My understanding is there is an ammo shortage right now.
I have no idea what most ammo costs during either good or bad times. The only thing I really know is that you could get 223 ammo for about $0.25 a round during good times if you shopped around but I have no idea what it costs in bad times.
What do common rounds costs during normal times and during shortages?
By common I mean 22LR, 22 magnum, 9mm, 380, 223, 357, 12 gauge buckshot, 30-06, etc things like that.
Before the last gun panic when everyone was certain that Barak Obama was going to confiscate every firearm in the country .22LR was about a penny a round or a little over 5.00 for a brick of 500. 22LR disappeared seemingly overnight and then a little later was occasionally available at vastly inflated prices. Cabela’s had bricks available on line once for 35.00 and were out of stock in less than a day. The same happened to most handgun ammunition. My local Scheels store sold out of handguns and ammunition in about two weeks. Right now Cabelas has 200 rounds of 22LR listed for 16.99 or 8 times the price from before 01.20.2009.
Bud’s Guns is a pretty cheap place to buy guns and ammo and helpful for checking prices for questions like this. They’ve got 357 at $0.90 per round and some really terrible 308 for $0.52. Back when I started shooting in the late 90s .308 was about $0.1/round. I don’t remember 357 prices for comparison.
I found these charts online. I don’t know how accurate they are. They only go from 2007 to 2013 but it should give you an idea of the variability in pricing.
Handgun:
Rifle:
I could buy remanufactured (but decent quality) 9mm for around $0.23 a round just last December. Remanufactured ammo is pretty much unavailable now. Brand new 9mm ammo was about $0.40 per round at the same time. You would be lucky to find it for $0.90 per round now.