A US ammunition dealer is warning that the scarcity in the global gunpowder market may end up causing the prices of ammunition to skyrocket.
Minnesota-based Vista Outdoors, which owns several firearms-related businesses said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that it is about to enact an across the board increase in ammunition and gunpowder prices, beginning on January 1st.
Brett Nelson, vice president of sporting product sales at Vista Outdoor’s, was quoted as saying in a letter, “Due to world events our suppliers have notified us of unprecedented demand for and an anticipated global shortage of gunpowder, and thus has increased our prices substantially. We must therefore raise our pricing to help offset those increases.”
The company also said that unless customers cancel a delivery, it will recalculate the prices of “existing and future orders shipped on or after January 1, 2024, to the new prices.” Nelson said that revised price lists will be made available in the coming weeks.
The report said that Remington, Alliant Powder, CCI, Federal, SEVI-Shot, and Speer were just some of the companies which were expected to be increasing their prices soon.
During the Covid pandemic, as supply chains were disrupted and sales soared, ammunition prices rose quickly.
Although Vista Outdoors did not specifically point to any particular event which was responsible for the price increase, in its report, Newsweek attributed the rise in prices to the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the hostilities between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza strip, which have substantially increased the demand for ammunition.
In its report, Newsweek also noted that Vista Outdoors had pledged to donate one million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine for March of 2024. The company had said, “Supporting the relief effort is a crucial element of the global response and we are proud to do our part. It underscores how critical the Second Amendment is in America and highlights the importance of the ability of American Manufacturers to supply our allies with ammunition. We have long supported Ukrainian armed forces and we will continue to do so in this global cause to unite for democracy.”
Newsweek noted that in September, NATO allies and partner nations had agreed on $2.58 million in contracts in September, with orders for “hundreds of thousands of pieces of key ammunition” for Ukraine. The first deliveries from those contracts will begin to arrive by the end of the year.
