Earlier this month (about two weeks ago) there began a run on guns, ammunition, body armor and personal protective gear in this nation. Just last week and earlier this week many gun dealers across the country ran out of guns and ammunition completely. This just added to the panic that had driven online sellers like Cheaper than Dirt to delay shipping on ammo orders over 2 weeks.
To make matters worse, people trying to purchase firearms (many of who are first time buyers) ended up waiting up to 3 days for NICS background checks as the system became “overloaded” and crashed daily.
There is good news though, if you have not yet acquired your Apocalypse firearm of choice, stocked up on ammunition or purchased body armor and tactical gear, you have a second chance and that window begins now. You just need to understand how the industry works.
So two weeks ago a buying frenzy based on panic and fear began. Local Gun Store and Online Retailer inventory was quickly exhausted. However there is a second line called distributors and a 3rd line of manufacturers. These distributors and manufacturers many times only sell to dealers. So as stock began to dwindle, dealers used their cash winnings to order EVERYTHING the distributors and manufacturers had in stock or on hand. Lead times on shipping these orders with Freight is usually 1 week. This is why today, it seems that every dealer worth their salt is announcing guns back in stock and ammunition arrivals by the pallet load. Be warned though, this is the second coming of the inventory.
Even with manufacturers adding shifts and increasing production, when this inventory is wiped out, you can expect lead times to increase incrementally every two weeks. So in other words, the next lead could be 1 month, the lead after that could be 4-6 weeks or 8-12 weeks based on manufacturing capacity and demand. After that we could be looking at ammunition shortages reminiscent of the .22 days (remember those? Pepridge Farm does!)