Re. Palin's eloquence,
With gasoline prices "necessarily skyrocketing" above 4-bucks a gallon and food and clothing prices rapidly following suit, one semi-friendly Middle Eastern regime after another falling and being replaced by the moderate darlings of the Moslem Brotherhood, the size and scope of government roughly doubling in two years and the Obama justice department looking daily for new ways to regulate guns and ammo without going to congress, I would say that, "How's that hopey-changey thing workin' for ya?" may be the most eloquent questions posed since, "To be, or not to be?" I don't know about anyone else, but I've had about as much rule by Harvard professors and gifted teleprompter readers as I can stand, or afford.

Wrong citation for the beginning quotation.

http://www.potw.org/archive/potw351.html
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Depends upon your point of view. If you are thinking of having enough ammo for a yearly zero verification session and a deer or elk hunt, a hundred rounds should last most of us a lifetime. If you are talking .22 LR, which is one caliber we actually shoot, five thousand rounds is a comfortable figure, for this year at least. If you are talking ammo for competitive trapshooting, IPSC, IDPA, etc. you would count your ammo supply by the flat, not the box.

If, as some kooks like me do, you think the day will come when buying ammunition in America will be a lot more expensive and legally complex than it is now (assuming you can buy any at all), you may be planning for the lean years ahead.

And what if you are a REAL kook (like me!) and are looking for a barter item that will hold its value when money = toilet paper? Ammo has two huge advantages; it keeps almost forever, and it always does what it does. A handful of .22 LRs might get you a ten gallon can of gas, or a couple of laying hens and a rooster. A box of .30-30s might get you a pickup truck full of firewood, cut and stacked. And ammunition will also give you a small measure of security when the police and sheriff are to busy protecting their own families to care about yours. If Western Civilization DOESN'T tank (surviving the efforts of a dozen governments, including ours, that are doing their best to see that it does), you haven't wasted your money; you can still shoot the ammo up and enjoy it. Just a thought.

SUPERIOR AMMUNITION IN STURGIS,SD WILL SEND YOU A TRY PACK,LOADED WITH 5 DIFFERENT BULLETS OF YOUR CHOICE.AFTER CLEANING THEN FOULING 5 GROUPS ARE SHOT TO DETERMINE WHICH BULLET YOUR RIFLE MAY PREFER.A TRY PACK IS NOT CHEAP FOR 20 BULLETS BUT CHEAPER THAN 3 BOXES OF AMMO THAT JUST MIGHT NOT WORK.I'VE USED SUPERIOR'S PRODUCTS IN SEVERAL RIFLES OF VARIOUS CALIBERS AND WILL CONTINUE AS NEEDED.
ON ANOTHER NOTE WHEN I'M SHOOTING A 300 WIN I HAVE FOUND ABOUT 6 OR 7 LAYERS OF BUBBLE WRAP TAMES THE RECOIL NICELY.

Ok folks,was it the caps or the content?I feel like I just got my knuckles cracked with a ruler by a spinster typing teacher for being lazy.Reckon all caps is the equivalent of yelling.Please forgive me but I am hard of hearing after so many years of shooting,I find myself speaking loudly and now typing loudly.I'll try to do better.How about we all use spell check.
WAM,I'm not paid either but wish I had been for the many times I have recommended superior.

Pig Hunter:
Of course you couldn't find Sarah quoting Yeats. The only Yeats she'd quote is Rowdy, and his name is spelled Yates (or, alternatively, Clint Eastwood). I suspect our crafty blogmeister, Mr. Petzal, was just jerking us around.

You can have too much ammo???????
Or did you mean too much ammo to carry?
Personally I go out in the woods with at least 2 guns and 50 rds each as a minimum.
On hand at home I consider there to be no limit, other than what your floor can hokd up! :-)

I think many people stock up on ammo like they would do with gas if they had a large underground storage tank. I seem to have a very hard time passing up anything that is on sale as I never know if it will be unavailable the next day. I remember when I started getting in the habit of buying up 357 boxes every time I saw them. I got to the point where I had about a thousand rounds and a significant amount of money wrapped up in it. I seem to get over this though and one good, all day purge takes care of any 'old' ammo I've got laying around. It is fun to go shoot boxes and boxes of ammo and not worry about every penny that has gone down the tubes and this is easier when you have had boxes of bullets sitting on the shelf for a year or two.
One issue I have had is with shotgun sabots. I purchased a riffled shotgun a few years back thinking it would be a great brush gun. I was absolutely shocked to find out that the recommended ammo for this rifle costs between 3 and 4 dollars per round...PER ROUND!! It cost me 25 dollars just to get the stupid thing sited in. And that was without any real practice. I wanted to let my nephew use it for a starter gun and ended up passing on it because I could not see spending any more money on the ammo. At 3 dollars a shot I cannot have fun at the range, I cannot practice off hand shots, and I cannot therefore use this gun. I did stock pile this ammo for a while and now have about 40 rounds in the gun safe. 140 dollars worth. I can not get myself to use them. I will probably have them sit for another decade or so and then go shoot them off just to get rid of them.

Jim, I did a web search and couldn't find where Sarah quoted Yeats. Perhaps DEP can provide the reference, otherwise he is the one guilty of plagiarism. :-)

I believe the saying goes,"buy as much gun and glass as you can afford", so pile the ammo until it "hurts" would be suggestion.

you can never have to many bullets!!

Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote concerning the amount of whiskey one should have on hand. It goes something like this, "Even if you have too much whiskey, it is not enough."

I think the number of rounds on hand is related to the caliber and type of rifle. One hundred rounds of 338 Magnums for a bolt is about right. One hundred rounds of 5.56 for an AR rifle is not even close. For 22 rimfire, see the Twain quote above.

Gritz, I feel your pain on the shotgun sabots. I almost blew the price of a scope just getting on paper. Ouch.

Ladies and gentlemen!
There is no such thing as TOO MUCH AMMO!!
My suggestion is get as much as you can as fast as you can because if the current regime has it's way you will NOT be able to buy that way again. This not a "chicken little" issue. They would take away ALL firearms AND ammo if they could. And don't think they are not trying!
This includes sporting and self defense ammo and weapons.
The only real FREE people are the one's that can defend themselves!

Who gave Ted Ford a minus two? Sheesh guys, looks to me like a legitimate helpful tip to those who would be interested.

I'm very glad that I started reloading. Someone has rightly said, "Reloading doesn't really save you money, it just gives you the opportunity to shoot a whole lot more!!!" Continually needing / wanting more dies or gadgets keeps dollars out of my pocket and slows the process of recouping my initial investment. Nevertheless, the idea of buying retail seems really foreign to me now and any time I go shooting, I'm always ready to be done before I run out of bullets -- I get to shoot a whole lot more!

PH

Only a sophisticated Auburn grad and Petzal read Yeats....

I'm also of the school that says you can't have too much ammo. That goes for reloading components too. In the long run you will at least save some money. Just look at what ammo was in 1999 and what it costs today.

Yeats: "He stood upon that fatefull ground and cast a lethargic eye around, and said beneath his breath, "What every happens, we have got the Maxium Gun and they do not."

Lock and Load!

Moishe: How many languages do you speak? I speak nine, and no one can understand any of them.

i have around 100 rounds on hand for all my firearms except the 12 gauge and 22. the 12 gauge i have slugs, birdshot, turkey and waterfowl loads. the 22 i have the afore mentioned 5,000 round case.

Whomever gave Ted a minus one; please be a man and tell us why. His post is great; I didn't know you could buy ammo like that and makes shooting many different kinds of loads actually reasonable. I don't care for all caps; but that should not be a reason to shoot down his entry.

Five shots should give you a pretty good idea how well a particular load shoots, ten shots are better. As far as how much to buy at one time, it depends on your needs and what you are shooting. I buy lots of .223 and .22LR because it's cheap and I shoot a lot of it. I buy very few 12 Ga. Sabot Slugs, because they are expensive and I shoot as few as possible.

i think you can never have too much ammo just keep it in a safe place like buy bulk pack of sealed ammo like for the 7.62x54r or .223.

I have enough reloading supplies for about 900 or 1000 rounds for each of my high powered rifles. 1000 rounds of .45 and probably 2000 rounds of .22. 2 cases of 12 guage. I hope that is enough for a couple of years.

In the event (God forbid!) that our economy should collapse and devolve into a barter system, ammo will become a medium of exchange. Just sayin'

Buy gold?

YA'RIGHT!

AMMUNITION!

KILL IT, CLEAN IT! EAT IT!

CAN'T EAT GOLD!

How IS that hopey-changey thing workin' for ya? If it was working for me, I wouldn't be stockpiling ammo as a hedge against disaster.

I had an uncle that said; "you treat ammo and guns like you do sex, you get as much as you can as often as you can".

Hey, I should have checked my math. .30 cents each

After months of not being able to find a particular cartridge in stock anywhere, I may be victim to a hoarder's mentality and really load up on it if I ever see it in stock again.

With the way things are going in the world these days ammunition and food that can be stored long term are the most important assets a man can possess. I believe it is incumbent upon the prudent man to possess as many rounds of ammunition he can afford to buy with several uses being considered. Hollow points and soft points are for getting food and eliminating soft threats. Full metal jackets are for eliminating hard threats. 5.56 x 45 and 7.62 x 39 are for out to a couple hundred yards, 300 Weatherby Mag or 7mm Remington Mag are for reaching out to touch a threat. A 338 Lapua Mag would be very nice but way expensive to acquire all that would be necessary to be adequate. Reloading equipment and components are crucial. I believe 22lr inventory should be 5000 or more. 5.56x45 and 7.62x39 at least 2000 each. All other center fire rifles at least 500 rounds each. All pistol calibers 1000 rounds each. I just won an auction for 500 rounds of 218 bee. I own both a rifle and pistol chambered for it and I spent a total of eight hours on the internet trying to find four or five hundred rounds of ammo or unprimed cases. I finally spent three hours straight and went through fifty or so pages of search results to find three organizations who had some. One has 105 rounds of old reloads that look questionable. One claims they have some Win Super X but I doubt it. The third I won. That puts me over 1000 rounds and I reload. I've never seen anything so "out of stock". I understand that the 218 bee is a shadow dancer but I believe it may be harbinger of things to come. And I can put 3 inside two inches at 100 yards with my pistol. It does have a 12 inch barrel.

And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Luke 12:15-22

@ jamesti & PigHunter: Stored ammo cooking off may not be as dangerous as ammo in a weapon, but it very well may cause the fire department to let your place burn down. I know someone whose house burnt down because the fire department wouldn't go near it until the ammo inside quit going off.
That doesn't stop us from keeping a "healthy supply" of ammo on hand. It just means we are aware that in case of fire, odds are we'll lose everything before the FD decides it's safe to come near.

All the zombiists and end-O-the-worldists that I know have cases of ammo, pallets of powder, primers galore.

I have to wonder, might we not be better served to have 200 rounds, a rifle that is shiny and smells like sweat and gunpowder residue, and a big pile of recently fired brass?

Having a lot of ammo vs shooting a lot of ammo may be a "feels-good vs. feels ready" situation.

As for ammo being a source of wealth in a SHTF situation...baloney. Everyone knows that Justin Bieber CD's will become the the new gold standard anyway.

Gotta get your Bieb on; no doubt.

Here's one for you Jim:

"Rawhide" by Dimitri Tiomkin & Ned Washington Performed by Frankie Laine)

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’
Keep movin’, movin’, movin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them doggies movin’
Rawhide!

Don’t try to understand ‘em,
Just rope and throw and brand ‘em,
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
My heart's calculatin’
My true love will be waitin’,
Be waiting at the end of my ride.

Move ‘em on, head ‘em up,
Head ‘em up, move ‘em on,
Move ‘em on, head ‘em up
Rawhide!
Cut ‘em out, ride ‘em in
Ride ‘em in, let ‘em out,
Cut ‘em out, ride ‘em in
Rawhide!

Il n'y a aucune une telle chose comme trop de munitions

DP, I'm tri-lingual. My spelling and grammar is lousy in all three.

jim in nc,
On your first post I had to give you a plus,
Moishe,
I like your stuff but, I never did get pig Latin. Talk American, lol.

PS I have a sticker on the back window of my truck that says: "WARNING: Driver carries only $20 worth of ammunition." I thought about that--I can load my .40 cal Glock and my Kel-Tec .380 pocket gun with $20, so sometimes the sticker is true, but I'm usually holding some backup and some extra rounds, so maybe the sticker should say "$50 worth of ammo."

i have experienced rifles that would only shoot one particular factory loading well. a difference of 3-4 inch groupings to a tight 1-1,5 inch.. but it had a thin floppy barrel on it so that probably explains it.. but reccomending u take your gun to a smith after 3 different boxes is just silly.. u dont even differentiate between different types of actions.. the reasons why your gun wont shoot with just a few tries of ammo is so multiplious that claiming factory ammo is so well set up that its harmonics in your particular rifle and action should get u on target like this nonetheless is just retarded :( and i dont mean minute of deer accurate, cos then even old russian surpluss might get u there )
Foul i say dave!! you dun goofed.. ;)

Jamesti, watch the following and learn. The ammo most dangerous to firefighters is that stored in the chamber of your weapon. Loose ammo that discharges via cook-off will only cause superficial shrapnel wounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BX1kvJVrjc

I don't buy ammo, I buy powder and bullets and primers and rarely, cases. It's cheaper that way and assembling gives me something to do as I'm retarded!!! LOL!

Bubba
P.S. Uh, I do buy LR ammo, in abundance!!
P.P.S. That's "re-tarred", not retarded! Yuk-yuk!!

Hold the ammo--better to stock up on more quotes. The Sarah Palin quote is actually from the Irish poet W.B. Yeats (1865-1939).

To nogaskibums re:ammo,guns and sex.Ain't it wonderful how well you sleep when all three are in harmony?