I ordered 3600 rounds of M193 only b/c it is too cheap to pass up.
Ideally, I would like to get a lot more of it for my lifetime supply of recreational shooting, as I've never seen brass 5.56 ammo priced so low before.
.... I wonder if it could be even cheaper in the future...

I know, I’m tempted to buy more of the M193...just don’t know if I can justify it right now...and, I wonder what 2018 Thanksgiving and Christmas prices will be like on ammo at this rate???

The deal is still going on too. I'm tempted to order more. I was wondering the same on prices, I'm more active with .22lr and there is a massive supply there now considering what it was looking like 3-4 years ago. It seems that supply is finally catching up with demand?

I predominately stock M193, mostly for logistical reasons. I like retro rifles & carbines, and the 1/12 barrels don't do M855. M193 I can use in every 5.56 rifle I have with no issues.

Contrary to some of the rumors, M193 works just fine out of 1/7 barrels. Prior to deploying to Afghanistan in 2002 with the 82nd, we actually did zero/qual with M193 ammo. Out to 300M, there were no accuracy problems. Everyone was kinda like "this must be the deployment ammo", which of course didn't happen.

I do keep some M855 on hand, however. I used to use it for midrange practice ammo(and I did shoot it in some CMP type shooting clinics), and general plinking. It seems like it does better than M193 if you're shooting at 400+, in terms of accuracy anyway. Of course, it's not as good as the 75 & 77 gr loads, but it's also a lot less expensive usually. But then with the attempt to ban it, I've stopped doing that for now. What I intend to do, is handload some for the same purpose.

The 75/77gr stuff I keep some of on hand for a couple particular rifles, specifically match rifles. I really should put away some more of this, as I don't have as much of it as I'd like.

I handload my practice/training ammo, and stock the factory loaded(and sealed) ammo for a rainy day. With my handloads, I've basically cloned the factory stuff I'm keeping(which is not particularly difficult).

Since there has been some discussion about the M855A1 ammo, I have a few thoughts about it I'll share here. I have some friends still on active duty, who are obviously using the stuff, and they pass on to me the various memorandums about it and whatever stuff they've seen with it. In it's current state, I don't think we'll be seeing very much if any being sold on the "open market"(as loaded ammo anyway). There have been enough problems with it in military service that I don't think they'll want the liability. It's pretty hot ammo, and this has led to some catastrophic failures in issued weapons. Also, magazine selection will be really important should you get any quantity of it. The exposed steel tip has apparently been beating up weapons in fairly short order. So the Army has actually started issuing new magazines designed to be M855A1 compatible, identifiable by a blue follower. I have also heard that the magpul M3s are good to go, but I'm not absolutely sure on that. Not that any of this matters because it's not like there's enough of it in civilian hands to cause these problems at this point. I would like to see it become available enough for me to play with it some, but I don't see that happening unless they find a way to get the performance without the high pressures they're currently at. Again, I just don't think Federal(or whoever) will want the liability.

That's interesting.  I've never been a big M855 fan, but as time has gone on, it does have some perks.  Personally once you start getting out there with distance, M855 is going to start to outshine M193.  The yaw/fragment benefit of M193 requires speed.  M193 will lose that speed faster than M855, and so it's a double damn at distance: M193 looses speed faster, and becomes less effective as well, when it's slower; two factors combining to make it less effective once you get far enough out there.

For accuracy, I've found M855 suppliers have good days and bad days.  During my initial shooting with M855, the stuff was just crap, when it comes to accuracy.  It's still not that great, I'm getting about 2.7 MOA with it, but it's not the 4+ MOA I used to see.  I have a real doubt I'd ever take it to High Power match though.  Given the choice, I'd probably still shoot quality 55 FMJ at 300, before I'd shoot 62 gr.  At 600 yards, though, I'd probably switch to M855.  Some competition ranges will even ban competitors from using 55 FMJ at 600 yards, because it's so erratic and falling so hard at 600 yards, they're worried about pit-crew safety.

Thanks for that feedback.  I remember when I first read about M855A1, and it sounded interesting, but when I read that it was all copper with a steel insert, I thought that was kind of iffy, since that pretty much doubles ammo cost.  For a military where vast (vast vast vaaaaast) majority of rounds fired are suppressive fired, that sounded expensive.  Expensive can mean less rounds - less rounds means less suppressive fire.  But then when I read what they were doing to pressure, that looked like the stupidest decision imaginable.  Military 5.56 ammunition is already loaded at the top of the pressure curve.  You have to have some room and tolerance in there for variability in things like case dimension, powder lot strength, bullet diameter variability, and weapon condition variability.  M855 is already as far as you can safely push that already.  So when I read that they were just going to push it harder, I was just floored by that.  Once you get that high, small increases have a notable increase in wear rates.  So they're basically halving gun barrel life (meaning more cost, meaning less barrels, meaning more guns being deployed have shot out barrels - so much for that super-amazing highly accurate bullet).  And yes, you're going to start seeing Kabooms.  So no surprise at all hearing your commentary on that.  But also, the bullet points are tearing up gun recievers.  Holy shit - this is a bullet that was forced on the military by politically inspired decree (no lead deposts left in the lands of people we are trying to kill), than by actually being a good idea - at all!

I know everyone is enamored by M855A1, and it has some on-paper appeal for the civilian rifleman.  But as far as I'm concerned, have at it guys - I'm not interested and don't want that dangerously loaded gun-wrecking crap in my gun.  If I want power and accuracy, I have 77 gr loads.   If I want extra penetration, I have M2AP.

Back on topic - what to stock.  The Federal 62 gr M855 from PSA for 23 cents a shot was a STEAL!  You won't be seeing that price again, I don't think. It's just an inherently more expensive bullet to make, and for them to be selling that for LESS than M193, means they are dumping it, which means that's a short-term price opportunity.  As to M193, I think that price will stay low for a while, and possible some movement for more price decrease, but very little.  I don't think you're going to see it materially cheaper than 25 cents a shot, but I don't think you're going to see a price increase to over 30 cents a shot any time in the next year or two.  All bets are off once the next Presidential election cycle ramps up.  I don't think you're going to see M855 prices any lower than right now, and I actually expect that to creep back up, once Federal/LC successfully dump off their over-stock/inventory supplier contract duration, of that bullet.  I don't know who makes that bullet and internals for LC, nor the duration of that contract.  But when that expires, M855 is probably going to shoot back up to 35-40 cents.  So in my opinion, even though I'm not the biggest fan of M855, right now is the sweet cherry spot to stock up on that round.

At that time, I had a particular lot of M855 that shot REALLY well out of a couple of rifles I had-to the tune of 1 to 2 MOA(which is obviously outstanding for M855). My M16A2 clone being one of those. The rifle club I was in at the time did some matches where you were shooting at silhouette targets(e-type) at 300 yards, which is well within even poor M855 accuracy, so I shot some of it doing that with pretty good results. And I shot some at 600 in a practice session, with decent results as well. My other rifle that liked it was something like a varminter. I could hit clay pigeons at 550 yards pretty easily using M855.

I'm not exactly a big fan of M855, given some experiences I had with it overseas. But that lot shot well enough that I would use it for certain situations like I was discussing above, since it was less expensive than typical match ammo. Unfortunately, I had a break in and they took that M16A2 clone, with about half of the M855 I had left, along with a pile of other weapons. So I kinda changed gears with most of my "match" shooting.

I honestly don't get too wrapped around the axle about terminal ballistics. Actual results on real targets vary so much that I'm not convinced there's really a good way to determine how effective ammunition is in combat use. I'm convinced it's literally more about who specifically you shoot, and where exactly you hit them than anything else. That said, I lean toward M193 in this regard. But a hit with a marginal round is still much better than a miss with an excellent round. This is why I keep some M855, and will likely continue to.

I was out of the service before regular units started using M855A1. But some good friends of mine have used it and have good things to say about it on both hard and soft targets. I think there would be pretty good reason to have some on hand, were it available. BUT, Uncle Sam really doesn't care if he burns out barrels a little faster. Whereas we out here do. Now, if they could find a powder that would enable them to get the performance without hot loading it quite so much, they'd really have something. I think it could be possible, judging from the results the guys were posting in the reloading forum-using the pulls that were available a while back. So I don't think that situation is all bad at least. I think it's kinda like APM2-it's good stuff but it's also warm enough that you probably wouldn't want to feed just anything a steady diet of it.

I'm hoping this trend toward less expensive ammo continues. We've had so much inflation of prices due to the political situation that I think we could still see some further reductions. It wasn't all that long ago that you could buy 1000 rds of Winchester white box 55gr for well under $200. I used to get it from Walmart at $7.74 for 40rds of the same. While I'm not sure we could get quite that far back down, I still think we could get a bit closer than we are. I suspect that there is a BUNCH of M855 ammo and SS109 projectiles that, since Uncle Sam doesn't want, will end up being sold to us. If the politics don't bend us over in the meantime, we might end up seeing some good times for ammo acquisition coming.

I think we are seeing the low of the market. $250 per case for M193 is going to be the new bottom.

The only reason we're seeing numbers like that is because of Federals mail in rebates. iirc, that's already ended

IMI m193 is available from Midway for 24 cents a round.   Second, the rebates were extended till the 8th, so technically still available.

I have been buying “battle packs” of Prvi Partisan (PPU) M193 because they are cheap, but also because they come in sealed bags so they will stay fresh. I keep my ammo in dry storage boxes but sealed is better than not sealed.

The recent ammo deals are just too good to pass up...
Malaysian 7.62Nato for $0.37/rd shipped and IMI M193 for $0.24/rd shipped really impacted my bank account....

the real question becomes....how much stash does a guy "need"?

we need a formula that factors in a mans age, life expectancy, number of rifles per caliber, average rounds fired per year, average disposable income for toys, space allocation by square feet....you get the point.

I don’t think most of us want to think about that.
I’m fairly young, and shot about 8000-9000rds of 223/5.56 last year...

I probably NEED 400k rounds for the next 50 years, which is $96,000 at $0.24/rd...

Looks like the Midway / IMI ship has sailed. Right now, the best I'm seeing on their website is .37 CPR for M193.

My only recent purchase was 1k of M855 from PSA. If it shoots the way I think it will, I'll use it for fairly short range "up" drills, then reload the (pretty decent) LC brass with a more useful projectile.
If I had it to do over again, I would have spent that money on IMI M193, and packed it away for long term storage.

Crimped primers. Bullet cannelure, im fine.

That's why i ended up purchasing roughly 2500 each of m193 and m855. The IMI stores well and prices were too good not to do a bigger buy.
I have roughly 2k of '14 LC headstamp american eagle ar223 from a few years ago i need to shoot before I dip into the reserves.

Although I did order 3600rds.... I feel so bad now not being able to pick up 10k of these

The American eagle rebate expired.  No reason to continue this sale when the next comparable M193 is almost 30 cents a round shipped.

I only stack good ammo deep, 24448 Gold Dots for my carbines.  M193 and M855 is for bartering.

You misinterpret. It's for our children, not us.  Stack that shit now!

Rebate is still going for 44 more minutes here!

To pick up one more of the 420 round cans of Federal M193 In the last 30 minutes, or not???

that was posted in jest dude.

same is my reply to you

Give it a few weeks. Prices will fall or other rebates will show up. The market isn't going to support $350 cases of M193.

Not sure about prices dropping below Wolf Gold though...
There are quite a few places selling WG for $280 a case shipped, which is already fairly cheap.
Steel case 223 are usually $230-240 shipped per case.

But yeah, I would definitely love to buy another batch of brass 5.56 for cheap

Yeah, it’s hard to imagine 5.56 going for lower than $.23-$.25/rd...but maybe

I bought M193 for years at 11 to 14 cents per round.  I can imagine a lot.

Holy crap!  That would be amazing.

i buy mostly wolf and 193, i have a decent stash of 855 but really dont shoot much of it.

Seems odd that the drop in prices of brass case ammo hasn't affected the price of steel case.  I would have expected Russian ammo to be selling for $150/case.

I've been watching that.  To my eye, we are pretty close to modern 2018 baseline prices, based on that, and everyone else's pricing behavior.  Indeed, there was only one company that materially dropped brass cased ammunition greatly, using a temporary rebate system.  And that was basically a military contractor who had opportunity to begin dumping volumes of M855, which is becoming phased out.

By the way, here's your copper commodity pricing chart.  See anything interesting?



Here's what it used to be, back in the day, some of which is when stocks of M193 were well under $0.20/round.



Less dramatic, but Lead is creeping up now too:


If you're waiting for $0.15/round M193, after 10 years of inflation and with 2- times higher copper commodity pricing (and raising) - good luck.

Ammo prices might fall some more, we'll see - but I doubt by much, if any.  If you didn't jump on at least some of the $0.23 M855 from Federal, ya missed the best deal of 2017, I think.

At that price, I would sell half of my gun collection and buy my life time worth of M193 with that money... no joke...

i have some stocked in 855 but my local outdoor range doesn't allow 855. So, I'm thinking I'm gonna
get some 193.

Two manufacturers, not one.

IMI had M193 for 24 cents, no rebate, which was a similar drop in price to Federal/AE after rebate.

In the finest tradition of this site, I bought both.

I’m interested in why Midway was the only site to offer IMI ammo at this price (without rebate)???  Ridiculous amount of overstock?  I didn’t see IMI that price anywhere else...

Also, why was IMI the only manufacturer to allow their ammo to be sold that cheap without rebate???

I just picked some IMI up from midway.. insane price. Cheaper than steel.

IMI already made their money from the distributor they sold it to. How much we buy it for from the final retailer makes zero difference to them

I'm sure there is a conspiracy in there somewhere.

I guess - just be careful with the Midway pricing, because they zing you on the shipping.  All in all, it's still a good deal, as IMI is better quality than the Fed XM588/193.  But they don't actually break the sub 25 cent price point - delivered.

Is this the consensus, or just your opinion?  I’m curious about this because I feel like I hear it both ways.

Buy this too and it drops the shipping to $3.49 for the whole shipment. Comes in at .2622 per round with a free knife thingy.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/971293/cold-steel-delta-dart-fixed-blade-tactical-knife-3375-spear-point-zytel-blade-zytel-handle-black

General concensus, but with backing:

Midway shipping is dirt cheap when you know how it works.  The IMI was 25.00 cents delivered.

Ordering the old steel dart along with 900 rds (2 cases of 450 each) came to 26 cents a round shipped.

I’m including the price of the dart and 6 bucks shipping.  Because I really don’t need a dart.

Still a good deal but not like the federal rebates m855 at 23c

Nothing came through for me after the “:”???

But, now you got me questioning whether I should switch out my AE or IMI...dang it

You do realize you're hand-wringing over differences that in total add up to the cost of your soda next time you fill up, and white-lab-coat detectable precision differences on ammo you're going to be using for slamming a gong at 50 feet from a 30 round mag while standing, right? Just roll with whatever is easiest to get.  They're both brass cased ammo of functionally of basically the same power and accuracy, at basically the same price.

If/when you get serious about precision - none of this ammo is what you are going to get, yet both are in high enough quality brass that you can reload to make that kind of ammo, which is what you are going to do when that time comes.

Good point...so as far at the quality of brass is concerned, no differences between the two for reloading?