Since November election, ammo expensive, hard to find

Freddie Bradley held a bag of shotgun reloading supplies as he perused the ammunition aisles of a local sporting goods store Wednesday.

What he found was fewer bullets and higher prices.

Since the November election, gun stores throughout Lubbock have had a harder time keeping ammunition on the shelves as demand quickly surpassed supply, leading to higher prices - if gun enthusiasts could find the rounds at all.

"Everything seems like it's went up and hard to find," Bradley said. "Even in reloading material."

He pointed to a box of .17 HMR, a small-caliber varmint load.

Bradley said he could buy it for $12.99 per box in early fall. Now the price tag reads $17.99.

The political and economic climate has led to panic buying, said Sam Billingsley, a sales manager at Gander Mountain.

That coupled with a limited supply of ammunition has depleted stockpiles and driven prices higher.

"Right now there's a huge demand for ammunition and the suppliers, the manufacturers and the re-manufacturers just can't keep up with the demand that's there," said Dan Walker, president of the Texas State Rifle Association.

Walker said he expects prices to eventually level out and normalize.

But for now most rifle ammunition is hard to get and boxes of handgun and tactical ammunition are especially difficult to find, Billingsley said.

Boxes of the small .380 caliber are the most elusive, retailers said.

".380 is just non-existant," said Rick Parrish of Fred's Gun Emporium.

Easy to conceal, many people use the .380 for their carrying weapon, and the low supply has led at least one local gun shop to limit the number of boxes sold if they are lucky enough to get a shipment.

Retailers say manufacturers are causing the bottleneck.

"(We) have seen the demand for our products increase significantly since last fall and to meet that increased demand, our operations are running 24 hours a day, seven days a week and our team is literally working around the clock to get the ammunition (and) make

it available for purchase," said Valerie Peters, spokeswoman for Winchester Ammunition.

Fear about what measures the Obama administration will take to increase gun control is precipitating the buying glut, said Mike Blackwell of Sharp Shooter's Knife and Gun.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan play a partial role, but ammunition was still readily available before the election, Blackwell said.

"In 18 years I've never seen it like this before," he said.

Still, the high prices have not been restrictive enough to keep Bradley from shooting.

He just might have to shop around a little to find what he wants.

"You just gotta know where to look," Bradley said.

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