Firearms supply chain woes....worst ever...

[fatdog]

I have a good friend in management for one of the major firearms distribution companies. One of the main companies who supply all the LGS. I enjoy getting his perspective often about the overall market, product success and failure, what really moves, where supply, demand and the overall supply chain for firearms, ammunition, accessories really is at any given time.

When I spoke with him at lunch today he told me the current situation has stressed the supply chain beyond any of the other panics he has seen over the last 25 years that he has been in the business.

Demand has quadrupled, sales have doubled, all while production has likely been halved over the course of the last 120 days.

To compound the supply chain woes, Covid related shutdowns, reductions in capacity due to Covid, and quarantine efforts at manufacturers are the biggest culprits in making the supply situation much worse than previous demand spikes.

By early May demand had mostly leveled off, and he speculated that June would see some inventory rebuilding....no such luck. He said the last two weeks were the strongest in terms of orders in their history, just that they have very little to ship. He does not believe inventories will return to normal this summer. In fact his best guess at when we would see supply and demand back in some sort of balance like the pre-Covid months of 2020 was Q1'21, and that only if Trump wins.

It will be a seller's market for quite a while in his view.

I asked him if we could see a 9mm market shortage like the rimfire shortage of 2012-2013. He doubted that, as he believes those manufacturers are producing it at greater rates and have greater capacity that will prevent it long term. He thinks there will be nothing like the year long shortage we saw in rimfire ammo in that last panic.

[Joe in PNG]

It's not a time to be shopping for either a service pistol or tactical type rifle.

But, if one is looking for older, used sporting type guns, I suspect now is the time to buy. I suspect there's going to be people wanting to trade in their Fudd guns for something more riot worthy. I've seen tons of Browning A5's in stores.

[fatdog]

....people wanting to trade in their Fudd guns for something more riot worthy. I've seen tons of Browning A5's in stores.

Riot Worthy!!!

Boy are the A5 traders ever missing what is in front of them!

[farscott]

Stuff is flying out the door at my LGS. He sold a Taurus Raging Hunter the afternoon it arrived. I have never seen inventory of guns and ammo so low.

My LGS told me today he was informed that hunting rifle ammo was going to be in very short supply this fall as capacity and labor has gone to meeting the cartridges currently experiencing high demand. His typical annual orders have been either refused or booked with no promise of being delivered before deer season opens.

He also told me he is trying to get anything that will sell from his distributors with very little luck. He even took two Kel-Tec .308 bullpup rifles, one in tan and one in green. The tan one sold before it arrived.

[fatdog]

One other statistic he told me that I was not surprised by, but had never seen or heard hard numbers for. I observed that I was seeing some .40 ammo offered for sale. He pulled up one of his data/BI type dashboards and did a query and told me that something I did not find shocking but had never heard a hard number for before.

Over the last 12 months all 9mm handguns have outsold all 40 SW handguns (for all manufacturers they carry, which is most of them) by a ratio of 48 to 1....

[olstyn]

Over the last 12 months all 9mm handguns have outsold all 40 SW handguns (for all manufacturers they carry, which is most of them) by a ratio of 48 to 1....

That certainly tracks with the conventional wisdom that .40 doesn't really offer much over 9mm, but the ratio is pretty shocking.

[TGS]

The run on guns here was mostly pistols. I even called an LGS (Sharpshooters, for you locals) and asked if they would take a couple AR15s I wanted to put on consignment, and they said, "We got plenty of AR15s, I don't need anymore".

VAGunTrader.com is overflowing with AR15s that haven't moved at all, as well.

[blues]

The run on guns here was mostly pistols. I even called an LGS (Sharpshooters, for you locals) and asked if they would take a couple AR15s I wanted to put on consignment, and they said, "We got plenty of AR15s, I don't need anymore".

VAGunTrader.com is overflowing with AR15s that haven't moved at all, as well.

I wonder if that will change following the "Standoff in St. Louis"

[CCT125US]

For those that haven't seen it, @jetfire posted this:

[Stephanie B]

I wonder if that will change following the "Standoff in St. Louis"

The sales promotion writes itself: "Free pink polo shirt with every AR-15!"