One of the toughest decisions the crew at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) have likely ever made was the cancellation of this year’s Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, originally scheduled to take place January 19-22, 2021 in Las Vegas.
Industry journalists, including yours truly, enjoy the show not only because we get to handle and even try out new firearms and gear, but we can also plan a year’s worth of assignments, gun tests and reviews, say hello to old friends and shake hands with new ones. But the SHOT Show is also a lot of work for working journalists and representatives from every company exhibiting because, after all, its is a trade show, and the largest firearms industry show in the world by some estimations.
If the show were actually held, Insider would have been chatting with friends at Winchester, Federal, Hornady, Speer and Remington about the ammunition shortage and the outlook for relief this year. We would be talking with Vista Outdoor CEO and Director Christopher Metz, asking if he could elaborate and offer an update on a statement he made during the company’s quarterly earnings call in November. That’s when he said the following:
“We currently have over a year’s worth of orders for ammunition in excess of $1 billion. This is unprecedented for our company. With demand far outstripping supply and inventory levels in the channel at all-time lows, we see strong demand continuing, and this metric informs our viewpoint of what a recovery or normalization could look like. Now while I don’t intend to provide updates on this metric every quarter or even every year, I did want to provide additional context in these extraordinary circumstances to convey an underlying strength and strong foundational element to our business.”