#AmmoShortage

Although ammunition availability is starting to become a regular thing again, some big box stores are still missing crucial calibers as well as reloading supplies. A message that was released via YouTube by Remington president Jason Vanderbrink had one simple message “Big Green Ammo is Back on the Shelf.” In the video listed below, Vanderbrink goes over the company’s continued vision and goals as the firearms industry and the community continue to navigate the stage times we are all going through.

According to a recent piece of news from CBS Miami, the nation has seen a 31% increase in firearms purchases in the first four months of the year when compared to 2020. According to FBI statistics, nearly 16 million background checks for firearms purchases were accomplished between January and April. Every gun store I’ve heard from has seen record sales and despite the ammo shortages, each range has maintained a more or less steady stream of customers throughout the last year. I wonder, however, if all of these gun sales will continue to outpace the ammunition industry or if we will start to see boxes of ammo show up on the shelves.

Many of you will remember that last year the Remington Arms Company was broken up by several of its component and brand divisions and sold off in what has probably been one of the largest firearms company selloffs in recent memory. Remington Ammunition was acquired by Vista Outdoors and it’s now back in “full swing” according to the Remington Ammunition president. This acquisition included the Remington Outdoors Lonoke, Arkansas ammunition facility. Remington Ammunition President Jason Vanderbrink had some enthusiastic news about the rebirth of the Remington Ammunition brand.

Current ammo prices are painful. If you’ve been shooting for a while, you understand this all too well. The shortage of essentially all common calibers has been absolutely rampant for months, and the basic laws of supply and demand are being felt across the industry. Demand has spiked, supply has dropped, and so costs are soaring. Unfortunately, 2020 saw a perfect storm of logistical, social, and political pressures that put an unsustainable strain on essentially all ammo manufacturers operating in the US market. At the time of this writing, even the cheapest steel-cased .223 ammo is often selling in excess of $0.60 cost per round – and even then, it’s selling out fast.

It’s been a few years since the Great Ammo Shortage began, but it hasn’t been so long we’ve forgotten the difficulty of locating .22LR. Some states were worse than others, for example, back in Washington State .22LR was quite literally nonexistent. There wasn’t a single gun store on the western side of the state with a stock of the diminutive round and that remained true not for months but years. At the same time, gun stores in Kentucky were selling cases on a semi-regular basis. They couldn’t keep it in stock long, but at least it appeared now and then.

American Rifleman magazine talks to Tim Brandt, a representative of Federal Ammunition about the shortage of rimfire ammunition on video.

UPDATED at 9:25 PM eastern time.This is a fluid ongoing situation. This is what we have been told so far …