Ummm ... dang it, where did I put my crystal ball! ;-)

I believe it should catch up by September.

For the first time since Janurary I saw, and bought .22lr ammo at gander mountain. .223 ammo was there also, but at $22 a box! I'll wait til the price drops. I got a 9mm from my dad for my b-day a few weeks ago....no sign of 9mm ammo yet....

I'd say sometime after 2022. The Republican leadership seems to be dedicated to a platform that most Americans wont support no matter how arrogant and corrupt Obama is. I'm hoping I'm wrong but unless Boener, McConnel, etc. wake up and get back to the American people we are going to see 8 years of Queen Hillary or someone like her. You may be worried more about a shortage of slingshot pebbles before we see a Republican in the Whitehouse unless some of the red tie wearing crew sees reality.

allegnmtn,
I think you hit the nail on the head - people better wise up when they vote in 2014. I think it is going to take all the conservatives and independents and conservative democrats to unite and vote in harmony in order to defeat the 47%. All the various single issue groups need to take a deep breath and hold their nose and vote as a block if the progressives are going to be defeated. If the progressives win, it will be the end of the United States as we know it and hello to the United Socialist States of America.

Don't blame the ammo shortages on the government. It is the ammunition companies that aren't producing enough ammo. Basic economics say that something is going wrong here, and it's not the fault of the government. Think about it. There is basically a limitless amount of ammunition that any company can make, assuming the market will bare it. The market can bare a lot more ammo than is being produced right now. Saying that the companies are stepping up production to meet market demands is most likely false, because we would already be able to buy ammo by now. How long could offset be on stepping up production? It could not be more than 5 or 6 months, and it's been considerably longer than that.

The bottom line is that it's not any governments' fault for the ammo shortages, (sure they may have kicked off the buying spree), but it's the ammunition manufacturers that are neglecting the market's demands. If you're going to be angry with the government, it shouldn't be about this.

Bingo, WAM. Blaming it on the producers is silly. Why should they go to the expense of ramping up their production simply to satisfy some bubble that's going to burst at any time? Then the demand will sag to nothing and the companies will be stuck trying to pay for a bunch of expansion they don't need. If that happens, you never will see prices go down again! Hopefully many of the producers are following Walmart's lead and avoiding contributing to the disaster. Which would be their own disaster if they wound up stuck with a ton of overpriced inventory after the panic subsides.

I went to get my hunting license last night and they had 9mm at Gander Mountain. Late in the day too, first time in months. Probably 2 dozen boxes of Rem UMC for $15.99/50 rounds. That's 0.32 cents / round. More than the 0.21 cents / round 6-7 months ago, but not as bad as a lot of places. Plus don't need to pay shipping & handling. Noticed .223 as well.

I do not believe it is the manufacturer's, from what I have been able to look into they are maxed out on production, and are hesitant to increase their capacity, when this bubble bursts, then there will be too much available. these companies like steady growth, not erratic unpredictable up and down shifts, it is very expensive to increase/decrease production lines. The media and ourselves are to blame,; the media for hyping up all of the cr@p from Obama to crazy hoarders, and our selves for, well, hoarding.
I know of a lot of shooters that form "teams" that hit all of the stores in the area every day to snatch up what ever comes in, and that creates an artificial demand. I am not ignoring the government agencies that are buying up certain calibers, but they are not buying .22lr, that is on our shoulders.

A friend outside of Atlanta told me he got a brick of .22lr today - $42.

Amflyer, here's the problem with the back order idea. The store winds up with tens of thousands of back orders that it has to fill after the bubble bursts when prices drop again. But they are contracted by the back order to buy and sell them at the inflated prices. Of course, the customers don't want to pay that price anymore but more importantly most of them probably don't see any gain in hoarding any longer either. So they simply don't pick up the orders. Oops! Store winds up with a warehouse full of ammo it can't get rid of. That'll put em out of business in a hurry! It might be a bit different if the stores took payment for the back orders when they were made but no one ever does that. Hard to make someone pay for something they aren't getting. What happens if the store goes under before the orders come in? Frankly, even if the vendors did make customers pay up front for placing a back order, I'm sure few people would place back orders during the panic anyway knowing that the price is liable to come down before the order comes in. Maybe you would pay to place a back order under those conditions but I wouldn't.