I get all sorts of emails across my monitor from various dealers and distributors having sales of this and that. Right now, it appears $0.235 is the new floor for major manufactured 9mm ammo. More than a few vendors are selling Rem or CCI 115 ball at this price. Some are including shipping. I pointed this out to a buddy of mine who then ordered up 30 cases (30,000 rounds) for his shop.

Now, ‘for his shop’ is misleading because when his friends and other hangers-on found out about it, it became “hey can I get a case or two at that price?”. As a result, out of that 30 cases, 22 of them are going to friends and associates…only eight will actually go on the shelves.

I, being nobody’s fool, took three.

The preponomicon has a couple of line items for 9mm ammo…regular and subsonic. My goal was pretty simple…keep five thousand rounds of each on hand. Keeping true to my nature, I’ve gone a little past that. But…extremism in the form of ammo storage is no vice, and moderation in the accumulation of ammo is no virtue.

You may notice this is the first time I’ve thrown a quantifiable number out there in regard to how much ammo I think I need to keep on hand. Your mileage may vary, of course. But I don’t think the end of the world, as I anticipate it, will be one long running gun battle. I’ve got more years behind me than ahead of me at this point, and the number of rounds I’ve needed to expend, rifle and pistol, to keep myself safe can be counted on one hand. Of course, I just got through posting about we have those unforeseen disasters that come out of left field that no one ever considers but even then, it’s hard for me to find one that requires me to expend that much ammo.

Practice? Thats a different story. I reload, and I have ammo set aside for practice. But for ‘in case of emergency break glass’ ammo, I’m fine figuring 5,000 rounds, not all in one basket, should get me and the people I care about through most situations.

While I’m on the subject, when it comes time to lay back ammo for Der Tag, I always go with big-name-brand manufacturers and, if possible, keep it in the original packaging. Why? Two reasons – first, I trust Remington, Winchester, Federal, and the other big guys more than I trust Steve’s Discount Reloading or Glorious Turkmenistan Factory No. 8 when it comes to quality control. Second, on the off chance I need to resell or otherwise market that ammo, the original packaging throws more confidence into the deal for the buyer that he’s getting good ammo and not something from..well….Steve’s Discount Reloading or Glorious Turkmenistan Factory No. 8. (And, please, let’s not start that whole ‘ammo you sell/trade can come back and be used against you’ discussion. Every single thing you trade or sell can come back to be used against you…trading food feeds people who might harm you, trading medical supplies heals people who might harm you, trading fuel helps people who might harm you, etc, etc, etc.)

To the best of my knowledge, the most ammo used by one citizen in armed self-defense in a single encounter was 105 rounds by legend Harry Beckwith…a statistical outlier so far on the edge of the bell curve that you need a map and compass to find him. Even in Katrinaville (or is it Heleneville now?) I am highly doubtful anyone has had to dump more than a magazines worth of freedom seeds at anyone.

But…you do you. For me, five thousand is the ‘magic number’ for my 9mm needs, but thats a minimum…there is no maximum.

So, while some opportunistic Ferengi at the gun show was trying to get $110 for a brick of small pistol primers, it appears that even at dealer prices its around $.07 for primers. Lets run some numbers:

• Primer = $.07
• Jacketed bullet = $.13
• New brass = $.15
• Powder = $.02

Thats about $.37 per round to reload a simple 115 gr FMJ 9mm. Now, to be fair, if I use once-fired brass the price drops to $0.22 each. But, here’s the thing, I can buy factory ammo at about $.24/round.

It’s hit the point where it is literally cheaper to buy factory ammo than to reload your own. And that isn’t because the price of factory ammo has come down, but rather because the individual components for reloading (esp primers) has gotten so ridiculous.

Well, if its  a case of pay me now or pay me later…I guess I’ll just buy factory ammo for now and spare myself the work.

There’s a reason to stockpile things, especially consumables, in large quantity and this is a good example of why.

In terms of ammo packaging, there really isn’t a lot of choice out there. Once you get past ammo that is packed in an ammo can at the factory, you really don’t see much other than the usual cardboard boxes.

Fiocchi had their ‘Canned Heat’, a pull-top can that held loose ammo (which has been adopted as packaging by a couple small outfits) but it isn’t something you find very easily. For durability and environmental protection, nothing seems to beat the ubiquitous green GI ammo can.

However…..

There is what is colloquially referred to as the ‘battle pack’. This is a heavy plastic or vinyl pouch, very similar to what MRE’s come in, that holds several boxes of ammo. The idea is that you dont have the weight or bulk of an ammo can, but you do get the environmental protection. Here’s some military ones I picked up a while back:

It’s not a bad way to store ammo for run-out-the-door use. I’d store it in an ammo can for transit between locations, but for ‘grab a rifle and pack and run out the door’ situation it’s quite handy. And you can just tuck it on a shelf somewhere and it’s pretty much good to go as long as you protect it from crush damage.

Unfortunately, this kind of packaging of ammo is usually (not always) seen only on military ammo. However, PMC has brought us this:

PMC has their own version of the battle pack, and being a curious survivalist I picked some up to examine. First off, I like PMC ammo. About thirty or forty years ago they were a somewhat unknown brand and often relegated as ‘cheap foreign ammo of dubious quality’. Nowadays, its a different story. The South Koreans live a SCUD’s launch away from some crazy North Koreans….as a result, they take their ammoand weapons manufacturing pretty seriously. I mean, technically they’re still at war since the 1950’s. I’ve been very happy with the quality of their ammo and regard it as same or better quality that Rem. or Win.

They offer their battle packs in the usual military rifle calibers and all the common pistol calibers. The packaging isn’t as durable  as, say, a steel ammo can, but they are pretty handy for packing away in a bugout bag.

I’ll probably toss a pack of this stuff in 9mm with the Ruger pistol/carbines I’ve stowed away. Sort of a ‘Post Apocalypse Party Pak’.

In case you missed the news, the Biden-figurehead administration has put the kibosh on the importation of Russian guns and ammo. On its face, it seems like a repeat of the Clinton-era Chinese gun/ammo ban.

Life Goal #267

I would imagine the smart money is creating new packaging an trucking all that Tula ammo over into some border country where it will be relabelled and imported in a grey-market fashion.

I have very few guns in 7.62×39, a pair of AK’s and a pair of SKS, and I bought my ammo a long time ago. Plus, the 7.62AK guns were never more than a tertiary level of backup for me. When the wheels fly off of civilization, it’s gonna be .223 and 9mm topping the charts.

But, it’s further evidence that things like imported ammo are ‘uncertain goods‘. Can a US manufacturer make 7.62×39 ammo? Of course they can. Can they do it cheaply to the point that it’s worth competing with the literally billions of rounds the Russians and Chinese have produced and already recovered their capital outlays on? Heck no. Thats why no US manufacturer has ever really gone heavy into 7.62AK production. As a result, American shooters became dependent on cheap imported ammo. Which is now neither cheap and nor imported.

This is not to say that having an AK or SKS or Ruger American in 7.62 is a bad idea logistically, it just means that, going forward, it’s less of a good idea.  As I said, I’ve stocked a goodly amount of 7.62, and I know people with tens of thousands of rounds of the stuff sitting in their basement, so in those cases there’s no real reason to ditch your AK. But, if you didnt have an AK, and were thinking about getting one today, you might want to rethink the ammo situation and perhaps get a .223 AK or just skip the AK and grab an AR.

Lesson to be learned: a consumable product, like ammo of a particular caliber, that is not supported domestically and is available almost only though imported channels is not something that can be considered as ‘reliably sourced’.