Copper, lead increases result in higher process for ammo

Richmond Times Dispatch
Published: June 1, 2008

Jennifer and Gregg Eby of Montross started taking aim at a shooting range in the spring.

“It’s easy to shoot a lot quickly,“ Jennifer Eby said.

One target session may use up 200 rounds.

It also can get expensive, given that, in some cases, ammunition prices have risen more than 70 percent in two years. Bullet prices aren’t expected to drop anytime soon.

The reason: Prices of lead and copper—primary elements of the bullet and casing—have increased because of worldwide demand. The war in Iraq also has put pressure on supply of the bullets and the metals to make them.

The skyrocketing prices and a shortage of bullets has affected some law enforcement agencies, which are scaling back target practice or ordering bullets farther in advance. Gun enthusiasts are starting to buy the materials used to reload shells so they can make their own cartridges.

The cost of 1,000 training rounds of .40-caliber Smith & Wesson bullets—the most popular with law enforcement officers nationwide—has increased 73 percent since 2005, according to The Gun Shop, a New Jersey company that holds contracts to provide ammunition to law enforcement agencies in Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

The training rounds rose to $229.80 per case from $133, according to manufacturing pricing.

From 2000 to the end of 2005, however, manufacturers increased ammunition prices as little as 3 percent each year.

At Green Top Sporting Goods in Hanover County, ammunition prices have gone up as many as nine times in two years.

“It has finally sunk in with our consumers,“ General Manager Pat Hopkins said. “It doesn’t look like it will change, so many have to do something.“

Remington Arms Co. Inc. and Winchester Ammunition, both major bullet manufacturers, announced mid-year price increases. Winchester, for instance, increased ammunition prices between 5 and 12 percent.

In a March letter to customers, Remington blamed low inventories of bullets, high demand for the metals and a weakening dollar. “(T)here are no compelling reasons to expect that the current trends we are experiencing will reverse themselves anytime soon,“ the letter stated.

“I would say over the last 2½ years ammo prices have been going up every other month,“ said Jerry Thompson, owner and CEO of Dominion Shooting Range off Midlothian Turnpike in Chesterfield County. “We’ve tried to hold down the prices as much as we can.“

Soaring commodity prices are one reason for the increases.

Copper sold for about $2 a pound in early 2006, according to Kitco Base Metals, a retailer of precious metals. By this May, it hit $4 a pound.

For lead, the price was about 60 cents per pound in early 2006. Last month, it cost around $1.10 a pound.

“In 2006, the market fell apart,“ The Gun Shop owner George Petronis said. “Suddenly, prices were skyrocketing.“

Petronis tells his mostly law enforcement customers to buy ammunition six months in advance because of the time lag to get bullets from manufacturers. A couple of years ago, the maximum wait was 30 days.

Law enforcement officials have noticed the rising prices and lack of supply.

“We did scale back a little bit based on the shortage of the ammunition,“ said Corp. James Shelhorse, public information officer for the Ashland Police Department.

The 30-officer department qualified six months ago, meaning that officers worked through four different target courses, shooting about 180 bullets each, the minimum required. In the past, officers would shoot about 50 percent more, he said.

“Just because you don’t fire the same amount of rounds doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t doing the same amount of training,“ Shelhorse said. “There are lots of other different types of training that we can do.“

Like Ashland’s, police departments in Hopewell, Henrico County, and Colonial Heights have a stockpile of bullets. A Richmond police spokeswoman said the price increase hasn’t had any bearing on operations, but declined to provide further details.

Colonial Heights, which buys about 20,000 rounds of ammunition each year, orders up to six months in advance to be sure the department has enough, Capt. Wayne Newsome said.

Federal government requests trump all others, and those demands have also been rising.

The Defense Department demand for small-caliber ammunition increased 145 percent to 1.79 billion bullets between 2000 and 2005, a Government Accountability Office report showed.

“Iraq is the top priority first,“ said Larry Melvin, purchasing agent and risk manager for Colonial Heights. “After they fill that demand, everybody else gets what’s left.“

On occasion, law-enforcement agencies ask Dominion Shooting Range for a break on ammunition pricing if they buy in bulk, Thompson said.

The Ebys have taken note of the escalating prices.

Though they have enjoyed the hobby for a short time, they are considering buying the materials so they can make their own cartridges.

Theirs is no novel idea.

Sales of reloading components that allow people to make their own cartridges have increased about 20 percent in two years at Green Top, Hopkins said.

Hunters also may feel the pricing pinch.

Skeet shooters who target clay pigeons likely are paying more since they shoot more rounds than sport hunters, said William W. “Tex” Sadler, president of the Virginia Deer Hunters Association.

“The bullets to me is a small part of the major problem,“ he said.

What really hits a hunter’s wallet more are the costs to operate and fuel their trucks and all-terrain vehicles to get to a site.

But that could lead to hunters buying less ammunition.

“The guys that would normally buy five boxes of buckshot will buy two,“ said Gray Johnson, manager of the sporting goods store DeGoff’s Inc. on Mechanicsville Turnpike in Hanover.