Nationwide Ammo Shortages: The Ammo is Gone

UPDATE: This article still get’s a lot of traffic, so I wanted to do a quick update for those who land here. While the ammo supply has rebounded in recent years, what happened in 2013 should serve as a reminder to those who neglect their preparedness planning of how quickly things can go bad. With so much anti-gun legislation making it’s way though congress, and with so many turn-coat republicans now supporting efforts to kill the second amendment, these shortages while likely become an increasing part of the firearms market landscape. 

In 2019, we’ve had:


Jan 27, 2013 – The Ammo Shortage/Panic has dried up supplies around the country. Hopefully you listened to us and stocked up a long time ago; if you didn’t you won’t be finding ammo anytime soon.

With the national dialogue being dominated by gun control, people have been buying up ammo like nothing I’ve ever seen. The waiting list on semi-automatic rifles, handguns and ammunition has grown so long that a number of major retailers have actually told their stores to stop ordering because their orders cannot be filled.

I have received word from a number of sources that most of the major retailers in this country will not be receiving any significant resupply of ammo for at least a couple of months.  The problem has gotten so bad that even police departments are starting to feel the effects.

Police departments around the country have started rationing ammo supplies and cutting back on training exercises to make sure their active duty officers have enough ammo to do their jobs. A number of public officials have actually started to call for new legislation that would allow police departments to buy up huge stockpiles of ammo before it ever becomes available to the public.

Retailers Can’t Restock Ammunition Inventory

Even before the talk of a coming gun ban started, ammo was becoming hard to find. From fears of an economic collapse to the general distrust of our government, Americans were starting to realize that they needed to be able to protect themselves. Once the government announced they were coming after guns, the supply of everything started to dry up.

Bass Pro will not receive new .22lr ammo shipments for 3-4 months.

This morning I talked to someone over at Bass Pro who informed me that they can no longer get .22lr ammo from the manufactures. According to my source at Bass Pro, they have been told by a number of major manufacturers that they will not be sending anything out until at least April.

9MM looks even worse.

The same source informed me that most 9mm ammo is looking even worse. In fact, their popular Remington® UMC 9mm Mega Packs are on backorder until December 2013.

Bass Pro Handguns
Bass Pro Empty Handgun Display
Sportsman's Warehouse Gun Case
Sportsman’s Warehouse Semi-Automatic Rifle Displays Completely Sold Out

Walmart Tells Stores to Stop Ordering Ammo

A contact we have at Walmart told us they are no longer sending any 9mm or .22lr ammo to their stores. This was confirmed by a manager at a local Walmart who told me, “He just got a memo from the corporate office telling them to stop ordering ammo.” According to Walmart, the problem is due to a lack of supply from the manufactures.

How long these ammo shortages will last is anyone’s guess. With so many retailers bowing down to political pressure and voluntarily suspending sales, it doesn’t look like things will be getting back to normal anytime soon. My guess is that ammo will be hard to come by for at least another 6 months, possibly even longer. And based on what I was told out at the SHOT Show, AR style weapons and semi-automatic rifles will be hard to find for at least another year.

If this doesn’t wake people up I don’t know what will. If the Ammo supply can dry up this quickly, what do you think will happen to the food supply during a major nationwide emergency event?

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43 Comments

    • Thanks for the info!!! My ammo is on the way !! check them out if anybody is looking for ammo ! most all in stock for hand guns and rifles. 3/15/13

  1. THE SHELVES HERE IN KY LOOK THE SAME EVERYWHERE YOU GO. NO AMMO AND NO SEMI RIFLES LEFT. THE ONE YOU CAN FIND ARE PRICED 200 TO 600 DOLLARS HIGHER THAN TWO MONTHS AGO. GLAD I STOCKED UP. IT WILL HIT THE FAN. JUST A MATTER OF TIME. DOWN WITH OBAMANATION.

  2. Ummmm… I’m still picking up 500+ packs of .22 for $20 at various locations and I just saw 50 round boxes of brass 9mm for $14.97 at my local WalMart. My local gun shop just got a mountain of 55gr and 62gr 5.56. I’m concerned, but not alarmed.

  3. Perhaps DHS could release a billion or so rounds back into the public market, instead of ‘hoarding’ it. Or distribute those to local law enforcement.

    The military, under LAW, is required to release once fired brass for public consumption, as tax dollars pay for that anyways. Perhaps they could stop destroying it, which is against the LAW, and this would free up reloading supplies, also freeing up mass manufactured ammunition. (see recent news about Fort Drum destroying this brass, illegally, and wonder how many other bases are doing this as well)

    And always remember Feinstein’s recent comment about her/their intention to ‘dry up supply’. That does not just apply to ‘military STYLE rifles’.

  4. I was in Springfield, MO this last weekend. Was amazed at how picked over the guns and ammo were. (Went to Academy, Bass Pro and another smaller shop). I talked to a young man at Bass Pro. He said that they were bombarded with people buying as much as they could in the Christmas season. He stated that the ammo manufacturers always start filling their government orders the first of the year, so until they complete that there won’t be more for public consumption. I was also told that the shortage of smaller handguns is because the fire arm manufacturers are switching over to get as many automatic and semiautomatic guns out as they can before there is some change in the law. Talked to two people who were at the gun show in Springfield last weekend. It was packed and a long, long line was already forming at 6:00am. Glad I didn’t wait until the last minute for mine.

    • I call bullshit on at least part of your story. Why are they making automatic guns? You can’t buy them. It has been against the law to make new machine guns to be sold to civilians since 1986. I highly doubt any manufacturer is stopping making one specific gun to make any full auto guns when the only group able to buy them are law enforcement and military.

    • OUR wonderful president OBAMA!!!! has been stocking up on all of OUR ammo! he has been doing this because he is muslim and i think hes planning an attack on the US. i mean north korea is already threatening to nuke us so i mean we are screwed basically!! good luck everyone……

      • north korea is a joke they cant even send a nuke to the god blessed U.S.A cause they always fail and thier nukes fall in the water and thier completely a joke in my eyes. but still i hate obama

    • Are you fucked up preppers and screwed up government, going to ruin muzzle loading ammo too? A hog in front of me bought all the 22shells when I was going to teach my Grandsons to shoot.

  5. Anti-Whites said in 1965, they were not trying to change the demographics of America and that demographics would not change. Anti-whites said and forced the same things in every other white country. No vote or discussion was allowed on this issue and Integration was FORCED. Now anti-Whites in America and every other white country are celebrating the coming White Minorities EVERYWHERE, which clearly makes it GENOCIDE. “Anti-racist” is a codeword for anti-white.

  6. i was in a local wally world the other day and in their grocery store it freaked me out. one shelf was completely empty. i have started prepping with my son recently and now i have decided to expedite my prepping

  7. I think it’s time to buy an air gun and shoot pellets until real ammo starts to re-appear on shelves. If those pellets go away I’ve got my slingshot.

  8. All I can tell ya is; if it all goes to hell, gather any/all stores from your kills! Do not stash everything in one place. Know your friends, help/arm them. Medical supplies will be as highly valued as ammo! I don’t like the waiting, but to be on the wrong side will mean no chance that America will be Free! Don’t waste ammo, or your friends!

    • You dead on, you can allways swap ammo for something that you need. Everyone needs some type of quick clot and pain meds in their kit.

    • Now that I’ve got a good baseline on ammo, I’m putting together VERY extensive medical kits. I will have 1 large kit per 2 people in my group. It won’t be cheap, but very well worth it. I totally agree though, medical supplies and ammo will be the new “gold standard”

  9. I’m no longer so sure they will ‘come after’ guns. The fact that within two weeks of Obama’s ‘gotta have this conversation’ speech, 95% of the nation’s vendors are ‘ammo out of stock’. THAT alone should scare the bejeebers out of any fed that thinks they will take our guns.

    And, My idea on gun control is ‘just say no’.

    I wrote the following letter to my state’s committee on reducing ‘gun violence’. I’ve gotten a lot of ‘good job’ comments from friends, so I’ll share it here. I’m suggesting civil disobedience on the part of all gun owners, and suggesting we let our legislators know about the plan. Use parts or all as you see fit, though you should probably edit some so it looks personal. I deleted my state’s name so you’ll have to use your own. And you will want to change the numbers in other sections to match those for your own state too.

    My email:
    I wonder what you would do – how far this anti-gun stuff would go – if we gun owners all let you know that as gun owners we’re just saying ‘aw, hell no’, and simply not going to comply with anything? I do think it’s time, and I think it may happen. I believe gun owners really are the majority, and we are tired of being blamed for crimes with stolen or illegal weapons by madmen who should have been in state institutions – if those hadn’t all been closed already. I believe gun control laws face massive civil disobedience. Please read my reasons for my belief below.

    The last ‘new’ statistics I saw were ’140 million gun owners in the US’. If we estimate that half of the 310 or so million of us are too young to own guns, that leaves 155 million adults. So that would make 140 million gun owners 90% or so of the adult population. If you go with the 30 year old statistic of 80 million gun owners, that’s still half the adult population. But look at recent sales and I think you’ll agree the number is closer to 140 million. And minors don’t vote, but adults do.

    There are supposedly 180,000 concealed carry permits in , out of some 3.6 million people (US Census estimate for 2012). Let’s say there are 3.6 people per home / family. Based on government statistics on gun ownership (rifles, shotguns and handguns), there are probably at minimum 300,000 families in with a gun and maybe more. Possibly even more than half of our homes. Think about how you would enforce any of these bills if they became law, especially if nobody ‘got in line’ to comply.

    Gun owners might leave the state to buy restricted guns and ammunition, and then smuggle them home. That is money leaving the state, and unknown supplies of guns and ammunition coming into the state. You can’t afford to stop cars now with cheap liquor from nearby, how will you stop cars with ammunition from ? Can afford a roadblock on every road crossing the borders? How will you search that many cars without warrants?

    Will the state jail 300,000 to a half million (or more) wage earners for non-compliance with some anti-gun law, like a magazine limit (any magazine limit)? What will happen to the state’s economy with that many people off the job indefinitely?

    Will we do a full million home searches – with or without warrants – in order to try to find the guns and magazines? If we clearly just refuse to cooperate, will the police really do anything at all to enforce these laws? What about all the guns already ‘hidden’? Who will pay for the searches, for the incarcerations of any found offenders, for the prosecutions, for the welfare and SNAP for the families?

    is nearly bankrupt now – most states are – and if we ‘just say no’ we might stop the entire program in its tracks. Our legislature would look like fools – bankrupting the state for unenforceable laws. And once on the books and not enforced gun control will end like Prohibition did, and rightly so.

    Remember too, that we can still nullify any law as jury members also. The right of jury nullification is still alive in America so long as the Constitution stands. Money spent on prosecutions could be money down the sewer, and without convictions, do you expect police to make arrests? I don’t.

    Gun owners far and wide are discussing the idea of ‘just say “no, and hell no”‘. From the emails and comments I get, it looks as if the idea is catching fire. Which means that unless CT really can afford house to house searches for confiscations and afford prosecutions and then welfare for that many destitute families (not to mention prison space for the convicted and CT jobs not getting done), I suggest you let all these ill-thought out gun control bills die in committee.

    As a group, I don’t think we gun owners are going to cooperate, even if we have to say in public that we will. Passive civil disobedience on a mass level is a very real possibility – to the point of being an absolute probability. Let me remind you one more time – it would be half or more of the families in the state.

    Anti-gun people need to realize that they live right in the midst of armed neighbors and co-workers on a daily basis. They are surrounded by us at the grocery, the mall, the race track, in church and at the coffee shop. If we were as dangerous as they say we are – they’d all have been dead long ago. If they can’t stand to be around guns, they’re going to need some therapy, because the US is a gun culture, and 140 million armed American adults say so.

    • Sorry folks, I just realized that before I pasted this here I had edited out most (not all) of my state’s abbreviation, and replaced it with “your state” enclosed in the ‘less than’ and ‘greater than’ symbols – forgetting that those would be interpreted as HTML. So now you see only blanks where any state’s name should be. You’re probably to identify them all, including the two I neglected to change.

      But you’ll also need to correct the numbers for the households and carry permits and such to match for your own state – or the nation – if you want to send this to your congress-critters.

  10. I didn’t start buying bulk ammo until late November 2012; however, I have spent between $10K & $15K on ammo alone in the past few months to get at least a good baseline. My wife told me I was nuts at first, but ALL ammo has doubled in cost and is crazy hard to find. I’ve got around 10K rounds of .223, 10K rounds of 7.62×39, 3K rounds of .40 cal, 4K rounds of 9mm and 5K rounds of .22LR. Hopefully I can eventually find more .22LR, but it’s not looking good.

    • Your Wife was RIGHT! You are NUTS.
      RELAX, get a life and pay down your credit card bill.
      That is the real danger here, not an ammo shortage!

      • ‘coachgeorge’, I don’t know who you’re coaching but surely hope it isn’t anyone in my family. You sir are a fool and most obviously a dupe of the present administration. Please don’t come knocking on my door for food and protection when the crap hits the fan!

      • George,

        There are afew of us that still work for a living, so we have money to spend of whatever the hell we want. Now you sir are probalbly on welfare along with the rest of your family. Sucking off the good ol government tit.

        I cannot wait to curb check you and the rest of your kind. You wont need those teeth to eat government cheese anyway….

    • Crackpot paranoids like you are the reason there is an ammo shortage to begin with.
      Falling into debt like you have is just insane.

      • your a fool even if he went into debt he is right prices have doubled or more so technically speaking he just doubled his investement think about that

        • He may have doubled his investment for now, but when prices come back down (as they will when the panic and gouger buyers quit buying) he won’t be in as good a position.

    • I started buying 5.56 bulk NATO green tips back in late 2011 from .31 cents a round, through Oct 2012 before the masses got crazy. So I averaged out at $.37 cents a round. Glad I did, as it rose to nearly $2 a round, and now settled back to about $1.37 if you buy 1000 at a time.. It was my best investment last year.. Prepping pays off. This years prep is Canning Foods for long term storage. Tons of great produce if you buy that in bulk. Tomatoes in the store go for 2.99 Lb and at the produce stand. Bought 28 Lbs for .71 cents a pound. yeeehaaaa. Salsa and spaghetti sauce.. lol

  11. I work at a corporate retailer in Florida, I will not name which one for personal reasons. In the past 2-4 weeks we have had a shortage of 22’s of any kind, 9mm, 40 cal, 45 acp, .223, 5.56, 7.62×39. 7.62×51, 308, 380 acp, 357 sig and now even the more common hunting rounds like .243, .270 and .30-06 are being affected. We’ve been through these sorts of things before but this time around it is different. If you have any aspirations of owning a reasonably priced AR-15, AR-10, AK-47 or any other battle rifle, don’t bother, we are 18 months out by corporate’s estimates on orders. Count your rounds, keep your powder clean, keep your mind easy and your trigger fingers ready, we’re going to need it my friends.

  12. Just for giggles, I went by WallyWorld here in SEKS. The ammo shelves are empty and so are the gun racks. Went by another shop where the local hunters congregate and ammo is there. It’s higher than a cat’s back, but it’s there. The owner is limiting quantities… Fishing poles are on sale!

  13. While the firearm debate took place in public, the real control took place under the radar. The government took our money and purchased up all the ammo resulting in the “ban” they were looking for without passing the first law. The government purchased billions of rounds of ammo and 100’s of thousands of firearms they will never use. Why? For the same reasons they took control of the materials used to create more. Why have a ban when you can’t get it?

  14. It’s crazy…still can’t get ammo and I want to go to the range! My reserve is almost gone and I still want to have enough left over just in case. Oh well, the wait continues…

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