Part 1 of comment. Part II to follow in a bit.
Vista Outdoors, and I say this without prejudice, controls enough of the market share of the key critical components for ammunition to enable anti-competitive behavior:
Federal (primers, bullets, brass, components, ammo), Alliant (powder), CCI (primers), Speer (bullets), Remington (primers, bullets, brass, components, ammo), and American Eagle (ammo).
They also own many brands that produce optics - Bushnell, Weaver, Simmons, Redfield, and Tasco
Then throw in RCBS, primos hunting, gunslick, Hoppes, Outers, Uncle Mikes, Blackhawk and many more.
So Vista owns just about everything in primers, whist sharing the market for powder with Hogden. Hogden owns Ramshot, Accurate, Pyrodex, Triple 7, IMR, Winchester Powders, GOEX, and Blackhorn 209 brands.
There are plenty of people out there who make bullets and brass. So it may be that Vista/Federal are taking advantage of in particular their primer dominance to drive some competitors producing ammunition and components out of business.
So yes we have a free, capitalistic market, but long ago it was recognized that monopolies harmful to competition must be curbed to maintain that free market, you can refer to the Sherman Anti Trust Act and the Clayton Act. The Clayton Act specifically references mergers and acquisitions, such as Federal acquiring Remington.
By his own words as above it seems that the CEO of Federal may be admitting that they are swallowing up the entire supply of primers for their own ammunition production, shutting out the rest of the world.
Thus it may be time to file a complaint with the FTC, that regulates such behavior.
Another issue is that of betraying decades of customer loyalty and trust. People who reload are typically the most avid shooting sports consumers. They really do owe their business to their customers, because without customers, they will have no business. So yes, they can make a short term gain but we must complain loudly and vociferously and make it very clear that we will take our business elsewhere in the long term if they persist.
