So I want to know WTF is wrong with the ammunition manufacturers. With the amount of guns being purchased in the last 12 years, they have seemingly done jack and shit to put on more production lines. We have known this was coming since the Obama shortage. Not many of us have had the ability to stock up on unlimited supplies of ammo with house and car payments, medical bills, and kids to support. The credit card can only take so big of a hit and has for many of us to keep a little something for a rainy day. How can you not respond to an epic shortage in manufacturing capability to take advantage of the $$$$$ you can return when its pretty obvious its the new norm? This has hurt the ability of the 2nd amendment to defend us due to a seemingly intentional refusal to provide the supply. Ammo was never quite "cheap" during Trump's tenure even. Buyable yes, but cheap hasn't been here for a dozen years. Running full tilt on your previously existing manufacturing equipment may give you a killer profit and is, but from my POV it appears that there is a LOT more that could have been done.
You ask a good question but it is complicated for sure. The Timeline for return on investment of that equipment varies from company to company depending on their existing debt load, market penetration, current operating costs and the anticipated increase in operating costs associated with a new production line. This stuff isn’t cheap, and when you add in publicly traded firms that need stock prices to be high you get a company that squeezes everything out of current production that they can.
@THEIS, do you still have that spreadsheet of what the estimates are for an ammo production line?
I was involved with another company that actually built the progressive press to make bullets. They built that thing for a customer from raw steel. It was a work of ingenuity and art. It was NOT cheap and the timeline to pay for the production line by the customer was long - well beyond a presidential term. And that was for ONE bullet for ONE caliber. It’s not like that kind of specialized press is common, and the dies do wear out, so you add that ongoing cost. Add to this the increasing raw materials costs, EPA regs (lead, etc) and marketing (stupidly high) and you have a situation where a bank will have to swallow hard and then be constantly up in your shit, if they finance it at all.
Business in the ammo Industry can be very tough, and it’s not easy to get into because of the costs. Where do you go to get the engineers with the experience? You either steal them from another company or raise them up from within, and it really has to be both if you are going to go fast. Fast means more money.
Remington’s problems didn’t help, at a minimum it’s created a perception problem that hinders others who want to expand, either through self doubt or outside entities with the needed resources finding the willingness to help (risk appetite).
It’s not nefarious or laziness. It’s business in an industry that is always hated by a number of politicians who are constantly submitting legislation against it at the state and federal level.
