Tag Archives: ammo

Sighting in

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I have a couple 9mm ARs. One is the Angstadt Arms version, which I recommend, and the other is the KE Arms version that uses the polymer lower receiver/stock combo. Both have their advantages…the KE arms is very, very light. The Angstadt has a last-shot hold open.

I had picked up a second Trijicon MRO last week and needed to get it sighted in for the KE Arms gun, so thats what I did today. Once dialed in, it was quite easy to chew the center out of the target dots. It’s a handy little carbine that shares magazines and ammo with my Glocks.

Every single time I post about pistol caliber carbines it invariably leads to “if youre going to carry a carbine why wouldnt you carry it in a carbine caliber” or “pistol caliber carbines are stupid” discussions in comments. Every single time. So, for the sake of my sanity and to save everyone some time, lets hit the search function and just go reread the older arguments and explanations.

Speaking of 9mm. I was flipping around some blogs and came across this picture:

My current carry ammo is the Speer Gold Dot. People I have talked to who would be ‘in the know’ say that it is the pellet of choice for people who have to deal with things that have language skills. I had a disappointing experience with HydraShocks once and, while recognizing it may have just been a fluke, I have been adamant about not using them. I think my nightstand gun still has Black Talons in it, which clearly shows how long its been since I rotated my ammo out of that particular gun. My ‘house gun’, the MP5SD clone, uses Hornady subsonic hollowpoints. I usually prefer 124 gr. in my unsupressed guns. Even FMJ will ‘do the job’ as long as ‘you hit them in the right spot’, but thats a rather stupid argument. A baseball bat will ‘do the job’ if you just ‘hit them in the right spot’, but I can tell you with experience under my belt that in the real world you don’t always get the luxury of setting up your shot to be perfect. Sometimes you gotta be the first with the most and when that happens youre gonna want a little bit of extra for that ‘margin of error’. Could you go elk hunting with a .22 Mag? Absolutely. Is it a good idea? Definitely not. Sure, a perfect shot in the perfect spot with the .22 Mag will drop an elk, but you don’t always get the perfect….and when that happens you want to have extra mass, extra speed, extra power on your side to make up for less-than-perfect placement.

Life isn’t perfect. Buy the hollowpoints.

D’oh Canaduh

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Minding my own business. not (purposefully) hurting anyone, and B. sends me a text asking if I would be interested in this:


Well, geez, man….I don’t know. I gotta figure out what it is first. Alright Google…show me what you got. “1305 21 102 8445-0004 7.62mm” returns a few images, including this one:

Hmm..Appears to be Canadian 51’st State-ish. Interesting because if it was from Canuckistan, shouldn’t all those markings be in French also? Or, maybe this stuff predates that bilingual nonsense.

I usually am hesitant to purchase this sort of thing because you never know what storage conditions this stuff was in. However, sometimes its a risk worth taking.. especially if the price is right. So, I made an offer and I’ll pick this stuff up later.

By the way, the .30-06 ammo I picked up in the above-mentioned post was made in 1959 by FN and had been stored sealed in those nice .30 cal cans for almost 60 years. And it all shot flawlessly, and, as I recall, virtually all the tracers lit up. This simply confirms that quality made ammo, packed and stored well, will last indefinitely.

I still have several battlepacks of 7.62×51 sitting on the shelf, so this will be a nice addition. I’ll need to see if there’s anymore where this case came from.

 

Ammo older than me

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Went to the range today to, among other things, function test the GP100 I picked up the other week. I brought along some of my usual .357 ammo, but I also had a dog’s lunch of .38 Special that had been cluttering up my shelf for a while. It was a mix of factory ammo, including tracers, going back quite a ways. None of it was newer than the 1990’s and some of it, like the tracers, were well past 50 years old. (Peters went defunct just after WW2)

How’d they shoot? Well, I’d like to say it all shot fine but that’s not true. I had two failures due to light primer strikes. Both on the same brand/headstamp. I think what happened there was that the primers were seated a bit high. Both fired on the second strike. Everything else shot fine. And, yes, the tracers lit up…not 100%, but most of them. The ammo, however, did function and the bullets went downrange which is the important part.

I bring this up because there is often the question of ‘how long is ammo good for’ or ‘how long will ammo last’. In addition to today’s episode, I’ve shot stuff a hundred years old that fired no problem. Heck, I had a buncha 1950’s vintage FN .30-06 ammo a few years back that fired perfectly. The answer to the question of how long ammo will last (and by ‘last’ we mean how long will ammo perform properly) is, basicaly, forever IF stored properly…in an airtight, moisture proof container, like an ammo can.

Now, having said that, do you know where the not-optimum storage place for ammo is? Your gun. The ammo you carry around in your gun on a day-to-day basis is exposed to elements, moisture from your body, and a few other environmental factors. And it will still work just fine years down the road. However…there is no point in taking chances so I personally fire off my carry ammo every so often and replace it. Usually annually, but Im kind of a paranoid that way. You can probably swap it out every other year and be just fine. For me, though, I swap it out every year.

So there you have it…stored properly ammo, in this case some .38 Special, will last a lifetime…easily. Class dismissed.

9mm haul

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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.

Followup – Article – An AR-15 ammunition factory built to supply the military shifted to commercial sales and is now tied to more than a dozen mass shootings

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An agreement between the Army and one of the nation’s largest ammunition manufacturers is receiving new scrutiny because of a little-known provision allowing a government facility to produce hundreds of millions of rounds for the retail market.

Over more than a decade, contracts between the Pentagon and a series of private companies have permitted an Army site, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, to become one of the world’s largest commercial suppliers of cartridges for AR-15-style guns.

The usual statements, from the usual people, about the usual ‘solution’. The free market abhors a vacuum, and while any departure from the 5.56 ammo market will eventually be filled it would be unreasonable to not expect economic law to occur in the short term: when supply is low and demand is high, prices go…up.

No one has enough ammo. More is, by and large, always better. Unless you’re swimming or on fire you cannot have too much ammo. The savvy survivalist, if they don’t already have a goodly amount of the stuff, should take this as a warning that there may be some changes coming up in the market and prepare accordingly.

Ok, sure, why not….

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Minding my own business, I walk into the shop and ask my buddy how he’s doing. “Just the guy I wanted to see”, he says as he plops two cardboard boxes on the counter. “I just got these over the counter. Three hundred bucks. If you don’t want it, it goes out on the shelf for more than that.”

Ok, so I look through it….full boxes, factory ammo, of 9mm, .45 ACP, .30-06, .22, and one lonely box of .444 Marlin. Did some math in my head annnnnd….

“Okay.”

Funny thing is, I don’t even have a .30-06. And I own exactly one pistol in .45 AARP and i never shoot it. But…for the price it seemd like a reasonable deal, And I can always sell it off for about twice what I paid.

The .22 ammo will go on my ‘range ammo’ shelf, and I’ll probably squirrel away the 9mm ammo somewhere. I suppose I should get a .30-06 at some point for the same reason everyone should have a .22 rifle – the ammo is pretty much everywhere.

So…thats what $300 gets you in todays market.

The new economics of ammo

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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.

PMC “Battle Packs”

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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:

Those vinyl pouches? Battle packs.

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 Battle Packs

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’.

PSA goes into the ammo biz?

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So this came across one of the social media platforms and someone sent it to me:

Be nice if it was true, but who can say? A good question might be “Why would some Euro ammo maker team up with PSA when they could just bring their manufactory over and make ammo without PSA’s help?” Well, a good answer might be that PSA is taking some of the financial risk in exchange for something like exclusive distributor rights and, of course, they already have a network of dealers and wholesalers. Or this might all be BS. But the notion that you can make 5.45 and 7.62×39 as cheaply in this country  seems terribly unlikely. Unions,  higher material costs, greater regulatory processes, etc, will all conspire to make US-made steel-case AK ammo as expensive as Hornady/Rem/Win 7.62AK. But…mondo props for taking a chance.

The free market, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The only question is if it’ll work.

I have cases of 7.62×39 in the Deep Sleep but it was never a primary or even secondary choice. Until someone circumvents Empty Shelves Joe’s import ban, I’ll just stick to my .223 stuff. This is a good example, though, of things to consider when picking a caliber. With virtually no domestic 7.62×39 production in any meaningful quantity, you’re pretty much relegated to imports. And relying on unreliable imports is a recipe for fail.