The truth that ammunition demand is linked to current social and political events is one that gun owners need to acknowledge, but not in a reactive way. Building a strategy to avoid panic-buying is the best way to ensure you have ammo for everything you need. Here are a few ways to prevent yourself from ever needing to panic-buy.
Simple is Best
Start by outlining your needs. Is there ammunition you’d like to have more of? What do you want on hand: ammo for personal defense, food security/hunting, plinking or competition and recreation?
Next, decide when to start buying. The simplest answer to, “When do I buy?” is literally, “Buy right now.” This means do not wait until there is a panic.
Today—April 13, 2026—is a good time to buy. Prices are about as low as they will be; there is nothing crazy going on (shortages or artificial demands). Over the last four years, prices have been coming down, however, with changes to the U.S. tariff policies and global demand, material costs are rising (e.g., China limiting exports of nitrocellulose used to produce gunpowder). There are reasons you are reading online projections that prices will be rising in the coming years. The political events unfolding around us (wars underway in Ukraine and the Middle East) are going to drive up costs.
During 2020 and the Covid-era panic, ammo quickly became scarce. People panic bought—not just ammo, but the guns for it. During the years 2020-2025, 26.2 million Americans became first-time gun owners. People were unsettled by what was happening in the world and were looking for a means to protect themselves and their families. Millions settled on firearms as that means of protection. But often the restriction on what they bought was not, “What firearm do I want?” but rather, “What firearm can I buy ammunition for?” Firearms were available for purchase, but often there was no ammo for them. This led to customers walking into a gun shop and asking, “What gun do you have ammo for that I can buy and take home?” We know a gun store clerk in Virginia who said people were that desperate, and it was shocking.
That recent period was probably the most extreme that any of us have experienced in the United States in our lifetimes. Here are some strategies to avoid being “that person” buying in a panic.
Think Ahead (An Ounce of Prevention)
If you are reading this, you’re probably a gun owner with at least some amount of ammunition stored for your personal use. You probably will not be one of the people in the next panic season, buying whatever they can get.
The way that a panic-buying scenario affects most of the people who already have guns and ammo is that it drives the demand up so high that prices rise to artificially high levels. It also puts such a demand on what is available that merchants can sell at very inflated prices. Whether you label it panic-buying or fear-buying, the worry is a powerful sales tool.
And in reality, it might be three or four years until you can again get certain types of ammunition that used to be reasonably priced and readily available.
It’s safe to say that the .22 ammo shortage that went on for a while during/through the pandemic, was almost like buying futures on gas driving the gas prices up. People who went to their local Walmart every day and bought all the ,22 ammo, essentially drove up the price and lowered the availability of ammunition for everybody—artificially. When people saw this happening, it increased the incentive for other people to do the same thing and a snowball effect ensued. Additionally, millions of people now had .22s that never had the need to buy ammo before.
This is similar to the GPU shortages that came about because of supply chain issues in 2020 as well as the booming popularity of cryptocurrencies. People were either scalping them en masse, creating entire networks of people to buy them and front the cash, and then selling them at sometimes more than double the original cost. You get the idea.
Dollar Cost Averaging, or Round Cost Averaging
Dollar cost averaging, a simple strategy for investing, is applicable to buying ammo.
If you charted ammo purchases at $0.15 - $0.25 cents per round over a long period and bought enough at a low price, you’d average out your purchases of fewer rounds at higher prices. But this is a long-term, set aside X$ per quarter or bi-annually strategy. it could be summed up as: “buy now” as much of what amounts make sense for the current prices. Remember that ammo prices fluctuate on a very slow scale—once it gets high, it could be years before prices settle down, or at least come down from artificially high levels.
You often hear the slogan, “Invest in precious metals—buy lead“ in the 2A space. And while it’s bumper sticker material, it is still true that you will generally make money over what you spent when you invest in ammunition.
If you are stuck in a panic-buying season, look to local resources, but also online dealers. But better to invest over time and position yourself with a strong supply of the ammo that you use.
