Is The Panic Coming Here Next?...

[renegadelizard]

Ladies and Gents, we are in the wrong business or just not advertising right...as a gun owner and reloader, i have watched with disgust as this buying frenzy has obliterated the chances of any but the wealthy from securing arms or ammunition. 2 months ago, 1000 pieces of 5.56 brass, fully processes and shipped was around 80 bucks..it is now over 200 and climbing daily. Loaded ammunition is is upward of a dollar per round... this is a new definition for insanity...almost as bad as the tulip futures in early amsterdam...has anyone else seen this creeping into our livelyhoods?..will tanneries claim a leather shortage due to larger companies stocking up to provide holsters for all the guns that have been sold in the last 2 months?...should we all start hoarding our scraps and charging based on what could happen in the future?...sorry for the rant, but it seems the world went crazy when i want looking...and i broke a holster last night..ive never seen leather snap like a toothpick before...

[Driften]

Most of the sales have been for semi-auto rifles. I don't think many of those will need holsters. For the extra handgun sales those people are tending to be new owners that will be new holster customers. I don't expect they are going to show much more demand then what was already going on over the last couple of years with the bigger CCW market. I don't expect major leather shortages.... but who knows.

[Sixer]

Fear is contagious... you've definitely caught the bug. My advice...take a step back, follow with a deep breath, and just chill brotha

Unless they start bannin cows and horses...we should be good.

[D Fingers]

I feel like custom leather holsters are grossly underpriced. The fact that people sell good custom holsters for under $100 is absurd!

[Ed in Tx]

Don't know about a run on hides.. but there is certainly more of a stampede of dumb ass hitting anywhere that sells anything related to guns and ammo. I was at the Academy here in Grapevine TX today and they probably had no more than 10 rifles left and maybe a dozen shotguns... handguns were down to VERY few. The remaining rifles were mostly kids size or single shot. Ammo wasn't much better very little left.

I talked to the guy in the gun area and he said it started 2 weeks ago.. people were buying anything they had like there was never going to be another gun made ever.. One of the more despicable gun stores in the area that refer to themselves as "cheaper than" lets just say soil.... has jacked the prices up substantially.. doesn't surprise me with them as the owner will screw people any way he can.. when there was a flu scare a couple of years ago and a shortage of hand sanitizer he had his people out buying all they could find then tried to sell it for more than $30 per bottle.

All I can say is I am glad I have a reasonable supply of ammo.. what sucks is I can't afford to go to the range and shoot because of replacement costs.

[chiefjason]

I have been absolutely covered up since Thanksgiving. I barely have time to breath anymore. I work full time (about 50 hours a week) and do holsters on the side. My full time job is tied up in the Hostess bread stuff too. So both went through the roof work wise. So I don't know about materials. But the demand for holsters is crazy. And that could lead to shortages I guess. I know I have 2 sides on order. They were not scheduled to be in the warehouse for 3 weeks. I'm hoping they ship out early next week like they told me. I'll be in a bind if not.

As for ammo, I'm seeing a bit more recently. Maybe folks are running out of money. 9mm and .22 are almost impossible. But .45, .40, and .380 are showing up some. I may have to buy a drop in .40 barrel for my G19. It's all I can find anymore.

[electrathon]

There is no way we could make enough holsters to use up all the cows. Car seats put a much bigger demand on the supply.

[TexasJack]

Leather is about the only gun-related item not being crushed by the current panic. I went to a gun show last week and was astonished at how everything was getting picked up at skyrocketing prices - I mean even cleaning supplies! I did see someone selling belts for $80 that could probably be purchased at WalMart for $10, but they didn't seem to have a lot of customers. Semiauto gun prices have doubled and tripled; Ammo prices are at least double. Dealers don't have much of either and were just taking orders.

Last time we had this panic (2008), it lasted until people ran out of money. With the current economy (and with the absolutely worthless Congress in Washington), that shouldn't take long.

I don't mind the idea of putting all the idiots in the country in one place, but I do object to putting them in charge of running the government.

As for me, I've already seceded and am just waiting for the rest of Texas to catch up.

[Denster]

The upside to all of this stupidity is that six months after the crisis ends, and for all practical purposes it ended yesterday, supply catches up with demand. Then all of the idiots who planned to get rich who invested all of their money in ammo, primers, powder etc. see it ain't going to happen and dump it all back on the market at bargain prices. I've seen it happen several times.

I thought Clinton was the best gun and ammo salesman the world had ever seen but I was wrong. Old B.O. Has him beat hands down.

[Samalan]

Yes our country now exists on extreme ignorance corruption and fear!

Ladies and Gents, we are in the wrong business or just not advertising right...as a gun owner and reloader, i have watched with disgust as this buying frenzy has obliterated the chances of any but the wealthy from securing arms or ammunition. 2 months ago, 1000 pieces of 5.56 brass, fully processes and shipped was around 80 bucks..it is now over 200 and climbing daily. Loaded ammunition is is upward of a dollar per round... this is a new definition for insanity...almost as bad as the tulip futures in early amsterdam...has anyone else seen this creeping into our livelyhoods?..will tanneries claim a leather shortage due to larger companies stocking up to provide holsters for all the guns that have been sold in the last 2 months?...should we all start hoarding our scraps and charging based on what could happen in the future?...sorry for the rant, but it seems the world went crazy when i want looking...and i broke a holster last night..ive never seen leather snap like a toothpick before...

[renegadelizard]

There is no way we could make enough holsters to use up all the cows. Car seats put a much bigger demand on the supply.

There is no way we can shoot up all the ammo that has been bought recently either...its the advertising guys that says, hey, i know how we can make a few extra bucks" that worries me...i know most of the people that we routinely deal with(ie site sponsors) wouldnt do something like that, but if it affects them on their end, tanneries jacking up the price for a "percieved" shortage, then they will have to pay to stay up and running...thats the issue i was getting at in the first post..not that im in a panic or have the scare bug, its that there is a world of idiots out there and and just as many predators, and you can be the calmest, biggest, most gentle cow in the world, and still get trampled when the herd stampedes...

[Ed in Tx]

electrathon.. regarding your comment about car seats.. I don't know how much leather they use but the seats on my Ford pickup are supposedly leather and they wore thru in about 3 years.. I looked at a piece and the actual leather couldn't even be given a weight it was so thin. I think most manufacturers use bonded garbage and pass it off as leather, but they sure charge like it is super premium hide. Sure would like to know what kind of splitter they use to get it that thin !!

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

It goes in cycles. 7.62x39 was $60 a case of 1,000, then $350 in a matter of months back around 2006-7 thanks to the U.N. getting involved with international ammo sales. We were selling 8mm surplus by the pallet load. Everytime the govt gets a bug up there ass about guns, primers, ammo, etc it starts a frenzy. I am a bit worried this time though due to who we have in the White House at the moment.

I don't think it will cause a run on leather holsters----Kydex, and Cordura maybe, but not leather since most of what is being sold are "tactical" firearms.

[electrathon]

My referance to car seats was just part of the big picture. Car seats, sofas, office chairs, dresses and so on. As leatherworkers we use a very tiny, small amount of the total amount of cows that are made into leather. No amount of holster making would make even the smallest dent in the world market.