The Ammo Shortage 2023

Above, Cabela's ammo shelves during the height of the shortage. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

In many ways, the ammunition shortage still goes on.

Granted, it is less severe than it was over the past two years. In recent months, I have found the ammo shelves fully stocked at Cabela's in Albuquerque. Two years ago, they were almost totally empty. But not all calibers are available and some types of cartridges, like hollow points, are harder to find.

Recently, I had to go online to find .357 Magnum hollow point ammo. Cabela's had .357 Magnum ammo, but not in hollow point, the last time I went there. If I can't buy what I want, I won't buy. 

Above, Cabela's ammo shelves after the shortage started easing. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Outdoor Life posted an article, "The Ammo Shortage Revealed These Truths" last week.

They begin it with:

In his four decades of running D&G Sports and Western in Glasgow, Montana, Darrell Morehouse has never seen ammunition pricing and availability as unpredictable as it’s been in the past three years. That’s telling, considering the several ammo shortages he’s seen through the decades.

Sure, some of what Morehouse calls “crazy-ass” dynamics stem from supply-chain uncertainties and binge buying fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic. But his view from the gun counter at an independent sporting goods store in eastern Montana isn’t that different from the business manager of a bullet manufacturer in Utah.

“We’re in reaction mode, just trying to keep up with changing situations almost on a daily basis,” says Michael Painter, director of marketing and product management for Barnes Bullets. “We’re probably better off than a lot of our competitors because we’ve brought so much of our manufacturing processes in-house, but I can tell you that every day is some kind of a new challenge.”

One day it might be a scramble to find a new source of gunpowder that Barnes chooses for its factory-loaded ammunition. Another day it might be absorbing a jump in the commodity price of copper, the metal that Barnes, as a pioneer in the non-lead ammunition movement, requires for many of its products. Another day it might be negotiating terms with the distributors who put boxes of the company’s bullets on the shelves of retailers like Morehouse.

To read more, go here.