the short end of the stick. Even the cheaper guns like the SCCY pistols are allocated. Taurus G2C and G3 are going for as much as $500 and $600 when you can find them. These are guns that we sold for $250 and $300 a year ago.
The manufacturers are putting out as much ammo as they can. Assembly lines can only put out a certain amount of ammo in a day and they are doing so. People that have never bought a gun are doing so and buying ammo to go along with it. It is not that folks are hoarding or buying ammo and guns to go out on Sunday and shooting up 200 rounds or so. People are scared. they are buying guns for protection. At least half the guns we are selling are being bought by women, and most as a first time gun. I have had people come in and tell me to my face that they hate guns and would never have even thought about having on in their house, but they feel they need one. So this situation isn't about the manufacturers not making as much product as they can. The NICS check are running close to 100,000 calls a day, more that ever before and that doesn't count the guns that are being bought at gun shows with no paperwork, like the situation with folks that can't afford to buy a new handgun or an AR-15 pulling their Winchester or Marlin 30-30s out of the closet and buying ammo for them. There is a big rush on 30-30 ammo right now. And how many ammo manufacturers took that into consideration. What it breaks down to is the manufacturers simply cannot keep up with the demand, especially with some still being shut down in the NE.
It is a situation this country has never experienced before and truthfully I don't expect it to get any better in the near future. And after the election it may well get much worse.