Quote History Originally Posted By ServusVeritatis:
This should be an eye opener for everyone thinking the prices were going to drop. It’s US made but at .45 per round for steel case.
Imported Belom, Serbian Igman, and Hungarian MFS all brass case reloadable is .42-.44 shipped per round.
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Ammo is like oil, in that political pressures and wars affect it, not just production and material costs. Adding more to the commercial market will lower prices, but it won't happen overnight, it will take six months to a year, maybe longer. All of the initial purchasers will have to fill their stocks first, until such time as it takes for the market to get saturated, where the ammo is sitting on shelves and not moving.
Then, the next step in the price decrease, will come when the war in Ukraine is over, and any nations that still use 7.63x39 and 5.45x39 have their orders filled. There will be a buildup in militaries surrounding Russia. Then that when the foreign ammo starts being imported again, you'll see another, larger price drop.
Lastly, US politics. If we get a Republican president and control the house or the senate, we'll see a relaxation in the attacks on the firearms industry in taxes and regulations. That, barring any more major wars with nations that use Russian calibers, will see another price drop, and we can see normalization of cost for a few years. We might get steel cased down in the .27c to .30c realm.
Here's the thing. I'll buy 1,000 rds of the steel, but I'm setting up to load brass cased 7.62x39 again for HD/ SHTF. The old Winchester 123gr hunting bullets were excellent and very accurate when a good load development was done. You can load for about 30% of the cost of factory ammo, even at today's component costs.