Video from CCI on ammo shortage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIgvoJKovIg&feature=youtu.be

Greetings,

Impressive...

I find it interesting that CCI, Federal, Remington, and Speer are all under the same company.

I knew CCI and Federal were one company.

I wonder when Remington got assimilated?

Also, it is good to see it is AMERICAN MADE!!!

Cheers,

Dave

During the auction for the assets of Remington in the bankruptcy, Vista was the successful bidder for the ammunition side.  Sierra was the successful bidder for Barnes Bullets and Palmetto State bought the Firearms except for Marlin which went to Ruger.

I was hoping for Hornady to take over the ammo line, but alas...

Surprisingly blunt at the start of the video.  Refreshing.  But I have to wonder if consolidation had an impact on production capacity.  CCI (actually it's parent) buys Federal.  Then they buy Remington.  (This is over about 20 years, so not recent.)

hg401 wrote:Surprisingly blunt at the start of the video.  Refreshing.  But I have to wonder if consolidation had an impact on production capacity.  CCI (actually it's parent) buys Federal.  Then they buy Remington.  (This is over about 20 years, so not recent.)

Actually, it's Vista Outdoors that owns all those brands we've become accustomed too.

https://vistaoutdoor.com/

james r chapman wrote:

hg401 wrote:Surprisingly blunt at the start of the video.  Refreshing.  But I have to wonder if consolidation had an impact on production capacity.  CCI (actually it's parent) buys Federal.  Then they buy Remington.  (This is over about 20 years, so not recent.)

Actually, it's Vista Outdoors that owns all those brands we've become accustomed too.

https://vistaoutdoor.com/

That is true.  But the history is a bit more convoluted.

Blount Industries, which owned CCI, bought Federal Cartridge in the late 90s.  My wife had relatives who worked there for many years.  Just a few years later, they sell CCI and Federal Cartridge to ATK (which had spun off from Honeywell earlier).  Then ATK creates and spins off Vista to shareholders (I had some ATK shares from when they spun off from Honeywell).  Recently, Vista bought the Remington assets.  You can get dizzy trying to follow the bouncing ball.

I've never seen a CEO whine so much about getting emails. He's not upbeat nor positive, he's not motivating, he's not a leader. 

Quit complaining about the rumors and innuendos that you may read about in your emails.  We don't care. Make your case about hiring, training and protecting your employees. Thank us for our business and and leave it at that.

We don't need a condescending video and attitude from you. If you can't take the heat and pressure of a high demand job, leave it.

Wow is he whiny!  I have to drive past the Federal plant in Anoka MN every day and they are rolling full semi trailers out every day, one after the other.  Not sure where its going because I haven't seen a single box of 9mm or SV for sale locally for 6 months or more.  Somebody is buying it, but its not anyone I know.
Jeff

I have no idea how they allocate production, but certain stores in Oregon are seeing some supply of 22LR and handgun ammo, as well as steady supply of shotshells.

Seems that it might take a long time before the supply chain is normalised.

He's tired of the customers who want to buy his company's products, eh? That may be the most obnoxious opening to a customer service message I've ever seen.

I noticed he said nothing about component shortages causing any production issues.

I don't blame them at all for the shortages. Between new shooters and old shooters hoarding, you've got a huge new demand. It takes time to scale up, but realistically, as a company, should you? Is this level of demand here to stay? Or will it slowly recede? Do you want to invest in new capacity only to see it sit unused 12 months in the future?

That all said, that's a pretty terrible "message". Somebody doesn't have a good grasp on marketing, or has grown complacent thinking that they'll always be able to sell everything they make, no matter what they say, and how they act.

Dave

Federal contracts get filled first, then State and Municipal, the rest is for us.

Outthere wrote:Federal contracts get filled first, then State and Municipal, the rest is for us.

The first 3 are generally stable, so, the problem is really US!

Gustavo1957 wrote:I noticed he said nothing about component shortages causing any production issues.

Really?  Lead is not a component?  Brass is not a component?  Could have fooled me.

I think he was “lashing out” at the idiocy from the conspiracy theorists.  And as for us being behind the government contracts, he held up a handful of 30-06 hunting ammo.  As far as I know, police don’t use 30-06.  And for the un-initiated in manufacturing logistics, now is the time for Federal to be loading next years hunting ammo.  The only components that are in critical supply are primers.  When Remington was in bankruptcy not many primers were coming out of them.  So CCI and Winchester were the only ones in the warehouses and they got emptied pretty quickly.  You also have to remember, that primers are hard to ship in quantity...and have you looked at whet this pandemic has done to that industry?

From an outside, very minor view in, it looks like there's a bottleneck in packaging (and, possibly shipping) - bins and bins of finished ammo, just waiting. . .

A much more common and essential commodity than ammunition experienced nationwide & worldwide shortages due to hoarding and panic buying. That very serious issue was solved in a matter of weeks and store selves were again bulging with product; unlike the lingering ammunition shortage that reared its ugly head during the previous four election cycles. I'm referring to the run on toilet paper by panic buyers and hoarders.
Interesting that Wall Street Commodity Brokers & Traders and Chicago Futures Traders react to market conditions within minutes, but ammunition manufacturers have not learned how to react and prepare after four cycles of 16 years?

brassmaster wrote:A much more common and essential commodity than ammunition experienced nationwide & worldwide shortages due to hoarding and panic buying. That very serious issue was solved in a matter of weeks and store selves were again bulging with product; unlike the lingering ammunition shortage that reared its ugly head during the previous four election cycles. I'm referring to the run on toilet paper by panic buyers and hoarders.
Interesting that Wall Street Commodity Brokers & Traders and Chicago Futures Traders react to market conditions within minutes, but ammunition manufacturers have not learned how to react and prepare after four cycles of 16 years?

I don't understand the comparison here at all.  Brokers and traders deal with abstractions.  Shares that represent assets, contracts that represent commodities.  You can transfer ownership on 10,000 bushels of spring wheat in seconds (probably less) but that doesn't mean the wheat moved from point a to point b.

Exactly how do you propose that the ammunition manufacturers react?  Build plants that my have to be shut down when demand ebbs?  Buy equipment that will sit unused in a few months? Hire and train workers who have to be laid off?  Build up finished goods inventory that costs money to maintain?

The great TP shortage of 2020 wasn't so much solved as it ran it's course when people finally realized there was never a reason to hoard.

I remember going into a Costco and wondering why almost every cart had a Costco-sized package of paper towels.  When I go to the back of the store, I saw a sign limiting paper towels to 1 package per customer.  I'm convinced that people were buying paper towels that they didn't need because of that sign.

Apparently, too much word salad was used in dismissing my opinions of what caused the ammunition shortage and why I keep asking why it's repeating itself, you missed my point entirely. Yes, wheat is a commodity, but so is lead, brass, aluminum and other materials as well as beef and hog bellies are traded as commodities and futures. "... Shares or contracts that represent assets, contracts that represent commodities.You can transfer ownership on 10,000 bushels of spring wheat in seconds (probably less) but that doesn't mean the wheat moved from point a to point b...." Ah, but they can be moved from point A to point B or C, D, E, etc. When those shares that represent assets are sold, a foreign company can buy them and ship those 10,000 bushels of wheat to their country or resell it to another foreign company. I was not suggesting manufacturers build more factories and doubling or tripling their work forces.The crux of my argument was--and I'm not being political, just stating accepted facts--before BHO was elected, panic buying and hoarding occurred, rooted in fear of the unknown which resulted in a severe ammunition shortage. O.K., after a few years inventories caught up to demand. I believe we all understand what caused the panic buying and hoarding: a belief, real or imagined at that time that our 2nd Amendment rights would be marginalized and have a direct affect on the supply chain. Then when reelection time rolled around, here comes the panic buying and hoarding again. This same scenario happened during the next two election cycles and again was rooted in the same fear, real or imagined. The point being that manufacturer's marketing managers either ignored or failed to convince their respective production managers or top management that a pattern of fear, again, real or imagined was trending with national election campaigns and was the cause of decimated inventories. These corporate prognosticators dismissing the first shortage as an anomaly---o.k. The second occurrence, not so sure. The third, no way, any seasoned corporate marketing manager worth their salt would have recognized the trend and reacted accordingly. There are probably ammunition manufacturer's CEOs that would say, based on past trends and the potential of re-occurrence (sales forecast) because that's what marketing managers deal in and rely on, they wish they had had a billion more rounds of ammunition in inventory and they would still be struggling to meet demand.
In closing, The statement that, "...The great TP shortage of 2020 wasn't so much solved as it ran it's course when people finally realized there was never a reason to hoard," has no basis in fact. Someone obviously missed the daily TV advertisements by the paper companies telling the American consumers that they were ramping up and working 24/7 to correct the TP shortage and they have. And the analogy that by COSTCO, merely placing a sign at the paper towel racks limiting purchase quantities caused panic buying and hoarding is a head scratching statement. It may have caused panic buying and hoarding in that one COSTCO store or an area or region, but to use that isolated incident to predict a nationwide occurrence---well, that dog won't hunt. Panic buying and hoarding has many causes, chief among them are fear of the unknown consequences of events and probably the biggest culprit in our modern society is social media. If someone gets on Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets and starts a shortage rumor, whether confirmed or unconfirmed, it can spread worldwide at the speed of light and the result is panic buying and hoarding. In closing, it is my understanding that a forum, including this forum are established as a place for the free exchange of information, ideas and opinions. What I expressed in my first post regarding this subject was my opinion. I respect others' right to freely express their opinions. However, when my opinions are discounted as completely invalid and another's held up as totally valid assumptions, then I feel a need to respectfully respond. 

Re TP vs Ammo...  TP is cheap to make but it has one issue that makes it vulnerable to rapid increases in demand.  It’s very bulky and the TP companies aren’t warehousing months of production to absorb hiccups.  Ammo is not as difficult to make.  The problem is that the material is regulated and requires storage and shipping considerations.  I don’t think many communities would like a semi-trailer load of primers detonating while driving through their town.  So shipments have to be small.  Then the receiving company has to store the ammo.  The military stores ammo in earth covered “igloos”.  No ammo distributor that I know of has one of these.  So the depth of the inventory is thin. 

Then when a panic does set in, people see no ammo on shelves so they buy everything they see making it worse.  We caused this panic.  The only way to stop it is to quit buying everything you see.  I haven’t bought ammonia a year.  Don’t need to.

I have a different take.  The firearms market, and consequently, the ammo market is dynamic, and external forces can make it quite difficult to match supply with demand.  IMHO, on the continuum of events, pointing at bare shelves is pointing to the wrong place on the continuum and blaming people for reacting to it.  I believe there is a whole lot more to it.  

Current events, e.g., riots, looting, beatings, shootings, partial and total defunding of police, vilifying  police, early release of criminals of most types back into society, decriminalizing crime, etc., make people afraid.  People who are afraid for their safety buy firearms for their protection. Firearms are useless without ammo, so firearm sellers have to prioritize a portion of their ammo, maybe most or all of it, for new buyers.

The stats I've seen say that firearms sales increased by 57.8% in Aug 2020, as compared to the previous period ending in August.  That's a big increase, which translates into a lot of ammo being sold that wasn't being sold a year earlier.

People are afraid.  I know of liberals who have favored gun control, and who bought firearms in the past year.  I see folks my age at the range (husbands and wives) with instructors learning how to shoot their new pistols.  Both are taking the lessons and both are shooting.  I've also seen a number of older solo women learning to shoot.  In my experience, seeing all these older newbies at the range is new.

I'm sure the fear shortages could spawn hoarding, but from where I sit, I haven't seen enough supplies hit the market for anyone to hoard.   I haven't looked at the auction sellers to see if the same ones have all the primers in the country, or whether a relatively large number of sellers are each selling off a relatively small amount of stock.  If the former, I'd like to know whether they were buying and hoarding for months against shortage-causing events, or whether they have some secret for buying in lean times and then cashing in.    

Anyway, I submit that the continuum runs as follows:  Political and social event cause fear, which leads to record-setting firearms sales, which leads to high (maybe record high) ammo sales (I can't quantify how sales compare to earlier years), which leads to empty shelves and shortages, which would lead to shortages, if there are  enough supplies available to hoard.

I tend to believe we are looking at shortages until we have either saturated the public safety fear market, or policing and the legal system returns to a model dedicated to public safety, thus alleviating what is driving fear-based firearms purchases.  

I'm not getting into it here, but fear or defiance buying over concerns about more regulations, higher costs and new fees  to own/possess firearms, and campaign promises of firearm confiscation may also be fueling firearm and ammo purchases and consequent shortages.  This is more in the area of sport rifles, but California seems to have come up with regulations succeeding in significantly increasing the cost of some firearms, and reducing the number legal to sell in the state.  More of that stuff is probably on the horizon.  The Governor of Ohio is balking at signing a bill adopting stand your ground, he wants more firearm regulation.

I greatly respect everyone's opinion posted on this topic, even those with whom I may disagree. It is obvious that there are potentially many, many, many reasons, cause and effect, opinions and corrective suggestions offered of what causes panic buying and hoarding, which is a major contributor (my opinion) to shortages; whether it be ammunition toilet paper or myriad of other commodities. In regard to the ammunition shortage--real and not perceived, we need to look no further than a mirror to identify a main culprit, ourselves.  As was said long ago regarding economists, it is applicable to this discussion: if we stretched all of the opinions regarding this ammunition shortage end to end, we still would not reach a conclusion. I have however, become somewhat dizzy from this tail-chasing discussion and am therefore extracting myself from it.

I think that this has gotten off topic to go from the video to hoarding....I'm going to stop it here.