Copper price is rising steadily

[mousegunner]

Folks, we had better get out there and load up on ammo right now, because copper is headed higher every day. It's only a matter of weeks or months before prices of ammo head up again, and it might be by quite a bit.

Gold rises; copper sets new record Metals Stocks - MarketWatch

[DaveTN]

Although copper prices are going up due to China; that’s what got us in trouble the last time. We created the last ammo shortage. Running out and buying up all the ammo will only cause it again; no matter what the price of copper does.

Everyone needs to not over react or get stupid. Remember the election? How you guys doing trying to sell off those $700 AR’s you paid $1500-$2000 for?

[Clone]

The price wont go up much for some time to come. There is a quite a bit of overstock that was ordered in the last hording. In fact from the few shop owners I have talked to, are complaining that they will probably have to discounting it to make room for other stock. I'm willing to bet there will be a price cut before there is much of an increase in price. As for another hording episode. Meh, I reload. I have plenty of brass and primers to last a LONG time. I also have plenty of factory ammo. Just my 2cents.

[TGO David]

Thanks for the reminder. I needed to order more 230gr .45ACP FMJ anyway.

[mousegunner]

The price will go up because of the ongoing dollar devaluation. Inflation is roaring along, and it isn't going to stop anytime soon. I hope you are right, and that the price will go down, but I will be vastly surprised if that happens. And, do you think gun owners caused the recent ammo shortage? I sure didn't. I couldn't find the ammo. Did you guys cause an ammo shortage? I have my doubts.

[enfield]

For a point of reference - I bought a spool of Romex to wire my shed in the fall of 2009 for $99. That same spool is now selling for $160.

[Worriedman]

The price wont go up much for some time to come. There is a quite a bit of overstock that was ordered in the last hording. In fact from the few shop owners I have talked to, are complaining that they will probably have to discounting it to make room for other stock. I'm willing to bet there will be a price cut before there is much of an increase in price. As for another hording episode. Meh, I reload. I have plenty of brass and primers to last a LONG time. I also have plenty of factory ammo. Just my 2cents.

Please post the names of shops that are going to discount ammo or components.

[Lumber_Jack]

Did you guys cause an ammo shortage? I have my doubts.

Myabe not you personally, but people just like us did. People who would normally not go to walmart and buy 600 rds did, because they were scared. People bought every box they could find, and the ammo companies didnt up thier production because they new it would slow down again and didnt want to be stuck with excess supply.

To your point about price going up, you might be right. But to the point that we need to "stock up" is a bit overstated. If prices do rise they will be gradual and we, thanks to your heads up, can now be on the lookout for it.

[Guest Ae-35]

While I don't agree with panic buying, I see no good reason ,why someone shouldn't have at LEAST ,1k rounds of ammo for their "HD" rifle, and 1k rounds for their main "SD" handgun, and 500 rounds for their shotgun. Again JMO.

[SonnyCrockett]

all metals are going up........if you have cash I would invest in some Silver is a good place to start...

as for china being the cause of higher prices.......Well,China is on the verge of gouging america...

Without getting into a long drawn out political debate,China is doing just what they should be doing

now that they make everything we used too.....Raising Prices ! Its called capitalism ,we trained them on it and now

its coming back to bite us in the ass...and we deserve it,greed............its not always good

[Dolomite_supafly]

Everyone needs to not over react or get stupid. Remember the election? How you guys doing trying to sell off those $700 AR’s you paid $1500-$2000 for?

No kidding, even today I see dealers trying to sell their AR's for a lot more than they should go for. When asked why the high price I always get "that is what I paid for it". Same with ammo as well, every show has dealers selling $10 boxes of Walmart ammo for $20. Even the $5 boxes of Tula 223 you find at WM are being sold at the shows for $10+. I have even found some unscrupulous dealers dipping cheap ammo into green paint and selling them as "green tip". I guess they are green tip but they were not the steel core ammo. It was so shoddily done that my wife even commented on how they looked fake. Nice mark up from the $300 per thousand to the $750 per thousand they were SELLING for.

The price increase was caused by people's fears and it was a combination of those same people and dealers that caused the prices to go north. Most people would buy more than they normally would but it was the dealers, with the extra buying power, who were really driving the costs up by buying up most of it then putting higher prices on it. Think about it if it was individuals buying everything up and just hanging on to it there would not have been an increase in the prices like we seen because WM and other retailers didn't raise prices immediately after the election. It was the home town dealers that were buying up everything the retailers and distributors were selling and then marking up the prices substantially to make a profit on people's fears. I spoke to a few manufacturers as well as distributors and they said that their prices hadn't increased during the whole shortage. They went on to say that they were making and selling more than they ever had before and that someone was hanging onto the product to create a false shortage and thus increasing prices.

During the shortage hey days I was speaking to an employee at Bass Pro about the shortage. He said there were a group of guys that would only come in on the mornings of the shipments and that they were probably getting a call from someone who worked there letting them know of the shipments. He went on to say that one guy would sweep ammo and components into a cart while the other two guys blocked the isle entrances. He said the blockers would scream and yell that they had been asaulted if anyone touched them trying to get by. I asked if the manager knew and the worker said yes but that the manager was happy because the stock was being sold quickly and not sitting on the shelves. The worker later found out the guys were a group of local dealers and that they would divide the cart up amongst themselves before checking out.

I was in the Morristown Walmart before their 6 box limit. I watched a guy who said he owned a local shop buy every box of .22 they had. At the time they were selling for around $15 and he was bragging he was selling them for $25 a box in his store. After he bought them all a person asked if they could buy a box and his response was yes but it would be more than what he paid.

Money does strange things to people. People you would normally trust will sell sell you out if the price is right.

Dolomite

[Zeus]

Myabe not you personally, but people just like us did. People who would normally not go to walmart and buy 600 rds did, because they were scared. People bought every box they could find, and the ammo companies didnt up thier production because they new it would slow down again and didnt want to be stuck with excess supply.

To your point about price going up, you might be right. But to the point that we need to "stock up" is a bit overstated. If prices do rise they will be gradual and we, thanks to your heads up, can now be on the lookout for it.

That's right.

And the post about the dealers is spot on too......

There's not going to be an apocalypse and none of us will be going down in a blaze of glory protecting our ammo horde. Relax and enjoy the great shooting and hunting we have in TN.

[DaveTN]

all metals are going up........if you have cash I would invest in some Silver is a good place to start...

as for china being the cause of higher prices.......Well,China is on the verge of gouging america...

Without getting into a long drawn out political debate,China is doing just what they should be doing

now that they make everything we used too.....Raising Prices ! Its called capitalism ,we trained them on it and now

its coming back to bite us in the ass...and we deserve it,greed............its not always good

I wasn’t blaming China I said it’s due to China. The blame is ours.

Due to us handing over our manufacturing base China’s economy is skyrocketing. One of the major reasons for the price of copper rising is because of China using much more copper in the production of new homes. The war is another factor.

But the big jump in ammo and gun prices at election time was due to panic by those thinking that Obama could somehow impact the availability of guns or ammo as soon as he took office.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Early in 2009, my local dealer said that the demand was so high that DPMS had got back-ordered more than a year on rifles. Ordered a .357 lever gun about that time and it seemed that even Henry was slammed with orders and took awhile to get one delivered. Probably anything that goes bang was back-ordered.

Supply and demand. There is such a thing as profiteering, but on the other hand market value is determined by supply and demand. Unobtanium demands a price premium.

I don't think it was unjustified paranoia at the time to expect worse-than-clinton-era gun bans and stupid restrictions. In hindsight, look how successful a one-party lock on power crammed down other nutty legislation. If they had acted on gun restrictions, they could have as easily crammed-down gun and ammo bans as health care "reform" or finance "reform".

We dodged the bullet not because the party in power is pro-second-amendment. We dodged the bullet because of a political calculation that if they passed gun control early on, that it would instigate too much voter resistance against other items on the socialist wish list.

It is just lucky that the other items generated sufficient voter push-back to break the monopoly on power. If most voters had just loved healthcare and financial reform, then congress would have "got around" to draconian gun control by now. It was always on the list. They just didn't make it that far down on the wish list before they lost one-party control.

In early 2009 there was no way for John Q Citizen to know the future or to know what priority gun control occupied on the socialist wish list.