I was hearing rumors about this on the gunshop grapevine and a few forums over the last month or two. Then saw a copy of this letter from ATK and found out it’s for real.
NOTICE:
“Large price increases for all ammunition and components are coming in April and May 2011. Record high costs of primary metals such as lead and copper are cited as part of the reason.”
Gravity, not prices. Prices always go up. There is no down, just an occasional supply side error.
Nevertheless, I’m going to stock up on ammo, bullets and primers. I can’t see buying cases instead of ammo, when I get enough, then I’ll just use reloads, but for now, I’ll stock up on ammo and reload them later.
Never buy new cases. For the cost of a case, bullet, primer and powder you can get somebody to do the work for next to nothing if you buy plinkers/practice. Then you reload.
When the cost of 1000 rounds exceeds the cost of a Hornady or Dillon progressive, I’ll definitely go the reload route big time. Currently I just do it for my .243 and 6.5-06.
The price of Copper. China is growing their economy, and they are using/wanting a lot more copper. Copper is used in most all wiring, electronics, etc… Copper is also used to make brass. (Copper and zinc). Most bullets are also copper jacketed. Throw in the past few months of rising energy costs, and that’s the reason. It’s not an Obama-Scare or anything similar.
And yes, to the person who asked if it would raise the price of russian steel case ammo. The bullets are still usually copper jacketed. But being the case isn’t brass, it may not go up in price as much. However; there is still transportation costs and well as supply/demand. As brass ammo prices go up, more and more will start trying steel case ammo. That’s going to increase the price because of demand.
We were already heavily stocked on ammo, all components, mags, links, drums, belts ect.
When we got wind of this we made a road trip to buy 230k+ additional rounds of various calibers and several cases of magazines.
We saved a ton of money on shipping, and the cost per round went down signifigantly by buying in bulk.
We shoot a lot, so this is not a lifetime supply by any means. But hopefully when the time comes to buy more we will have decent prices again. Certainly no guarantee on that, just wishful thinking at best.
Unfortunately some of what we bought is foreign surplus that seems to be drying up. 8mm Romanian is the main concern there.
We hit the DAG pretty hard. Not sure how long the supply of it will last either.
Wideners sent us bunch of IMI M193 that will go into a semi-permanent stash.