Diversifying Investments - Surplus Ammo?

If I were you I'd buy up as much 7.62x54r that I could. And a mosin.

I just bought a ton of 7.62 x 54 light ball. I think it's a very good investment, not for resale, but for my own use. I have a few years under my belt (and a few sandwiches) but I can recall .30-06 ammo for 4 cents a round, and .303 British for about the same, and .50 BMG for .15 a round, but that was a few years ago. I wish I had bought a whole bunch more of all of those back them.

Buy and hold for resale later? Maybe, but you have to store it somewhere that will keep it dry and safe, and that will probably cost something as well.

It's 30% higher than surplus likely in part because it has surplus to compete with.
Wolf .30-06 is between CMP and Iranian surplus in price, the spread is 4 cents, .49-.53 per round, which is considerably more than a 30% increase than what it was when there were large stores of surplus around. It's not a terrible investment, but not a great one when compared to some others. I'd put ammo on the same playing field as guns themselves, even gold or silver: a GREAT hedge against inflation and economic collapse, but not great compared to high yield investments that appreciate faster than inflation. If the economy collapses, those will be gone; if it doesn't, they'd have made you more money than guns, ammo, gold, or silver.

The thing about surplus is that you have that 30% gap that is due to scarcity rather than inflation. The ammo will bump up that 30, then it will all go up a bit more due to lack of surplus, and then it'll level off and adjust only to inflation. What the difference between the 30% gap now and the endgame will be is tough to say, but it's a 30% gimme at least. Holding off inflation ain't bad, and an extra free 30% is gravy.

If you time it right and stack the right stuff. It could pay off big time. On the down side, it takes a lot of room to store much of it. Your allways at the mercy of the market if all of a sudden there is a flood of that caliber that hits your screwed for a while.

If it were me, I would go with calibers that you shoot all ready. Surpluss comes in and go's. Some of it once its gone its gone for good. Get it while you can and plan accordingly.

WB

It's just like any other antique or collectible you have store and keep cool and dry.

Commercial and milsurp 5.45 are close enough in price that it probably isn't worthwhile.

Milsurp 7.62x54R is significantly cheaper than the commercial stuff, but it might remain available long enough that storing it would be a waste of space. It's hard to say.

Also, another factor to keep in mind is Reelection Panic. You might be able to turn a few bucks if you stock up on common calibers and primers now so you can profiteer later.

Ammunition is not an investment.

browningguy said:

Ammunition is not an investment.

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Investment in my life, if push comes to shove....................

Quote:
Originally Posted by browningguy
Ammunition is not an investment.
Investment in my life, if push comes to shove....................

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I agree here, I'm not looking to make a buck, but having several crates of ammo helps me sleep a little better.

Originally Posted by browningguy
Ammunition is not an investment.

Wish I had bought a few pallets of 7.62x39 when it was going for $45 per 1,000 for big orders like that.

I remember going with my dad to the flea market in the 60s as a kid and seeing piles of surplus M1 carbines for $10 or $15 if the wood was perfect. But that would have been 15 silver dollars or $450 in todays market.

I would rather buy calibers I use now instead of calibers I might use someday.

Investment in my life, if push comes to shove....

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I agree here, I'm not looking to make a buck, but having several crates of ammo helps me sleep a little better.

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I would agree with you if you plan on using the ammo for defense, but that's not what we're really talking about here. The OP doesn't even have a gun that fires these calibers. He's just asking about investment in the same way you'd invest in stocks and bonds.

He is essentially saying "if I just sit on this ammo, will it be a worthwhile investment when compared to other options" and that answer is generally no.

Only buy ammo for guns you already own.

Having 2-4 spam cans of 7.62x54R for a Mosin is a goodly amount. Would take a long while to shoot all that off.

Investment in my life, if push comes to shove....................

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Having thousands of rounds of ammo for a gun you don't own is no way an investment in your life. Kind of like my wife talking about "investing" in fine china and crystal, or "investing" in new curtains. It's just another way to spend money.

I probably have more ammo than most stored, about 8,000 rounds of .223, 9mm and .40 (and lesser amounts of .32ACP,.380 and various hunting ammo), not to mention a few thousand rounds of .22lr. But I don't ty to convince myself it's any kind of investment, I'm giving up potential investment profits to save money on inflation. If you are going to invest I suggest looking at Chevron, Microsoft, Intel, GE or similar companies. They all pay a decent dividend and I am up a substantial amount on them over the past couple of years.

I would say ammo is potentially a much better "investment" than guns, but it fails for a couple reasons:

1) You have to speculate on what surplus caliber is going to spike in value in the next few years... hindsight is 20/20, but foresight is not. I'd consider this more difficult and much higher risk than picking any of many market investments that let you spread your risk in an infinite variety of ways.

2) Physical space to store ("investment" level quantities) hundreds or thousands of crates of ammo... personally I don't have it. Maybe if you have an unused secure warehouse somewhere, it is less a problem.

Having thousands of rounds of ammo for a gun you don't own is no way an investment in your life. Kind of like my wife talking about "investing" in fine china and crystal, or "investing" in new curtains. It's just another way to spend money.

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Didnt see that he didn't even have guns to shoot that caliber, in that case, no.

I remember going with my dad to the flea market in the 60s as a kid and seeing piles of surplus M1 carbines for $10 or $15 if the wood was perfect. But that would have been 15 silver dollars or $450 in todays market.

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And if you'd invested that same money in the market smartly over that same time, I bet you'd have been able to do a lot more than what you'd have earned on stored Carbines over the last 50 years.

I remember going with my dad to the flea market in the 60s as a kid and seeing piles of surplus M1 carbines for $10 or $15 if the wood was perfect. But that would have been 15 silver dollars or $450 in todays market.

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The average stock mutual fund would have turned that $15 investment into $830 over that 50 year period.

Guns/ammo are NOT good investments from a monetary standpoint, but as a hobby it does pretty well compared to other hobbies. As much $ as I have put into this hobby, I could recoup a fair amount back if I needed to.

But no one should be fooled into thinking they are good "investment"

But no one should be fooled into thinking they are good "investment"

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My wife reads this forum sometimes......decades of careful training could potentially be lost in a matter of seconds.

Dunno - a $100 SKS from 2005 is worth 3 times that.

7.62x25 ammo has tripled in value since about 2010.

TennJed said:

The average stock mutual fund would have turned that $15 investment into $830 over that 50 year period.

Guns/ammo are NOT good investments from a monetary standpoint, but as a hobby it does pretty well compared to other hobbies. As much $ as I have put into this hobby, I could recoup a fair amount back if I needed to.

But no one should be fooled into thinking they are good "investment"

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I have firearms that are worth 1,000`s that I paid $20.00 for 35 years ago, ain`t no bank going to do that..........

" in a closet..." your insurance company is going to love that one.

Then there is the value to be considered in a "dooms day" scenario.I'll be bartering off most of the non "assault rifle" core of my collection as things ramp up. Things like a pile of canned goods for a 16 ga. winchester 97 and a few boxes of shells, ect.

I do a little "investing" in ammo. Obviously buying bulk is cheaper per round, many sellers will pay shipping if the order is big enough, etc. I've made a pretty reasonable short term percentage on ammo, sometimes as high as 30% on big orders like 9mm. Haven't really considered it for long term, but what I will typically do when I'm placing an order is try to recover my costs so I shoot for free.

Kind of like this:

I order 4500 rounds of 22LR. They come 325 in a box, with each order of 1500 you get a "free" dry box. The vendor sells the dry boxes for $15 individually. 1500 rounds and a dry box costs $95. Orders over $100 get free shipping.

I don't need any more dry boxes. A friend of mine has an outfitter store and sells the boxes for me for $10 each. My cost on a 325 round box of ammo is $21.25. I sell 10 of the 12 boxes for $26 each, which is a bit less than what it goes for in local stores. I make my money back (plus about $5) and end up with 650 rounds for nothing. Pretty easy to do if you know people who do Appleseed shoots. We have a practice shoot the weekend before and an Appleseed the first Sunday of each month.

Works pretty well with shotgun shells, too.

As with any portfolio..........diversify, buy toilet paper.