I had posted this in the "Reloading Section," but seems pertinent here too.
Well I think one factor that isn't being taken into consideration is that a lot of the inventory that flew off the shelf in the past month was to re-sellers. Only words of advise: Patience young grass hopper. Check your local for sale ads and see how much ammo is posted for sale.
In one of my local swap & sells today I see:
Over 4,000 rounds of 7.62 x 39
2,700 rounds .223
800 rounds 45acp
450 rounds of 40 S&W
650 rounds of 38 special
600 rounds 9mm
38 Tapco Mags for AK
If you search .223 ammo on GB, you get over 1,500 auctions, if you limit it to auctions that are ending in the next 24 hours there are 534 results under rifle ammunition. Quickly adding up the rounds on the first page I got 10,100 and there are 10 more pages. So if the 11 pages average that there is roughly 110,000 rounds of just .223 ending in auction form on GB in the next 24 hours.
There are 79 auctions for "small pistol primers" on GB currently. Quickly adding it up in my head I came to over 272,000 small pistol or small pistol magnum primers.
There are 127 auctions for "small rifle primers" on GB as well. Quickly adding up in my head I came to over 237,000 primers.
Yeah the prices are crazy. Imagine if people who were looking actually maintained the will-power not to buy anything for 2 weeks...or a month on sites like GB. What do you think would happen to the prices?