Lake City is one of the biggest manufacturers of AR-15 ammo in the US. I have a few thousand rounds of their 5.56 stashed away here. It’s all over my gun circles that they just announced a total, immediate stop to all civilians sales of AR ammo. It’s all military orders, now.
Lake City is 30% of the civilian AR ammo market. Prices are gonna go totally bonkers. Here’s a bit of coverage of the move.
stapledefense.com/lake-city-plant-commercial-contracts/
To add a bit more context for the non-gun people, 5.56 NATO is the standard service rifle round for NATO, and it’s also what pretty much all of our allies use in every theater, from Israel to Japan. It will be interesting to watch what happens in the 9mm market, next and this plant is federally owned (privately operated), so this move made me think maybe fedgov thinks it needs 100% of the output in order to stockpile for some upcoming major war.
Also to note, a hornady ammo plant recently exploded so this will not help either.
h/t 1776 2.0