I’m hearing a lot of mixed thoughts about the purchase of ammo in the current climate. Some folks have not stopped buying ammo, others haven’t bought ammo in nearly two years. No matter which section you fall in, you likely think the people in the other category are stupid.
I fall solidly on the side of still buying ammo, just not as often and with a cringe-look on my face whenever I do because of how expensive it is.
But, I buy ammo for a few different reasons. First, I don’t think you can ever have too much of it. Second, I do gun reviews on this blog and for our YouTube channel on a regular basis and need to shoot the guns. Third, I’m kind of preparing for an apocalyptic type of scenario where I won’t be able to buy ammo at all.
This article makes a couple of assumptions. First, and most importantly, is that the price of ammunition will continue to increase based on outside forces. Second, I believe that ammo will become a hot commodity again and will be hard to find.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why I believe this to be true.
But first, because I know someone will accuse me of fear mongering, please know that my only goal with this blog is to speak the truth as I see it. I’m not trying to scare you, but keep you up to date.
These are things that are outside of our control.
The price of oil plays a role:
Yes, the price of oil plays a role in the cost of ammunition. In fact, it’s going to play a role in the price of everything going forward.
Why? Well, because in order for the ammo companies to get their freedom seeds to the stores, they have to pay truckers. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the price of diesel fuel is skyrocketing right now.
So, in order for the trucking companies to not go broke they’ll have to charge more. Those costs will invariably get passed on to us.
But, the thing is, even before the ammunition manufacturers start making the ammo, their costs are going to go up.
Why?
Because the brass, copper, lead, etc., all have to come out of the ground or be recycled into usable products. To mine for those metals, it takes big machines that require the use of oil, diesel, and gasoline.
And then, of course, they have to ship those materials to the manufacturers so they can process it.
Ammunition prices have stabilized and may have even come back down a bit over the past several months, but I fully expect them to start rising again because everything will go up in price.
But the thing is, it isn’t just the diesel prices that will cause the prices to go up. Crude oil is in so many products and with the increase in price taking place, those things will also cost more.
Which things?
Well, you know those little plastic or foam ammunition holders on the inside of your small-quantity ammo boxes? Yeah, those require the use of oil to make.
And I’m sure there are other plastics involved with the manufacture of ammo that I’m not familiar with. The bottom line, is that ammo prices are going to increase again at some point this year, unless something drastic happens and the price of oil drops back down.
Material shortages:
It’s not just the rising prices of oil that we have to worry about because there are also material shortages. Don’t get me wrong here, the material shortages are nothing new, but they will continue to contribute to the issue.
Copper, for example, is in great demand right now, and there isn’t enough of it to fill all the sectors where it’s needed.
Copper is one of the main ingredients for brass, which is what most ammo cases are made from.
There are also nickel shortages and other materials that I’m probably not even thinking about. In a supply and demand world, the price goes up and the highest bidder wins.
That price gets passed on to the people who buy the product, and copper is already expensive.
So, should you buy ammo now?
Yes.
Unless you’ve got a massive stockpile of ammunition you should take future prices into account and realize that we aren’t even through March yet and oil is really high in price.
By the time the travel season gets here it’ll be much worse and the price of everything will go up tremendously. By that time you’ll wish you would have bought a few boxes of ammunition to have on hand.
Conclusion:
Of course, the above scenario won’t play out if the oil prices come back down quickly. Let’s say that the Russia/Ukraine war ends fast, or they start producing US oil again — that’ll help for sure. That’s the best case scenario and not likely to happen.
The real outlook, is that the price of oil will not come down significantly any time soon. It can’t because they won’t let it. They want the price to be high for whatever sick reasons they have up their sleeve.
This leads us to the final question: What kind of ammunition should you be buying?
I’d be buying ammo for your chosen handgun caliber, your AR-15, your .22 lr, and your shotgun. Ideally you should have one of each gun on hand, and if you don’t you should figure that out, too.
But that can be a topic for another day.
You need to be able to defend yourself and hunt. Make sure you’re taking both of those into account and get to it before you can’t anymore.
Again, I’m not trying to scare you. These are the truths of our current climate.
