Price Gougers

[Frank in the Laurels]

I'm far more concerned about the HOARDERS AMO GST US.......

 

[can1010]

I know what a price gouger is but what is a hoarder the benchrest guys that have 10-20 thousand rounds of supplies and shoot over 5000+ rounds a year or the hunter that shoots less than 100 rounds and keeps an 8 pounder and 1-2 bricks of primers. I don't blame people for enjoying their sport but I do blame people taking advantage of others in tough times

 

[JMW67]

Then there are some of us that are collectors I guess as I started around the clinton era and have slowly stock piled stuff since buying a little at a time right now I am buying a few bullets as I find them as far as powder and primers I will be good long after uncle joe has left the building I have given some stuff away and sold a little to local folks as I cant ship powder or primers

 

[Gunpowder]

I'm in pretty good shape but have been trying to find stuff for a couple in-laws and have been pretty successful except for 270 ammo. Of course it goes to them at cost. Some of us more or less live this stuff, have seen it over and over and were ready. Most casual hunters/shooters were caught off guard and those that I know aren't wanting stuff to flip, I'm happy to help. No one has asked for stuff out of my personal stash, just for help locating stuff. I kind of like the "hunt" but it sure can eat up a ton of time.

And if anyone knows where I can find a few boxes of cheap Winchester 270, 150 gr pp let me know lol.

 

[nkyshooter]

Suppose you're out in the desert with a large group of people. Everybody went there on the spur of the moment and finally realize that they have nothing to eat. Being better prepared and with more foresight than the others, despite being just a small kid, you brought along 5 loaves of bread and two fish. What do you think you could get for that with 5000 hungry bidders?

If memory serves me correctly ... the 2 fish and five loaves were freely distributed among the 5000 and after all had eaten their fill, there were 12 baskets remaining ... and nobody had asked any of them for even "standard retail" ... let alone severely constricted supply and elevated demand prices ...

If only we could open a brick of primers and start handing a tray each to everyone and once all have their "tray", there was a brick of primers remaining ...

 

[Kimber7man]

This country runs on free enterprise! You want your investments making money don't you?
Look at gas prices and every thing you buy. No one is making you pay today's prices

And what's interesting is the federal gas tax has not increased in almost 30 years

 

[GDKinCO]

I didn't read the whole 9 page thread, but I did read Page 1 then jumped to 9 ... so maybe this has been said already.
If someone offers items for sale and the price is higher than I would want to pay, I:
1) make a lower offer, or
2) shake my head, bite my tongue (figuratively - keyboard fingers really) and move on

 

[Ol' Red]

My father had an old saying, loosely translated from the Greek; "I close my eyes and sell, you Open yours and buy!" When I see what I think is price gouging I just walk away. If it is a store, I never shop there again.

Back in the Obama days, when firearms right before they were becoming hard find and expensive, I ordered a rifle from a "sportsman's warehouse something" and paid for it. Three days later, they told me my order was cancelled, and they listed the same firearm for twice the price. I walked away. Later, when firearms were back plenty they kept sending me emails to buy. I put them on the ignore list.

I have a couple of local stores, they get a few things here and there and limit sales to each customer, but prices are normal.
Those stores have enjoyed my support for over a decade. As long as they treat me fair, they will have my business.

That is my simple philosophy. You treat me unfair, you loose mine and my friends business for EVER! Life goes on!

That's just the way it should be.

 

[cjuve]

I know what a price gouger is but what is a hoarder the benchrest guys that have 10-20 thousand rounds of supplies and shoot over 5000+ rounds a year or the hunter that shoots less than 100 rounds and keeps an 8 pounder and 1-2 bricks of primers. I don't blame people for enjoying their sport but I do blame people taking advantage of others in tough times

Yeah, not so sure what a hoarder is..... and more than likely that person has been putting that stuff in his stash a lot longer than this shortage has been going on. The dude that sits at his computer all day long searching for powder to buy and flip at double or triple is the guy that I have a problem with.

 

[nmbarta]

There is a difference between gouging, hoarding, and investing. If you've been through this before, and you knew it would happen again and you chose to invest in primers when you could buy 10 bricks and leave plenty for everyone else, you either invested in your future of shooting, or you invested in a product that you had the foresight to see that it would be in short supply, and figured somebody wasn't paying attention and you'd double your money. That is literally how all investing works, some investments are better than others....primers would have been a good one a year or so ago.

Most "hoarding" happens during low price times. (That's when I hoard) If your hoarding now, your gonna lose in the long run. Hoarding during low demand times doesn't effect the market during high demand times because the person buying up a bunch of say "primers" when the demand as been met only created more primers. Meaning that had he not bought them at that time, they would never have been produced. So if you think somebody is an A hole because he bought 50,000 primers that wouldn't even exist if he didn't buy them.....take a nice long look in the mirror.....you'll find your problem right there.

It sucks, but it's very basic, and it's how things stabilize eventually. This is a classic "bubble", ammo and reloading components have gone WAY beyond what they are worth, this drives speculation on value, (but the actual value did not change) which drives investing in these products at inflated prices, which drives the price even higher. Too many people seeing value where there is none, they've based their investment purely on speculation that the price will continue to increase, but it can't forever. The bubble eventually pops, leaving a bunch of fools with bricks of primers that might not even be worth what they retail for because the supply caught up, and then the fools try to "dump" their "asset" while the price is stabilizing, which further increases the supply while the demand is stabilizing. This creates a very sharp drop in price which will likely drop below the prices before the bubble, ( This is where I like to buy stuff!!!) until demand catches back up with supply.

Price gouging does not exist outside of needs. If I advertise 1000 rounds of 556 for 1500.00 bucks, I'm not gouging anyone, I don't have to sell it, don't want to sell it, and you don't need it. If you choose to pay me for it, your fool, and it doesn't really matter who ripped you off, somebody was going to get your money anyway.

I don't do this, I don't need to. You do have to understand that much of this stuff would not be for sale if it wasn't for the inflated prices, it's an important point that isn't being brought up. Your seeing a lot of people selling stuff that they don't want to sell....but as they say "everything is for sale".

Obviously, there are some vultures out there, but that's nothing new.....they are always there preying one the weak, just so happens they're playing in our world at the moment.

 

[smokey3]

Personally I'm more ticked at hoarders than price gougers. If there wasn't hoarding, we wouldn't have price gouging. I want to buy powder and primers but somebody felt they needed to buy up all the inventory.

I believe the riots from certain groups and the alphabet agencies have attributed to most of the hoarding and price gouging because people are worried about what the future will be. 6-18 months ago there was plenty of supplies where I live, slimmer pickings now but still doable. I counted 10# of RL26 on the shelf lately and it was a different lot number from 2 weeks ago. I would offer to pick some up for others but I have no way to ship it. I will avoid getting involved I guess, wish it wasn't like this now. The hand loaders in the future may get some really good estate buys in about 10-15 years when the hoarders don't need them anymore.

 

[pwrdbycotn]

There is a difference between gouging, hoarding, and investing. If you've been through this before, and you knew it would happen again and you chose to invest in primers when you could buy 10 bricks and leave plenty for everyone else, you either invested in your future of shooting, or you invested in a product that you had the foresight to see that it would be in short supply, and figured somebody wasn't paying attention and you'd double your money. That is literally how all investing works, some investments are better than others....primers would have been a good one a year or so ago.

Most "hoarding" happens during low price times. (That's when I hoard) If your hoarding now, your gonna lose in the long run. Hoarding during low demand times doesn't effect the market during high demand times because the person buying up a bunch of say "primers" when the demand as been met only created more primers. Meaning that had he not bought them at that time, they would never have been produced. So if you think somebody is an A hole because he bought 50,000 primers that wouldn't even exist if he didn't buy them.....take a nice long look in the mirror.....you'll find your problem right there.

It sucks, but it's very basic, and it's how things stabilize eventually. This is a classic "bubble", ammo and reloading components have gone WAY beyond what they are worth, this drives speculation on value, (but the actual value did not change) which drives investing in these products at inflated prices, which drives the price even higher. Too many people seeing value where there is none, they've based their investment purely on speculation that the price will continue to increase, but it can't forever. The bubble eventually pops, leaving a bunch of fools with bricks of primers that might not even be worth what they retail for because the supply caught up, and then the fools try to "dump" their "asset" while the price is stabilizing, which further increases the supply while the demand is stabilizing. This creates a very sharp drop in price which will likely drop below the prices before the bubble, ( This is where I like to buy stuff!!!) until demand catches back up with supply.

Price gouging does not exist outside of needs. If I advertise 1000 rounds of 556 for 1500.00 bucks, I'm not gouging anyone, I don't have to sell it, don't want to sell it, and you don't need it. If you choose to pay me for it, your fool, and it doesn't really matter who ripped you off, somebody was going to get your money anyway.

I don't do this, I don't need to. You do have to understand that much of this stuff would not be for sale if it wasn't for the inflated prices, it's an important point that isn't being brought up. Your seeing a lot of people selling stuff that they don't want to sell....but as they say "everything is for sale".

Obviously, there are some vultures out there, but that's nothing new.....they are always there preying one the weak, just so happens they're playing in our world at the moment.

Great post! It's refreshing to see some common sense!

 

[milo-2]

There is a difference between gouging, hoarding, and investing.





Price gouging does not exist outside of needs.

By laws and a logical standpoint, you are correct. I myself can't think of a replacement word for Gouging other than maybe fleecing. Price gouging just works and is understood by most, whether out of context or not.
So, if a person or persons can get a steady supply of primers right now, and market them at 400-2000% above his cost, we are now going to label this as investing?
Lot of people in the shooting community feel supply is down, I am not in that group. Access to the supply is the disconnect here. People compete against bots set up for immediate buys when a retailer lists. As long as investors as I think you labeled them are controlling a certain pct of the supply, there is no stability. You either wait for the opportunity to buy at the new normal going rate, or pay 200 and up for a brick of primers.
Sadly, we find ourselves in this situation on the average every 12 yrs, of course we had the double whamy of the kenyon and Sandy Hook in 5 yrs.
Whether we use gouging or not, @L.Sherm is correct, we need to quit digging, And it is not buying primers or powder that have us in the cellar, it is buying ammo.
TV has us believing we can survive 20 firefights with our 9mm pistols, he shot my dog. And ducking under the window will save us. The average American does not have Seal Team 6's intel, most will never need even 1K of ammo, of any kind. If you are buying ammo not to practice with in times like this, I'm done.

 

[L.Sherm]

I've got one last thing to say, untill the majority of the factory ammo shooters realize that finally they can't go to the store and buy ammo whenever they want
THIS WILL HAPPEN AGAIN! Nobody takes care of you better than yourself, if you wanna shoot RELOAD! and have a reasonable supply. Those of you that say I shoot factory ammo because its just as accurate or because I only shoot 200 -300 rounds a year how's this working out for you.