View Full Version : Ammo Costs and Middle East Drawdown?
One of the reasons ammo prices have climbed so high (according to the manufacturers) is the ammo demand going to the sandbox...
With Iraq shutting down, and a decent percentage of the ammo consumption winding down with it... will the prices come down, or will the manufactures just pocket more?
Will the cost of metals rising balance out the volume?
How much will we be paying for decent ammo in 12 months?
JeffWard
JackFanToM
10-31-11, 15:54
They could always pull the same crap the Oil Companies do...raise the price so high ($4-5 in summer), that when they back it halfway back to where it started everyone thinks they are getting a deal. I.E. if they jack the average cost to more than a dollar a round for XM193, and then back it back down to .50 or .60 a round after 6 months to a year everyone will think they are getting a deal, and the ammo companies pocket an extra .20-.30 a round. That is big dollars for them, and a big screw you to the consumer. Then they will blame it on everything except their greed (rising fuel costs, war in the middle east, rising materials cost, etc.)
Unless you are shooting DODIC A059, the wars in the middle east and central asia have little to do with ammunition availability and prices. It has a lot more to do with the prices of raw materials, specifically copper. Check out this link to see how the price of copper has risen since 2003; http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=copper&months=300.
I think much more that the price of copper will be a reason to lessen. So many companies are going back to normal production. What I mean is that they can now finally (or when the contracts are up) focus on producing civy ammo again. However I remember a couple years ago the same thing happened with 40sw and 9milski as the LE agencies were demanding millions of rounds. It was hard to find around and spendy for awhile. I guess I haven't noticed it go back down yet.
So that's my opinion, that it will be a oil company fiasco like always. Why would companies lower the price, and for what? Long gone are the days that companies can afford to ignore the bottom line. The profits.
Exactly. Another thing is in the coming years there will be a new mine operating in Arizona near Superstition and it is rumored to be able to supply 20% of the U.S market demand for copper. But, it won't be soon.
If Congress and the American tax payers could see the amount of ammunition and ordnance that it being destroyed recently (hundreds of tons) there would be an epileptic spasm like you've never seen. The amount of waste going on is STAGGERING.
Unless you are shooting DODIC A059, the wars in the middle east and central asia have little to do with ammunition availability and prices. It has a lot more to do with the prices of raw materials, specifically copper. Check out this link to see how the price of copper has risen since 2003; http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=copper&months=300.
If Congress and the American tax payers could see the amount of ammunition and ordnance that it being destroyed recently (hundreds of tons) there would be an epileptic spasm like you've never seen. The amount of waste going on is STAGGERING.
Is that ACC K that we don't want to inspect and bring home?
I think much more that the price of copper will be a reason to lessen. So many companies are going back to normal production. What I mean is that they can now finally (or when the contracts are up) focus on producing civy ammo again. However I remember a couple years ago the same thing happened with 40sw and 9milski as the LE agencies were demanding millions of rounds. It was hard to find around and spendy for awhile. I guess I haven't noticed it go back down yet.
So that's my opinion, that it will be a oil company fiasco like always. Why would companies lower the price, and for what? Long gone are the days that companies can afford to ignore the bottom line. The profits.
I don't think there is any strong correlation between current conflicts and ammo price or availability. From a Marine Corps perspective if we left Afghanistan right know and went back to just MEUs and UDPs we would still be shooting boatloads of ammo in training instead of combat.
Nope. We simply waited too long (Obama and company kept hoping for an immunity deal) so now we are scrambling to get out by 21 Dec 2011. So rather than turn it over to the Iraqis.....
Is that ACC K that we don't want to inspect and bring home?
Actually there was at some point in the first few years. This was discussed in the ammo industry. IIRC especially as it pertained to 5.56 and 7.62. However, over the last few years we have not been expending the same amounts of ammo as we did early on.
I don't think there is any strong correlation between current conflicts and ammo price or availability. From a Marine Corps perspective if we left Afghanistan right know and went back to just MEUs and UDPs we would still be shooting boatloads of ammo in training instead of combat.
Nightvisionary
11-01-11, 05:27
I don't think there is any strong correlation between current conflicts and ammo price or availability. From a Marine Corps perspective if we left Afghanistan right know and went back to just MEUs and UDPs we would still be shooting boatloads of ammo in training instead of combat.
Im sorry but I don't buy that at all. With a war drawdown training levels also decrease. I can say that because Im old enough to remember yelling "Bang Bang" during training while in a Marine Corps infantry unit because we didn't have funding for blank ammunition.
I believe that the cost of metals has a lot to do with rising ammunition prices but to say the wars had no effect is to ignore the rule of supply vs demand. If the ammunition supply was not an issue the DOD would not have looked to IMI for help in supplying M855. In addition part of the reason for increased metal prices was increased consumption and production of war materials.
I can tell you for a fact the war created a huge price increase in other areas such as night vision and day optics. 11 years ago ACOG scopes were pretty reasonably priced as were many other optics. The war created such a shortage of night vision devices for civilian sales that small time dealers like myself got out of the business when prices effectively doubled.
The wars have definitely increased prices in many areas.
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