How does one 'forget' about ammo ?

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GunnyUSMC said:
I have a lot of ammo. About two years I started storing my handgun and 22 ammo in a different location in the house from where I store my rifle and shotgun ammo. It wasn’t to make it easier to find. I had just ran out of room and the ammo cans were starting to stack up pretty high.
I keep about 90% of my ammo in metal military ammo cans with labels on the front that are color coded. It just makes it easy to find what I’m looking for.

Now from time to time I will come across a box or two that I put aside and forgot about, but very seldom do I forget about ammo that I buy. Now when it comes to guns, I have forgotten about a few, like when I thought I had eleven Mosin M91 rifles and discovered that I actually have 14 of them.
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You are my hero. I have a starter kit for what you have stocked. All I am trying to do is leave a few thousand rounds of every caliber I own for my grandkids. I guess I have some handle pullin' to do.
 
Ever lose change in the cushions of your couch? Same thing!
Seriously, if you have enough, it can be easy to misplace some.
In days gone by, I'd come back to the house with some loose 22LR in my pocket and would think nothing of putting it where ever....in the recent shortage I've found 22LR in with my assorted screw/ hardware box, tool box, my canoe drybag, etc.
And surprisingly it has almost all fired on the first attempt
 
It's very easy to forget you have ammunition:

  • Get death threats from neo-Nazis.
  • Buy an AR lower, two uppers and 1,000 rounds of M193.
  • Cowardly Nazis never show up to get shot.
  • Move across the state.
  • Shoot mostly bullseye pistol and long range rifle for ten years.
  • Get laid off and unable to afford to shoot or unable to for work hours.
  • Get first decent paying job in ten years.
  • Get forced to move due to fire.
  • Throw away thirty years of junk.
  • Recognize threat to safety due to being surrounded by high value looting and arson targets.
  • Buy a modern upper.
  • Find most of 1,000 rounds of M193.
  • Buy many magazines and load with M193.

Pretty simple really...
 
Recently I "found" over 800 rounds of .357 Sig ammo. Once I found it, I dug some more and found .357 mag, .45 colt, and .45 Win mag, all stuffed away and forgotten because I was not shooting them or sold the launching platform. I guess disuse is my biggest reason for forgetting I have ammo, but a close second would be finding factory ammo I did not know I had. Often I'll buy on sale and stuff it away and not use it because I use reloads only for weekly range trips. More and more I occasionally forget where I left my keys too so I expect that I'll be finding more ammo in the future too :)

PS, I sold my Sig P-229 years ago and forgot how much I liked it and bought a P-226 to use the ammo and start reloading it again. Since the ammo (at today's prices) is worth more than the price of the 226 buying it was logical... AND using it takes the pressure off of using up my .40's. I no longer have a SO to account to so I can justify doing foolish things like that!
 
gnappi said:
Recently I "found" over 800 rounds of .357 Sig ammo.
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gnappi said:
I ... bought a P-226 to use the ammo and start reloading it again. Since the ammo (at today's prices) is worth more than the price of the 226 buying it was logical...
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It's a sad commentary of today when 800 rounds of ammo is worth more than the Sig from which to shoot the ammo.
 
Hooda Thunkit said:
I keep reading threads in various places, some fella saying something like ' ....well, I was looking under the bench, and found a case of XYZ I had forgotten about ...'

I just shake my head. How does one forget about ammo ? Especially these days with it being so dear.

Anyway, I was on a local forum, and a member there wants to trade some ammo for possibly some 22LR. I can use the ammo he has, so I went out to the bunker to look at my stock of 22LR. I know I have some over there on the shelf, and a 30cal ammo can under the shelf with some open box and oddball stuff - 22short, quiets, and whatnot.

I pull out the 30 cal can to open it, and see another can behind it. It has a label that states '22LR'. This time it's a 50 cal can. Open it up, it's full of various boxes of 22LR. Several thousand rounds.

Huh !

Then, I see ANOTHER 50 cal can under the first, and it's ALSO full of 22LR. Some Winchester, some CCI, some Golden Bullets (yeah, I know...), some Aquila.

Well.... I suppose it is possible for a young, vibrant male (in his 7th decade) to lose track of a few piddly rounds of 22....;) I have plenty to trade with this other fellow.

Then, I notice another 30 cal can in the corner under the shelf, hidden by the 2 cans of 22LR. Open it up, there's 20 boxes of 20ea Norma Tactical 55gr .223 Rem in there.

400 rounds of 223 I have no recollection of buying.o_O

Ahem.... I have nothing to say....
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the one and only time i forgot about ammo?

was when i placed my 2 guns in the range bag, a .45 and a 9MM.

got the ammo i needed, and i had placed the ammo on the bench, on the side of the bag, not in front of it.

had to answer the phone, then picked up the bag and went to the range.

no ammo.....wasted trip.
 
i bought a ruger single 6 with two cylinders installed the mag several years later decided to try the 22lr well 6 years later i found it
 
Unfortunately my ammo storage is made up of several temperature change resistant chests (high quality chest coolers) that I fit where I can in my small home. I have a general idea of what's in there but not an accurate inventory or anything.

Organization, what's going on in your life when you bought the ammo (distractions), length of time between buying and shooting, and yes age also can come into play. I forget more things now and I'm still relatively young.
 
I found 975 rounds of 9 mm last week when searching though the garage. I also found about 600 rounds of 303 British and 900 rounds of 7.62X54R for my old Russian Mosin Nagants. I no longer have those guns but do know the new owners so I guess there will be getting a call from me in the near future.
 
I had to laugh, so I get home and had a fight with the electronic door lock from the garage to the house my wife wanted so I got it and at least won the fight this evening. So then I had to go find another door handle, I figured I hadn’t thrown away the one I took off more than a decade ago but where would I have put it?

How about the cabinets above the washer and dryer? What’s that trick or treat bowl doing here? We haven’t used that since we moved out of the city. Hmm, 500 rounds of WWB 9mm bet I could get a real nice door handle for that these days.

92C24F28-5C2C-4A96-BDF4-7D2CAE3FEE75.jpeg

Found the door handle in the closet though. Hard to remember every place you put something. Even harder after more than a decade passes. I guess I could just throw everything away and buy new as I need it, of course unless it’s unavailable when I need it.
 
kcofohio said:
Hey Gunny, somehow I think you would have to discover a pallet of ammo before you would raise an eyebrow. :D
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Now from time to time I do misplace a box or to of ammo. I tend to set things down and forget about them. I have three boxes of 455 Webley ammo in my shop, somewhere, most likely in the southwest corner. I think they are stacked with some other odd ammo.
 
It happens. I keep a running tally of my ammo , add as I acquire , subtract as I shoot. A few months back I decided to do a hard inventory , had not done an actual count in a couple years. I was surprised at how close my running tally was - except for one caliber that was off by 1,000 rounds - light. I keep those goods locked in a variety of secure storage containers , more or less a designated lockup for each caliber. After some (see Gunny) head scratching (and 2 days) I finally remembered that one of my lockups was becoming too full and cluttered so had I stashed the 1,000 in an out of the way secure place. By then it was like hitting the jackpot - I had pretty much conceded and adjusted my inventory downward.
 
Um, I recently found a few thousand rounds of numerous caliber ammunition I'd forgotten about when I moved a bunch of stuff into an (unused) guest bedroom closet after hiring a new housecleaning service a few months back... Typically when I buy ammo, it goes in 30 or 50 caliber cans stored in my utility room. And I'd been worried I was almost out of .30-06 and .30-30 (which I hadn't remembered shooting up)!
ammox.jpg
 
Sounds like this has become a confessional.

I don’t know how someone forgets as well. I’ll judge you’all but I am just as guilty!

My story starts with deer hunting, 2020. I like to throw a few slugs out from the shotgun to ensure I still got the gun figured out prior to deer season. My due diligence. I recall only having three slugs left in the ammo box and honestly I’d like to throw at least three slugs out prior to deer season for practice and have two with me on the day of....
Can’t buy any more slugs because of ammunition shortages. So I figure I’d get myself a mold and cast my own slugs for this deer season. Bought supplies for casting. First time. Casted lee .69” round balls because the lee slugs were not in stock.
Loaded the roundball loads.
When I go to put the newly loaded round balls into the ammo box I find a whole unopened box of slugs in addition to the three within an already opened box.
Turns out I had plenty for this year, 2020, and even enough for 2021.
Didn’t need to buy all that casting stuff!
 
It's pretty easy to lose track of ammo! There was a point where I got out of .45 and .40 to consolidate down to 9mm to simplify logistics. I thought I gave away or sold the ammo but found some of each in a crate. Lucky find and I stumbled upon a deal too good to pass up, a gun I really wanted in a caliber I kind of didn't (.40 S&W). I'll get a conversion barrel from EFK probably but the .40 will be good for woods carry. I got a few boxes of various ammo too when Dirty Don got in and ammo prices cratered. Plus I've moved several times in the last five years from MN to SD, then SD to ID and eventually to MT. Stuff tends to get mixed up and misplaced. When I went through my storage shed last fall I wound up coming across a good amount of ammo I'd more or less forgotten about.
 
When I moved from an apartment to my current house during the obama administration I found 10k blazer 22s that were vacuum sealed into 500 shot "bricks". I didnt own a vacuum sealer and it took me a decade to remember how I acquired them. I traded an Ibanez lawsuit les paul custom for it.
 
Wow....these stories are eye-opening. I have cabinets full of ammo and reloading components, but generally know what's there. Being well organized generally, I would go nuts not having a reasonably good idea what I have. That said, I embarked on an effort to inventory my stash of stuff and spent several hours going thru things and making a list. As I used bullets or powder and bought things, the list became quickly outdated. Mainly because I would rather hunt, shoot, reload, etc than inventory. So, I understand why guys don't always know precisely what they own.
 
At least “forgotten” ammo won’t easily hurt anybody, when left in a box.

Let’s never forget that Children can easily die because of a forgotten Gun.
Luckily many houses aren’t visited by children.
 
HowieG said:
I tried the inventory thing. Didn't work. Keep forgetting to update it.
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I have some stuff inventoried and some not. My method is pretty simple...when I fill a box or ammo can with a cache for ‘retirement’, I log what is in the box, seal it with a zip tie, and that goes into my long term inventory. Unsealed boxes are for range trips.

I use a combination of metal and plastic ammo storage cans.
 
buddyd157 said:
the one and only time i forgot about ammo?

was when i placed my 2 guns in the range bag, a .45 and a 9MM.

got the ammo i needed, and i had placed the ammo on the bench, on the side of the bag, not in front of it.

had to answer the phone, then picked up the bag and went to the range.

Look at it that you came back home with as much ammo as you left with.
Click to expand...
 
If one buys more than one shoots then it's pretty easy to start forgetting about ammo you tucked away.
 
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