So I'm taking an economics class and we were going over

First, the major purchaser of ammunition is not the public, so you'd need to get the US military on board.

Second, if everyone stops buying ammo for a few months, will the actual amount of ammo purchased change? You still have to recoup all the shells you shot from your clip - buying them a month later than you usually would doesn't change anything.

guns is just as good as butter

>>33727764
I think you are a little confused. You need demand for a company to justify making a commodity in enough excess to sell cheaply. High demand in the long term brings price of ammo down. I dont think not buying ammo for a few days will do much. Instead, we should buy more of "snowflake" ammos like 10mm or 6.5 Grendel to sway ammo companies to make more widely available options.

>>33727764
In your scenario, the ammo industry would just downsize their production for those two months.

To say it differently - one of the calibres everybody's bitching about is .22LR. Used to be super fucking dirt cheap, is just dirt cheap right now. How does that happen? There's one and only reason for this - preppers - they buy 20k of those in bulk, then often figure out that it's too old and have to replace their stash every 10 years because if they'll go out after 50 years in their shelter, the ammo will be wrecked at this point(it'll probably take much longer in proper conditions). 1 prepper can buy more ammo than 50 Americans do in a year. Remove preppers and .22LR will get cheaper for a while, and then expensive again because the supply would react to decrease in demand.

>>33727764
>t's a strict law of nature

So its your first class, and you just started college. your a fucking retard anon.

Nothing relevant to add to this thread, but I like to point out that I took that picture of the 87 filled with .38s c:

I can't wait to see what board this post ends up on next.

>>33727764
Ah, this pasta again. Been a minute.

>>33727764
>>I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking this could be applied to the ammo market. Everyone bitches that ammo is ridiculously expensive, right? It only costs pennies to make a round of ammo and the manufacturers and dealers take a huge profit margin. That's a huge amount of money just totally vanished and removed from the economy forever, and it's the reason why it's a better idea to always reload your own ammo.

Money doesn't get "removed from the economy" that way. The manufacturers' profit is invested back into the business in the form of more hiring/more equipment/more wages, therefore profit passes onto the newly employed employees, or the companies that manufacture the equipment, or the existing employees get paid more than they already do. The money isn't "removed" from the economy forever unless they're literally burning it.

Not to mention 98% of the money in the economy doesn't "exist". It's fiat money, credit.

>>What if everyone collectively decided to not buy new ammo for a few months?
There's a thing called price elasticity. This won't happen because there are millions of buyers in the market and there are always people who are willing to buy when others are not because as individuals, they determine their own minimum prices.

>>By the law of supply and demand the price of ammo will go down, and eventually it'll get to the point where ammo would be at the same price as reloading brass, and at that point everyone could just buy the ammo and sell the brass for the same price.
The price of ammo will never be the same price as brass because it takes brass+gunpowder+bullets+labor to make a cartridge and the combination of those 4 things will never be the same price as any one of them individually.

>>33727764
>t. marxist/leftist

>>33728137
this. just because there is less demand doesn't mean price necessarily goes down by itself, quantity produced will. once people start trying to take advantage of the decreased prices the demand is all there again and so prices will skyrocket beyond actual value due to a shortage of quantity.
there's more to it than simple supply and demand curves. the company has marginal costs which go down with larger scale production (its cheaper to have an automated factory create ammo than it is to have a bunch of slaves pound brass all day, manually fill each round with powder, etc) and lower marginal costs mean large scale production is better for the buyer since the company can deliver a lower price per quantity (since theyre producing so much). rare things are more expensive, its a two sided coin.

>>33727764
Or just start your own ammo company and make a fortune.

>>33727764
On a related note, what rifle is that?

>>33728920
It's not a rifle, it's a Norinco copy of the Winchester 1887 lever action shotgun.

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>>33727764

Real supply and demand doesn't work that way. But don't talk about it in class like that.

> When everyone is poor like they currently are, lowering the price increases sales by more than the

> Because you're making it more appealing to buy the product so people will buy it if they hadnt already considered doing so.

Times have changed and we no longer live in the old days of "if it is good quality, it will cost more", due to more advanced manufacturing methods and the fact that the entire industry has switched over to producing 6 month landfill throwaways no matter how much you pay for it.

The only people who still think "if it doesnt cost as much then its not worth as much" are the socio-brainwashed plebs. Kinda stupid to rely on brainwashing people to keep an institutional sales tactic going, and unreliable at best.

> classes are brainwashing also, so dont try to share real wisdom there, they're there to teach you something they've been told to teach, so there is NO room for independent thought, if your answers dont match up to theirs then you are wrong even if you're right.

Strict law of nature?
It doesnt make any sense at all for the cost to go up on something if more people want it. There is never any proper reason given for this logic.

If anything raising the price on something as its demand goes up is CERTAIN to kneecap demand right where it stands, and get people to look for a cheaper version instead.

As demand goes up, retaining the SAME price over the long haul is certain to allow demand to keep rising and cemented permanently as an institutional control over that niche of the market. If you always charge the same amount, adjusted only for inflation, and you make something dependable - you become a HOUSEHOLD NAME.

The Rockefellers do not want you to understand this logic. They want you to eat the white pill of college economics and then fall into the same oblivion that is all these other startups.

>>33727764
just start a non-profit ammo company. you'd bankrupt the rest of the industry

>>33729332
(contd)

Furthermore id even say keeping the same price despite rising inflation, not keeping up with those prices really makes your brand stick out as dependable and desirable.

There is no luck of the draw when it comes to this, only the dice roll to get into the market with your product and the opportunity to find a good thing to sell.

You must avoid selling out to someone else (who's invariably going to drive the business into the ground by abandoning these principals, then sell it off as something thats part of something else, and the service that your business provides will be lost to society).

And you must avoid any quick-money gimmicks, trying to sell-up or trade-up is a gamble.

It takes 30 years to become a household name unless you have a fuckton of money backing you up to start with (like Netflix). There is no magic wand to instantly get to that point.

After you establish your base, your niche, thats when you can start working on lucerative, but safe bets to expand your business to the elite level.

Firm Foundation means Security to your position. It means rather than reacting to the market, you're able to sit back and make decisions (and the key to that success is not making stupid decisions at that point, but at least your decisions wont be as Forced on you like chess moves).


====

But more to the point of your actual post OP...

As far as ive seen when it comes to Ammunition, demand only comes into play with more expensive material ammunition such as the .50 bmg.

Ammunition has 2 main price factors that come into it before demand is considered:

* Man Hours for producing ammo, the higher quality/match grade or more processing is required (teflon coated bullets, etc) that means more workers which means more wages. And possibly a larger facility which means more rent and overhead.

* Materials are a thing too, brass costs money, bigger and thicker cases mean more brass weight.

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>>33729424
(contd)

So when it comes to ammunition, the easier it is to produce the cheaper it will be.

Take the .22 LR for example, its pretty much one-big-primer that has powder dropped in it, and a pathetically simple bullet design (heeled) that means it can really just be jammed down into the case.

Quality control is shit, the ammo isnt reloadable, but the simplicity of it means it can be churned out in as high a numbers as it is.

Thats why its 10 cents per round while almost everything else is at least 25-35 cents per round minimum.

Its also got a high demand (.22 is literally part of hunting laws in alot of places) and cheap weapons that fire it. But you dont see that driving up its price, because its established as a household name.

So thats the Man-Hours part of the equation. You dont even have to stick a primer into the case.

> materials

Even if you made a heavier, higher caliber version of the .22 the price isnt going to go up too much, some of the older 19th century cartridges like .44s for lever actions were rimfire and they had no problem churning these out in high number too.

Ultimately LACK of Demand will drive the price up bigtime

Thats why those .300 win mags, .375h&h, .338 lapuas, and .50 bmgs cost 3-5 bucks per round.

Its alot of effort and materials to invest in to get going making those big bullets, and almost nobody uses them (sure they are effective, sure the people who use them swear by them, but those people are Rare).

So you've got to make up for those expenditures by passing along the cost to the consumer.

Plus the Govts are in a position to get suckered by defense contract deals, they just pass on the cost to people's taxes... its all numbers on paper to these people so they dont care too much if you're bilking them on ammo costs (which may also be the result of a backroom deal, friends scratching each other's back...)

So even though the biggest user of .50s is the military, it doesn't drive the price down.

t. Price Gouging

>>33727764
Keep going with economics, Would of been a fun major. If everyone stopped buying factory assembled ammunition the cost of components would see a surge in demand and raise the prices to what the market is willing to pay for them.
More people every year are getting into reloading. Costs increase as the demand increases so there is never a surplus or shortage. Doesn't help when the transport companies apply fees to critical components. As always with reloading or store bought factory ammunition BUY IN BULK. It's usually advantageous to buy a pallet of ammo vs a box for the cost per round. Similar to reloading, buy as much brass, bullets, primers, in bulk when you can find them on sale or through a distributor. I need to find more info on group buys for reloading supplies where I am locally.

>>33729554

In fact in terms of economics...

If everybody producing a product is selling it at a ubiquitously high inflated price and you're willing to undercut them, you're in a position to screw everyone in that industry.

That, if anything, is a huge opportunity. If you can consistently and reliably produce a product and sell it for cheaper - it increases demand For A Cheaper Price.

Especially if you retain the same quality. You'll eventually force everyone else to lower their prices too, or get run out of the market.

> at this point we run into actual criminal problems with other businesses either being willing to contract with the mob or associates to screw with you

> or repeated attempts to try to get you to sell your business just to stop you from undercutting them

> but by selling out for a nifty wad of cash you're actually missing out on a much larger end result - by screwing people who aren't doing the world a service through their price gouging.

>>33729622
buying in bulk is a basic economic principal but it applies to ammunition too

just dont bite off more than you can chew, if you order enough stuff for 5 million rounds (ambitious, I dont know) and the higher priced market you had staked out dries up, you could be left with a shortfall in the end or a delay involved while you try to find others to pitch your ammo/price to

also beware of fidgety vendors, if you try to haggle with some people they'll just say no and wont entertain lower values unless they're basement level (some people are human, and respond to things in a human way, rather than robotic)

> my father reverse haggles - if you try to haggle price with my dad the required payment goes up on his end rather than down, he says because "you're wasting my time" but I think its because he knows someone's trying to gyp him.

and for you as an economics major I strongly urge you to read Trump's book "The Art Of The Deal". He just sold himself to the people as president using those tactics.