HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — It was a sight you wouldn’t expect to see except on Black Friday.

Hours before the doors opened at the Bass Pro Shop in Hampton, customers wrapped around the building hoping to get a chance to buy ammunition.

“I’m a gun enthusiast and a Marine, and I love shooting, so I’m here to get some ammo,” said Alvin Mccloud, a Newport News resident waiting in line.

Chris Kepics and his Chihuahua Coco were first in line around 7 a.m. and the first with bags in tow.

“I am the proud owner of 500 rounds of 9 mm. I got a really good price on this considering how much ammo is nowadays,” Kepics said.

Shortly after the store opened, customers came out saying they were sold out.

Kepics says ammo is nearly impossible to find anywhere in the country right now. He says ever since last summer, all of the more “common types” of ammunition, like 9 mm, is incredibly scarce.

If and when it can be found, he says retailers tend to mark the price up to five or 10 times what it was pre-pandemic.

However, he says, places like the Bass Pro Shop still have reasonable prices — thus, all the people.

“9 mm can be anywhere from 89 cents to a dollar per bullet, but if you do the math on this one, I think it’s like 30 some cents a round,” explained Kepics.

One local says it was a combination of things that sparked this spike.

“Sort of a perfect storm of a bunch of different factors. You have the supply interruption, then you have the increase in demand from social unrest,” said Newport News resident Joe Hemphill.

Management at the store says they get this line every time they get a big stock back in and have many repeat customers.