While I was in Florida on vacation, I went to several gun shows. The people that had ammo was asking two to three times it's regular price. The only .223 I saw was reloads, selling for a dollar a round. There was one local company making their own brand of ARs, and selling everything they brought out.
When I got back to Alaska from vacation I made the usual rounds of all the gun stores in Fairbanks. No one has much ammo. Sportsman's has lots of guns, bolts, pumps, levers, and single shots. But no Semi-autos. Same thing for Fred Meyer, Wal-Mart, and Frontier Outfitters.
Was talking to a friend that works at Sportsman's today. He told me when the shortage started five guys would show up every Tuesday and wait till the ARs were brought out and they would grab all of them. The store developed a new policy. Now they don't bring the ARs out. After 1PM on Saturday, anyone wanting an AR has to come in and sign in at the gun counter. They are given a number. At 2 PM all the ARs that came in are put out on the counter. A drawing is held, and the guy with the first number drawn gets first pick of the ARs on the counter. Only one, then the next number is drawn. They keep this up till all the ARs are gone.
Ammo is taken to Customer Service. They limit customers to two boxes of rifle and pistol ammo. This week they started putting some of the ammo back on the shelf. Stuff like .17 hornet, .17 HMR, .375 H&H, .45 LC, .380, stuff that is not flying off the shelves. I stopped at Sports Authority today, just to see what they had. Few shotguns, and rifles, the only ammo they had was .17 HMR. I'm looking for .22 Mag, none of that coming in. At least I have .17 Hornet, and enough .223 to go hunting tomorrow. Will be taking my .17HMR, will find out how it works with Coyotes. Might even try it on a Wolf just to see what it will do.
The Bears will be coming out next month, got to get ready for them. Break out the cross bow, save the ammo. Did see five Bows go out the door at Sportsman's today. They are getting low on archery equipment.
