Jason Vanderbrink, president of Vista Outdoor’s ammunition brands, has dropped a new video giving gun owners and update on what his companies, including Federal and Remington, have done and continue to do to crank out more ammo for eager gun owners. They’ve overcome a number of challenges including supply chain issues to produce 40% more ammo at Federal, CCI and Speer. And they aren’t easing back on the throttle.
The video, with some breathtaking shots inside Federal facilities, is well worth your four minutes. It looks almost as exciting as printing money.
“And if you add Remington into that,” he continued, “that’s substantially more ammunition.” The Remington plant in Lonoke, Arkansas produces a lot of ammunition on its own.
They’ve added fifteen hundred new employees in the past 18 months. That’s even more remarkable considering the Biden regime has stagnated American economic growth.
In addition to producing up to 40% more ammo, Vanderbrink says they’ve shipped hundreds of millions of primers to the market, too.
He addressed the common sentiment among gun owners who have been desperate for ammo: “Why don’t you build another factory?”
Instead of building them, they bought two; both Remington and Heavy Shot. This, he explains, is helping them add hundreds of millions of new rounds to the market.
This despite many of supply chain challenges that every other industry is facing in today’s Biden economy. It would make no sense to acquire more manufacturing capacity if they couldn’t provide raw materials to their existing facilities.
He also addressed the common gun store rumor that they’re selling all their ammo to the government.
“That’s not the case,” Vanderbrink explained. They’re selling to the same customers they’ve always supplied. At the same time he made it clear their support for American law enforcement is unwavering. “It’s our obligation to keep supporting law enforcement.”
He closed with how we all need to embrace the 12 million new shooters in America. Her urged us to “Take kids hunting. Take kids shooting. And embrace the new demographic that we have” since the surge began.
Here’s a the video. Be sure to watch it in HD.
Wish there was an LEO discount…only discount I get is my free range ammo twice a year…that gets shot at the range.
Agency used to give people a box for practice…every three months…now they count every single round like they are diamonds. LMAO
Oh…and we dropped from 4 qualifications a year to two.
Why? You get discounts on lots of other stuff. Don’t you get medical/dental insurance? Sick days? Vacation days? Retirement? You weren’t drafted into it. The discount should go to those that were drafted and didn’t have a choice, and lost a limb, and more. I pay for all my own continuing education, like your range time. I chose to work in blood and guts for 40 yrs. (remember AIDS in the 80’s?) I’m not asking for a discount. But, I’m always thankful when someone holds the door for me, (and I can do the same for them).
Whoa! there
“medical/dental insurance? Sick days? Vacation days? Retirement?”
those are not discounts. Those are part of the employment packages, and most times you pay for your medical/dental insurance.
Haven’t noticed you commenting in a good while.
You can be an LEO discount. Many places on line will give you an LEO/Military discount if you order from them.
Is no one going to talk about the elephant in the room?
It’s nice that Vista has opened the previously idle Remington factory.
But that does not increase the ammo supply over the previously available ammo supply.
The reason common calibers are coming down in price and odball calibers are staying high is that we can still get Russian steel cased ammunition in all the common calibers.
When the current supply of steel case nine, 45, 223, 308 and x39 is sold, there will be no new imports due to Biden’s ban on Russian ammo imports.
When the steel cased ammo is no longer available, all the dollars that went to Steelcase will be chasing the brass cased ammo. This will result in another price rise for brass cased ammo in all the common calibers.
While I read that PSA is bringing in machines and expertise to build a factory to make AK ammo, this will not be enough to replace the imports from the four Russian factories.
So we can expect the new normal of .38 CPR for brass 9 mm to continue.
Cool but availability hasn’t been a (big)problem in awhile for me. It’s cost pure & simple. I’ve been shooting a lot more lately but it’s mainly to help my 70year old friend. I’m ok with my stash but if we have another panic I just won’t shoot. Lot’s of gunshops are still charging $20 for a box of 223 or $30 for 9mm target ammo. And buying online is hinky especially living in Cook county…
‘…living in Cook county…’
You know they’ll let you take your voucher and move to Iowa. Get a nicer apartment, low unemployment, relatively no crime except for the ones committed by your fellow Cook County transplants.
But, if you come, leave your big city demtard BS in Chiraq.
Cost??? Greed and gouging more like it. I just came from a gun show in North Carolina. $150/1000 seems to be the going rate for primers and I dont see millions of them on the tables. Go to my dealer? when they get some, they never do, maybe I will!!
Take a kid hunting, you bet, but what we gonna shoot, read the above on gouging of primers, ammo is no different. Add to that we shoot more obscure cartridges, those that weren’t obscure a few years ago. Out Of Stock, no Backorder, discontinued on and on
Take a kid shooting… Shooting quail in Georgia tommorw. A friend is bringing his 7 year old son. He won’t get the opportunity to shoot quail, although he will have a place on the wagon. He will get to shoot after. Casey gave him his first firearm last Christmas and I gave him his first Randall for his birthday a couple of months ago. You have to start them right.
I think that’s the key. You’re right. Start with the kids. I didn’t start until I was 50+. It’s scarier when you’re older. Just like starting to ice skate…lol. You think of the things that might cause more aches and pains.
It was the other way around for me. My son wanted a BB gun, and my daughter liked to shoot it as well. I think he was maybe 13. After I got tired of charging a pump action BB gun, I bought a .22 rifle. And so my journey began. If I wasn’t 50 yet, I was damn close.
I’m going to the local outdoor range myself tomorrow to help a lifelong friend who went with me earlier this year to an instructional course and shot a gun for the first time since he was a kid decades ago. Now he has his own first gun and wants to practice.
Translation: this asshat and some rando he picks up tonight at the gay bar are going to a secluded cabin to bone all weekend.
Don’t project your fantasies on others, leftist scum.
“…picks up tonight at the gay bar are going to a secluded cabin to bone all weekend.”
Look, get over it.
He’s not going to have sex with you, no matter how much you keep begging him for it.
Your strange obsession with homosexuality is kinda creepy. Why don’t you just go down to your local leather bar and pick up some guy?
You can just pretend he’s Mr. Haz as you attain ‘sweet release’… 😉
Yay, primers!
At about 10 cents *each*, no ‘Yay’.
Compared to about 3 cents each, before… 🙁
Yeah I know, but seeing them at $0.10 each beats not seeing them at $0.03.
There is no ammo on the shelves here in NC that I have seen. Plenty in Flo Rida according to my bud down there. 20 rnds of WW SD 9mm ammo for like $16. Ball is still high. I didnt watch the video and dont care what he says, there is some flim flam going on. I dont give a tinkers damn about mfr’d ammo. I just want some primers and I aint payin’ $100 a thousand. I have been spending my disposable income on new Home Theater equipment. Intercourse the gun and ammo industry especially the retailers and etailers that are marking up their what was 50% margin to 150%. I have a long memory.
Try Academy Sports. They are starting to get decent supplies of .308, 5.56, 6.5, 9mm and a bit of .45acp. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the day to be there as that’s when they put out stock/receive stock. That’s where I have been finding ammo at somewhat “decent” prices ( I know, but cheaper than Dunhams) better there in my neck of the woods of NC.
Try Rural King too if one is near you.
Texas ammo shelves are fully stocked.
Been this way for a few weeks now.
I recently purchased a 45-70 that I hope to get out of “ten day hold jail” soon. Most ammo is scarce and expensive ($2.75 a round and up). Brass is nonexistent. I haven’t even bothered to look for primers.
My hold up lately has been powder. Was finally able to buy a 1000ct box of small rifle primers the other day, but the local Sportsman’s had virtually no powder.
I have plenty of brass and primers for my 45-70 reloads, but I’ve only ever loaded them with H4895, which is nonexistent right now.
From what I have read, there is a wide range of powders suitable for 45-70. And there is always Goex or Triple-7.
“Brass is nonexistent.”
Huntingtons dot com has Starline .45-70 brass in stock.
@Mark N.
Machine Guns Montana (Kalispell. MT) has 100 rnd bags of StarLine 45-70 brass for $47.30 a bag…at least as of 1100 this morning (2 Nov). Worth a try.
No primers.
Cost is slowly coming down, I’m hearing reports of 19-dollars a box of 50 9mm (Herter’s) at Bass Pro in Florida…
It’s crazy that we consider that the good price. Remember Walmart about two years ago? Also recall less insanity all around? Two years…
Bah. Geoff doesn’t recall two minutes ago because he’s a frail, hate filled dotard who’s never been with a woman in the biblical sense.
He lives with you. At least in your head. And you complain like a woman.
Picked up a 200 pack of WWB for $80 the other day. I saw the bulk pack as a good sign.
“Remember Walmart about two years ago?”
I rolled ammo loaded shopping carts out of two local WMs when they stopped carrying handgun/scary rifle ammo.
20rd boxes of top shelf BJHP were $7.
“reports of 19-dollars a box of 50 9mm (Herter’s) at Bass Pro”
$17 at my local Bass Pro in Grapevine, Texas.
Y’all know who doesn’t complain about ammo availability and prices? The bad bois and grlz. They always seem to have plenty for next weekends street combat.
That’s because they don’t practice shooting. If they shot more than one magazine per weekend they’d be complaining too.
Scheels in DFW Texas has had ammo most of this year, although it would go fast and often it was Russian. In recent months the variety and amount has picked up and the shelves are not bare any more. Federal often dominates the 9mm section lately. Scheels has more than Cabela’s, Bass Pro or Academy in this area. I will also agree that $19 for a box of 50 9mm is a good price right now, unfortunately.
Prices still too high on 556 and 223.
“…he made it clear their support for American law enforcement is unwavering.”
Those cops patrolling and enforcing mask requirements in schools and school board meetings definitely need the rounds. Same for those catching speedsters.
+1.
This fascination with “backing the badge” is insane. The cops have abandoned middle America and now just doing the bidding of people who have no respected for our civil rights.
Cut them off.
I second that motion.
No sales to any agency that works in an area where they deny the populace firearms, no ammo for agencies that routinely disarm the populace “for officer safety.”
I’m finding that supply has flipped a bit from a year ago. It used to be that the oddball calibers were on the shelf. Now I can’t find them at all. I just paid $103 for 20 rounds 500 Smith & Wesson Magnum. That’s not a misprint. $103 for 20 rounds. I just paid $3.85 per piece of brass for 28 Nosler, and I could only find one box of 25. I can’t seem to find 9.3×62 brass at any price, so I guess I’ll have to start making it out of 30.06.
I guess that makes sense, first the common and popular calibers sold out and were way backordered, leaving only odd ball calibers which at the time were probably still being produced at their normal rate. Maybe some people bought guns in something uncommon since they was all they could find, but more likely the factories lowered the production volume on the uncommon stuff to make more 9mm and 5.56… They probably just aren’t making as much of the less common calibers while they catch up
Just my guess.
I noticed the same thing. It became a bit of a habit walking into the stores just to check the ammo supply. Sometimes, the only rifle caliber would be 6.8 SPC or 6mm Creedmoor. I had planned on getting something with a little more oomph than a 5.56, so I picked up a 6.8 SPC rifle. Now the stores have a zillion rounds of 5.56 and some .308, but no 6.8. Just my luck.
The only Green/Yellow Remington boxes I’m seeing are “oddball calibers. Beginning about a month ago.
Good supplies starting to fill us shelves at the Farm Fleet stores. Cases but now powder or primers. Cases are full up with handguns and longguns at the flagship store and fairly decent/not gouging prices. Things are improving a bit, either demand is getting filled or mfg are really ramping production up.
I shop the Waterloo FFarm when in that area, and the Scheels nearby.
“Why don’t you build another factory? Instead of building them, they bought two; both Remington and Heavy Shot.”
Vista is making more ammo, but the net effect on the market is no change since the same number of factories are making ammo. Somebody else would have restarted the Remington assets after the bankruptcy selloff.
The Remington ammo plants were shut down around the time the Chicom flu arrived, Rem declared bankruptcy, Vista purchase then retooled/restarted. So NOT correct.
Like I said, somebody would have bought the Remington factories after the bankruptcy and restarted them. If it had been Company X, the same number of factories would exist and be productive right now. Vista’s purchase of the factories was good for Vista, but it didn’t increase the overall ammo supply any more than if Company X bought them. Vista bought a larger share of an existing market. If Vista were to buy Black Hills Ammunition tomorrow, Vista’s sales and share of the market would increase, but not one extra round would be produced. Once all existing factories are running 24/7, somebody has to build more factories to increase supply. The risk for the builder is that demand could drop in the future, leading to an idle factory that becomes a liability instead of an asset. If mismanaged, the debt from the new factory could push them into bankruptcy.
I recently acquired an Arisaka mod38 carbine.
I’m sure Japanese 6.5×50 will be showing up any day now.
I am so glad my brother and I had been for years buying case lots of all of the ammo we use at pennies per round in various deals. Every thing, 7.62, 9mm, 10 mm, .40, .45, .38, .50, 5.56, .22 cal, .300, .17, .243, .308, 7 mm, cases of it fill up several self storage units we rent all the way ceiling to floor to door wall to wall with a narrow passage wide enough for one person down the center of the 12×12 units to get to the ammo. We were not stock piling for survivalists mode, the zombie apocalypse, or a disaster, or for a pandemic, we just wanted to make sure that we had ammo when we wanted it for our own shooting and the prices we got were so good.
Started buying on and off and one thing led to another as we found more deals in case lot buys. Over the years kept buying on and off until about four years ago when we decided we had enough to last a while and slacked off and if we needed more in the future we would buy it. Who knew a pandemic would happen back then, ammo was plentiful and cheap and it was all over the place and the manufacturers kept every one well supplied. But, we are riding out the ammo shortage in comfort so all that paid off.
Heck, years ago you could go straight to the factory for special lot buys you bid on and get it and we got a lot of it and either shot it or stock piled it. They had so much ammo they couldn’t get it on the store shelves because the stores were over stocked/warehoused and didn’t buy it that often when they were like that so the manufacturers would have these special factory sales you bid for and you went to the factory and picked up or for a greater cost arranged for pick up and shipment to you. But even that greater cost of arranging pick up and shipment to you still came out greatly less per round than ammo costs today.
My local supplier of primers has been out of stock for a year and a half and says it will maybe be another 6 months before he gets any primers in at all. The local big chain does have some primers at 3 1/2 times the price over retail and they smile every time they see a sucker buy them. Ammo of course does not exist except at scalpers prices.
The greed monger ammo companies have gone through this at least 3 times that I can think of in the last decade but they still refuse to invest in more and newer machinery to increase output. Some ammo companies have smiled and said they are 2 years behind on back orders.
We did test a small lot of rimfire target grade ammo and the quality control has gone out the window in the mad rush to make more ammo fast. You are paying more and getting a garbage product to add insult to the rip off prices.
The new hires are part time workers, untrained and that is what has also contributed to the low quality ammo that is being put on shelves. They of course will be fired when the mad buying surge subsides and the ammo companies will be right back where they were before which is unable to supply the market when there is even a slight surge in sales. Its called greed monger Capitalism. Screw the consumer, screw the employees and laugh all the way to the bank with bags full of money.
Remember folks. lil’d is a fascist nut job. Do not engage.
What? You mean you couldn’t get any ammo at the flea market or a bar?
Whatever,
until I see something besides “Temporarily unavailable”, “Out of stock”, and “No backorder”
for primers, I’m going on assumption that ammo-geddon is still in effect.
One of my local dealers has had good supplies of powder. Sometimes he didn’t have the exact powder I wanted. This past year gave me the opportunity to try out powders / brands that I hadn’t in the past…such as, True Blue, Autocomp, Sport Pistol and 5744.
Primers are rare…when he has them they go for $38 – $50 /thousand.
Good choice of brass available.
Loaded ammo is hit or miss…whatever his distributor has on hand or what he can get from local Montana ammo manufacturers.
Not really a huge fan of “we back the blue, period” – perhaps start refusing to sell to corrupt blue hell-holes like NYC, Chicago, LA, Seattle, etc. Those places despise freedom and deny it to their citizens, stop giving them direct order ability and LEO discounts.
Also not a huge fan of “we bought more factories so we could produce more ammo”
Perhaps they are producing more ammunition than previously, but that smacks of corporate doublespeak. It didn’t significantly increase the ammunition manufacturing potential here in the US, but it was a good business move for them. I doubt they’ve improved the quality of Remington’s rimfire.
All in all, meh, meh, meh.
At this point they should be looking into what it would take to do vertical integration on the materials end for things like lead, copper, brass, aluminum or steel.
Yesterday at the range we were looking up the retail price of ammunition on our phones.
.303 varied from $30 to $80 per box of 20.
No wonder we reload.
I’ve noticed more .223 conversions being used. Many said the cheaper reloading over 30 calibers because about half the powder was needed.
Great video and glad for your success. Can’t afford to shoot anymore. Paid $52 for a box of 30-30. I’m old and disabled and going to the range is about the only pleasure I have in life. Tired of shooting my 22. I need some big boy ammo. I miss using my Henry. It seems like just yesterday I was paying $0.65 to $0.85 per box of 20, 30-30, 150 grain. I wonder if I’ll ever see that price point again. Anyway, enough whining. Good luck with your new factories. I wish you much success.
Jeff G
The primers will likely go to whoever it is that gets them after they are sent from the factory and then dissapear. You wont see them in the stores. I think companies that manufacture ammunition should put the real American people first before law enforcement. We are the real law enforcement enforcing the constitution which is the law of the land not some liberal mayor of Portland or Seattle who tells the police to stand down and they do as they’re told.
“They’ve added fifteen hundred new employees in the past 18 months. That’s even more remarkable considering the Biden regime has stagnated American economic growth.“ c’mon man… not defending the prez, but you cite a mouthpiece for China? Volatile yes, but stagnant, no. No one’s economy is crushing it right now.
Have not seen primer one at local gun shop in approx. 18 months. Not paying $150+ at gun show nor will I enable the neckbeards on GunJoker.
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