This week I started stocking up on various types of ammo that I had very little of . The prices don't seem to be to crazy right now. I worried that if I sit back and wait they will pass an ammo ban or some crazy tax added to it making it all but impossible to buy later on. Pistol ammo is what I can get right now so I'm buying a couple of 1,000 rnd cases of the 9mm, 40S&W and 45ACP.  Have plenty of 7.62X39 and 5.56. Have enough brass and bullets to load around 6,000 308's when I get time.

There is a little bit of hair sticking out from under your tin foil hat.

ammo ban? I mean really?

You never know what will happen in the future with new laws and how they will affect prices.

A prohibitive ammo tax is not far fetched, neither is banning lead in ammo. That greatly reduces shelf life and makes it much more expensive.

There are many thing this administration can do without even involving congress through agencies like the EPA to jack with our ammo.

I say buy it up and stack it deep, it aint gonna get any cheaper.

This is no different then any other what if's.  The world could end tomorrow,  we could get nuked, we could all turn into pink elephants.... Get the point? Get what you can afford to get & stop worrying. If anything does happen there isn't anything we can do about it

I wish I had the $ to buy ammo, but I don't.

You're making the right move IMO.  Looking at four more years of Obama and his anti gun position is scary.

I've been buying ammo on a regular basis since he was elected in 2008.  

If you're doing it now, you're starting too late. You should've done it over the summer or last year when prices were cheaper. I refuse to pay more than 30c/round for 5.56 and you'd be hard pressed to find it for under 35c/round right now.

Better late than never if you can find deals I suppose.

I didn't "panic-buy" my ammo this year. But I did want to start a small cache for when ammo gets kinda scarce (or pirces go full retard) at times. So I bought 1k each of 5.56, 9mm and .45ACP and 5,250 of .22lr, just to get the "base" started. Now I try to pick up a couple hundred extra rounds per month of 5.56 (since I shoot it the most), a box or 2 per month of 9 and 45, and grab a brick of .22 if I have to run to Wally World for a couple items.

I agree.  Buy ammo and stack it hi  .  Here in Columbus Oh. .223, 5.56, and. 308 are "flying " off  store and gun shop shelves.   Best to have more than not enough.

Amen Brother!  Buy ammo and stack it high!

just my opinion, but I'd do two things:

1. buy as much factory/store bought ammo as your wallet can afford on a month-to-month basis (the old investment "dollar cost averaging" strategy) AND

2. set up and start reloading your .308 Winny. Me––I'd load a lot of 150 gr FMJ for practice, a good deal of hunting ammo, and some "speciality" stuff (168 gr Match).

Winter is coming on, and what better hobby than reloading? Keeps you busy and increases your stash.

With the current POTUS and his wrecking crew in power, it would be mighty easy to by-pass Congress altogether and issue yet another unconstitutional Executive Order on ammo, powder, primers––whatever. Once elected to his 2nd term, POTUS need not be beholden to anybody! He really doesn't need anyone's vote/campaign contribution, since he's now "in."  Again, just my opinion, but it's going to be a very bumpy ride the next four years. Don't get me going on the economy. Suffice it to say that America is on an "unsustainable" path. I'll leave it at that; doesn't take a fertile imagination to figure out where our economy is headed.

I am an old-timer (God has given me 65+ years so far) and believe it or not a few years ago, Korean M2 Ball was selling for .10 a round. As I recall, $79 for 840 rounds of bright and shiny .30/06 with a 150 gr FMJ and they packed 'em 20 rd boxes in a .30 cal Army ammo can with a rubber lid free of charge! Everyone laughed at me; called me a fool; a dope, because I raided my 401-K to buy 1,000s of these. Nobody's laughing anymore now.

...well, my 401-K now is a 201-K, and my cans of M2 Ball are worth...well, try and buy some today and see what the price is. Point being: ammo has gotten to be a reasonable investment these days. I can't afford gold, and with silver at $32/oz, it's mighty hard to buy for the working man.

Ammo, on the other hand, is fairly easy to buy or to reload, inflation-proof, and a good investment. Worse comes to worse, the Good Lord calls me back home, and it goes to the kids and grandkids––properly stored ammo lasts many, many years. I have fired .30 Cal rounds head stamped "1919." No stuff––they all went KB! Can you imagine where those had been stored in almost 100 years? See my point?

...just saying....

I "panic purchased" many of the 550 value packs of .22 (among other calibers) when it was $12.99 per box. Now I never see it for less than $18.99 per box. And look where the prices on center-fire pistol and rifle ammo have gone in the past few years. As long as you're not over paying, go for it. I don't expect the prices to get any lower in the foreseeable future.

Remember when you could barely find ammo after the election in '98? As soon as the dems introduce their first anti-gun bill, those days may be back.

panic sheeple tin foil





youre in there somewhere



 

So what happens if "they" ban SHOOTING lead ammo, not buying or owning it?  Just throwing it out there.

Rob

I wanna buy a drum mag bad before they are outlawed!

I don't think that is silly, ammo is a great investment/ security to have.

I'm sitting at a 2,000 rounds per rifle and I still don't feel comfy with that!

come take my ammo or guns  give me liberty or give me death

Geez guys, with conversations like this, do you wonder why ammo is high right now?  Do you wonder why stuff is hard to find?  I've lived through 94', and 08' and now this.  I hate to tell you, but ammo will go back down.  Back to where is was a year ago at least.  M193 could be had for $270 per K.  Steel was $199.  We have two wars, and several conflicts going on right now, and have for years.  When Uncle Sugar is no longer purchasing hundreds of millions of rounds, what do you think will happen to the price of the commodity?  Ammo in this case will most likely go down.  The demand will fall, the production will far exceed the demand, and deals will be had.      

I have a lot of stuff, yes.  I like guns, I like ammo, I like this stuff.  I don't buy it because the boogie man will take it away from me tomorrow.  There has been NO talk of gun bans in the last 4 years.  Not of any seriousness anyway.  We control the House.  Do you really think that this is the end?  If you do, do you have food, batteries, water, toiletries, clothing, gasoline, means to cook, places to go, a plan to get there, a plan for when you get there, and a plan for how to live the rest of your hard assed life, once there?

See what I'm saying?  If this is the end, bullets will only get you so far.  I am not, repeat not, a person that thinks bad stuff could or would never happen.  I've been a fireman for 20 years, I've seen a few unbelievables take place.  I am not a sheep.  There has been more panic sector established in our own community (gun community), than has ever been brought to us by any outside force.  If we are all so concerned, how many of you have given $$$ to the NRA???  I hope every one of you!  If not, you are taking for granted the ONE force, that trully stands against the hacks that would like to see us lose some rights.  

In other words, the faster that everybody settles down, the faster that we will all see things return to normal.  L2

Yea, what L2Bravo said.  Everybody stop freaking out, it's making target shooting hard and expensive.

The 2nd Amendment is not about protecting firearms for sporting purposes.

Buy as much as you can afford until you have an adequate stash

There is NO common ammo caliber that has gotten cheaper in the past 15 years. Some new calibers have dropped somewhat from their roll out but that is just production ramp up and they are still not cheap.

Taking all surplus out of the mix, most ammunition prices have doubled in price in the past 6-8 years, making it easily the most volatile part of the shooting industry. I don't see any major price drops on the horizon, and since it's a consumable and not a durable good, [like a firearm] demand will always be there and any production drops will cause price fluctuations due to the consumable nature. There is a much larger secondary market for firearms then there is with ammunition.

In my opinion, it is never the wrong thing to buy ammo

It just occurred to me that dollar cost averaging would be a good rationale to buy ammo every month.    If you buy a case, or n boxes of ammo every month, you'll end up buying more rounds when prices are low.

It probably works better for investments in securities than ammo.  I have much more confidence in my ability to 'time" the ammo market (at least in relation to the election cycle).  Remember, the Republicans still have a majority in the house.

Ammo prices do go up and down, but if you look at the long term, the trend is up (like most commodities).  I prefer to wait for a dip and then buy in quantity.  That said, if I run low, I don't wait.  I was running low on 7.62x51 and bought a case of M118 recently.

Panic buying at unreasonable prices leads vendors to raise prices even more.  Consistent buying and demanding more reasonable prices should tend to do the opposite.

Ammunition prices have risen sharply over the last several years due to the price of the metals involved climbing substantially.  We can blame China for some of that; instead of developing their own (vast) resources, they have simply paid premium prices to get the metals their state-controlled industries need to produce products that are under-priced to low ball our manufacturers' prices.  (Bitter?  Angry?  Me?! ). I'll let the tinfoil crowd read conspiracy where "stupid market forces" are at work, but it is really just the cost of metals, driven up by China buying them at premium prices, that has made brass, lead, copper, and several other metals stupidly more expensive over the last ten years,

I need to find pellets for my Beeman before they stop making it.

Wolf .223 is around $0.16 each.  Not the best, but it works.

Digital FTW

Where the hell are you buying wolf for .16 cents a round?

My mistake, it is $0.23/round at  Widener's.

www.ammoseek.com

I just bought "some" but perhaps not enough.  We should be safe for at least 2 years though......plenty more time to decide and stock up before the mid-terms in 2014.

Ammo is meant to be bought, otherwise they wouldn't be selling it.

With Obama getting reelected we can expect the Gov't to keep printing money to keep up with deficit spending. Inflation is not going away and it will drive up the price of ammo. I don't know that I would go out and buy M855 at $450/1k but it would not surprise me if 400-425/1k was the going rate a year from now after the latest Obama panic subsides. That is assuming there is no legislation passed or EPA regs that cause the prices to soar.

I think the difference between then and now is that back then there were a a few liberals in the democrat party; now, there are no democrats in the democrat party because it largely comprised of anti-American, pro-socialism psychopaths. Moreover, we now have a "president" with a solid history of anti-Constitutionalism.

Reid and Pelosi have already floated the idea of a 600% tax on certain types of ammunition.

What is even sadder is that price could have bought about 2000 rounds of brass cased 7.62x51 [.308] just a few short years ago.

Yeah, that isn't the only disappointing fact in America right now.  I'm with you guys.  Sometimes I wish I was born earlier so I could have enjoyed my hobbies for a lengthier period of time before things started to get screwy.

I was only driving for a short period of time when gas was in the ~$2/gal range.  Figures, both of my favorite things are getting more expensive to operate on a neverending basis.

But we all feel the pain, we must stick together.

Yes. You are panic buying and YOU are the reason that prices increase in excess of inflation and fuel costs. Thank you for making it harder on all of us.

The summer that I went off to basic training, people were freaking out cause gas was hitting over $1. Diesel was $.50-.60 when I was in HS. Now that I drive a diesel, I would KILL for those prices.

+1

So he says he has very little pistol ammo, and you say he should not buy any so other people can buy it cheaper? That he should not stock up like thousands of other people here are doing? Bet you have your stash tho... right?

Cook county Illinois ( where our Glorious Leader is from), just attempted to impose a "violence tax" of 5 cents per round!!! They were dead serious. Imagine a $25 tax on top of 8.75 percent for a brick of ..22s. The tax lost out to a flat $25 tax on any firearm sold in the county. They want all guns and ammo out of Cook County, these are POTUS's friends and backers. I handload and have a nice stockpile of components.

I think that they were meaning a plural "you".  Not this one guy, who is freaking out.  This is the type of shit that I was trying to gently convey, in my earlier post.  

As for the 600% tax.  Yes, I am aware of the stupidity that they have tried to pass the fuck off on us.  There were also "propositions" for serial numbered ammo.  Im not going to say never, but there are always going to be the fucking idiots that want some shit like this.  

As for Cook county.  Fuck those idiots, and Fuck their pal too.  

Again, what a few posts up wrote.  This is not, repeat NOT the devaluation of the dollar.  This is NOT, the sign of things to come.  This is simply fucking panic sector, being ratcheted up, by the communication of the internet, and a buch of people talking about how "we are going to lose out guns, our ammo is going to be $50 a shot, the UN soliers are going to come and take my stuff away."  This is what the ammo problem is right now.  L2  

No. I'm saying that the fact that he admitted in the OP that the reason he is buying is because of fear of future legislation is the very definition of panic buying. He is buying what he wouldn't otherwise buy and in greater quantity just because he is worried he won't be able to later.

I do have a very modest "stash" and I do continue to buy ammunition and components but in no greater quantity than I would otherwise. I'm not against people stocking up, but it does bother me when everybody goes all Chicken Little at the same time because that makes everything more expensive for everyone.

Keep buying.

I live in Indiana but unfortunately I live only about 1 mile from the state line with Cook County, IL.



That place is a looney-land.



Northwest Indiana is pretty much liberal as it extends off of the chicago suburbs.  Plenty of ghetto and FSA to go around in this area.  We're surrounded by Gary, Hammond, Lansing, etc......the ghetto dream.

Am I panic buying or being wise?  

Looking at current prices I realize that all the KK of ammo I bought online before Nov 6 was "being wise".
When I go to local Walmart stores now and clean them from any leftovers of federal 100rds bulk boxes of 223 @ $36 per box - its a "panic buying"

I wish my walmart had those boxes. thats what I love to shoot.

I just checked and my local wally is in-stock. Need to check in-store price tomorrow and if its still same $36 I'll get 5 more boxes.
Federal Bulk 525 .22 are gone 50 miles around me. Those green cans with federal 5.56 are gone too.

Inflation has been at record lows since November 2008, and has only gone over 3.5% since then during the period May-October 2011, compared to an average inflation rate in 2008 (the whole year) of 3.85%.  In other words,inflation has not "skyrocketed" during the Obama presidency.  Credit the Great Recession for that, as 2009 had a staggering average rate of NEGATIVE 0.35%.  (See InflationData.com for the numbers.

Instead, let's go back and blame the Chinese for jacking up metals prices, greedy bastard "mortgage brokers" who cheated not only their customers but you and me as well, and the royal jackass that invented "mortgage bed derivatives" for the current wage and price situation.

I agree that a lot of people are going to panic and pay stupidly hi prices because their tinfoil buddies tell them that jackbooted Democrats are going to come around and confiscate their guns, but I seriously believe that whatever his ideals, the president has a lot more important fish to fry for the next 4 years than floating some sort of new gun restriction that has no real support in either house of Congress.

Quite honestly, I don't think that "price index" is based on what most people buy because inflation has raised the cost of most of the foods, gas, [NG is an exception] and goods that I buy. [Electronics are different, those have seen some pretty good drops] Vehicles...............huge price hikes on new ones..................

Buy as much as you can. Never hurts anything!

blame metals prices for many of those rises, not inflation.  Add in fuel prices set by speculators instead of the market, and you pretty much cover thr price changes you're crediting to inflation.  Your dollar buys almost as much of most things, but things that have been artificially increased in price (gouged in some cases) are exceptions, not part of inflation.

GHPorter is obviously an educated man.  Now I know I hate him for sure!  LMAO