Hoarding

Tam over at Bikes & Boomsticks has some pretty harsh comments for those stocking up and resulting in, erm, seasonal shortages on ammunition and such.

Then why in the name of Mars Pater did you wait 'til now to stock up?!?

You were around during the circus that was gun shows after Election '08 and you're just now waiting to stock up on magazines and buy that extra AR? You experienced the Big Ammo Drought and you've allowed your reserves to drop so low that you feel compelled to go make a panic purchase? We all know what this does to prices and availability. We've been here before.

I just ordered up an extra case of .40 and 5.56. So I guess I'm a bit guilty. While prices are somewhat high now, I just have the feeling that prices are going to go up more before they go down again. We got into the shooting sports at the height of the last craze/shortage, so I know how bad it can be. It can be tough to stock up though after a move. We hauled as much ammo as possible but the car was pretty packed. So we've been rebuilding. We wanted to wait for our finances to stabilize after moving before dropping the dough on large ammo purchases.

We've also been taking classes and hitting the range occasionally. While I did get some fairly good deals from AimSurplus on 5.56 when they had it in stock, I burned through a lot at Front Sight. Likewise, Heather went through a fair amount of .40 SW at 4-day pistol. It is tough to stockpile when there's a substantial flow going out of storage.

Still, we have managed to establish a spare case of .40, 1.5 cases of 5.56 (a mix of surplus M197 and SS109), two spare bricks of .22, a dozen boxes of 30-06, and a spare set of mags worth of premium ammo. Whenever we go shooting it does not touch the reserves. We have enough on hand to go to a few good classes, do plenty of recreational shooting, etc without touching the reserve. I have a lot less in reserve for the less commonly used calibers but still, I have enough for immediate needs without having to go shopping. It is really nice to just hop out to the ammo storage, break open an ammo can, and pull out a few boxes for the range.

We also have a decent reserve of all of our hunting ammo, and I feel comfortable that I could put together a hunting trip for any sort of North American game without having to go shopping for ammo.

I have been better about stocking up on mags. At one point we sat down and ordered a dozen M&P mags or so, so I'd say we have around 20+ mags. I've also been picking up a PMAG or two for the AR every time I do a web order and now have a pretty good stock, as well as a decent stock of assorted GI and thermold mags. I've got a few AK mags and also bought two dozen G3 mags at $2 each. I don't have a G3 but hey, at some point I might pick up an AR-10 or a G3. At $2 each why not get a few?

I'm getting to the point where I think you're serious about shooting if you have a deeper ammo locker than gun safe.