Midways' response:
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to contact us. As you might imagine, since we cancelled thousands of unfillable backorders for 22 Long Rifle Ammunition in the last few weeks, Larry has received a dramatic increase in email volume and can't possibly answer each one so he has enlisted my help to respond to customers. I assure you, this decision was not taken lightly. We knew that it would be wildly unpopular with our customers who had been waiting a year for product, but regrettably when this ammunition run first began we were caught flat footed. Before we realized the gravity of the situation, we had taken far more backorders than our allocations from the manufacturers would allow us to fill in a reasonable time frame. We stopped taking backorders, but kept the existing ones on the books (without payment from customers, of course) to see if the situation would improve. As you well know, it has not. As a result, we have decided to cancel all backorders per our policy once they become a year old because it became evident that old backorders were not going to be fulfilled in any reasonable or predictable time. It is important for MidwayUSA to respect the resources of its Customers and Stakeholders and not keep obligations in place beyond a timeframe that is reasonable. We are very sorry for this, and our inability to get enough product to satisfy our customers demand. Larry agonized over this decision, but we didn't see any other course of action based on the current supply compared to the demand for 22 Long Rifle. I am on Rimfire Central, AR-15.Com and the Smith and Wesson Forum mostly in my personal life. You are correct, we are getting roasted on the forums just like we knew we would. You can see we have been taking a beating over the last two years on 22 availability…but that does not change the fact I can't get enough 22 to cover the demand. Everyone is being treated the same way on this one, which is why no exceptions are being made. As a lifelong shooter, I certainly understand your position. When we first ran out of 22's Larry suspended the employee purchase program and cancelled our backorders because customers come first. At the time, I thought it was temporary. We could see the light at the end of the tunnel…now my friend, I don't see that light. I think it will be years before the industry can catch up because everyone is buying all the 22 they can whenever they can. If everyone would just take a breath and only buy what they need to shoot that month, the industry would catch up. I am getting more 22 ammo in than I have ever gotten in the history of the company! But as soon as you tell someone they can't have something, they have to have it. Guys that maybe fired 500 rounds a summer are sitting on 10,000 rounds and still buying whenever they see it. Until the demand settles, this crazy supply situation will continue. I am sorry we can't meet the orders. Believe me, if we had a way out other than this we would have taken it. I have worked for Larry for 19 years, and actually was a customer at the old gunshop that evolved into MidwayUSA before that. This is the first time I have felt we have failed our customers. And believe me, I don't like it. It won't happen again. We will never again get caught that flat footed and take that many backorders on a product without realistically evaluating how much product we will be able to obtain. I certainly wish I had better news, and am sorry we let you down.
On behalf of Larry, we are truly sorry for this,
Eric Ellingson
Contact Center Supervisor
MidwayUSA
What a bunch of nonsense.
Bottom line seems to be that those of us that believed them when they said they'd honor back orders are screwed. So if you don't have a cell phone app to receive their "notifications" the second they're released you're further screwed by their current business model.
Nice of them to cancel my BOs just in time to send out a notification the ammo I had on BO came in stock.
Larry and Midway can take a flying leap...
