Be a "hoarder" with me!

I started shooting just before the first ammo shortage in '09, and learned real quick how fast the shelves will empty and not replenish for years.

So I vowed to stock up on all sorts of calibers, including .22, so I was sitting pretty good when the '13 Banic hit.
And when you stock up ahead of time your stockpile looks like this...

A number of years ago a sporting goods store went out of business and had a going-out-of-business sale. They had bricks of Winchester SV Target .22 for $10 per brick. My brother bought 30 bricks, which is 15,000 rounds. At the time, I made fun of him. Now I'm buying from him. Ya just never know. With this ammo shortage going on for month after month will leave an indelible mark on the psyche of the American shooter. I doubt you will see shelves full of .22LR that is even close to the past. I predict that those days are gone for good.

"A number of years ago a sporting goods store went out of business and had a going-out-of-business sale. They had bricks of Winchester SV Target .22 for $10 per brick. My brother bought 30 bricks, which is 15,000 rounds. At the time, I made fun of him. Now I'm buying from him. Ya just never know."

About 4 years ago, I purchased four 5000 round cases from CMP. My friends thought I was an idiot spending $400 on .22.
They don't think that now.

Walkalong at our smallbore shoots there's an amazing quantity of 22 casings hitting the deck each month.

At least 4 of my shooters practice weekly (every Friday) as a group together - all retirees.

It's not unheard of them to shoot 2 or 3 practice rounds every Friday then come out to do a 1600 point match the first Sunday of each month.

If I had to approximate I'd say those four shooters go through (collectively) 72,000 rounds a year on practice and another 6,400 rounds in matches - nearly 80,000 rounds between the four of them.

They make the hardest of the hardcore across the course shooters I know look like amateurs as far as ammo consumption goes.

One of my favorite "Aesop's fables", the Ant and the Grasshopper......seems the Ant was the hoarder and the Grasshopper failed to plan ahead. Some people never learn from the lessons of the past no matter how many times they're reminded.

No matter where you live, there is some likely hood of disaster. Natural or Man Made. Some places more than others. Here in Ohio, if you are taken by surprise by a winter storm and a power outage, shame on you. In the South, Hurricanes, California Wild Fires & Earthquakes. Oklahoma, probably better know what a tornado is.... For any Region you should prepare to take care of yourself for at least 3 days to a week minimum.

Same goes for Firearms.... As we've all painfully found out. Guns aren't much fun without ammo. And maybe we ought to have enough to get us through what we might Need, at a minimum.

As with everything, the amount and what you "Need" us up to you. But for this forum. I believe being able to Hunt, Practice at least some, Maybe supply a friend in need, and protect yourself qualify as "Need". It certainly adds up to more than what many of us grew up doing.... Having a box of shells.... Maybe a 100 rounds of ammo total rolling around in the truck, or the bottom of the gun case.... some of it 10 years old. LOL

In my opinion the difference between need and stock...

Need = Premium JHP ammo in your carry weapon and a couple boxes to periodically replace the old exposed carry ammo. This should be several years at least to ride through ammo droughts.

Stock = As much practice ammo you want as a hedge against ammo cost inflation and to ride through any ammo drought without impacting your practice or recreational shooting. This is any number you want it to be.

One thing that we, as Pro-2A people, should NEVER do is discuss the word "NEED". Let's face it, very few of us actually NEED a gun. I have been carrying for 40 years and have never "needed" it. I have hunted all my life and killed untold numbers of animals that I consumed but never have I actually "needed" the animals for meat. There is no way in the world that I "need" all of the guns I own.
I want my guns. I want the ability to hunt. I want the ability to defend my home, my possessions, my family, and my life. This is why I have guns and enough ammo to use the guns. I believe that the Constitution gives me the Right to possess my guns and it isn't up to anyone else to decide what I "need".
My definition of "enough" probably varies greatly from your definition. Many may think that 100 rounds of 9mm is enough while I would be out by this afternoon if I only had 100 rounds. I can't afford to buy 100k rounds of 50 cal so that is too much for anyone.
I doubt there is a single person in the USA that has hoarded enough of any item to impact the overall supply. Someone with a million rounds of 22 ammo in their basement could give it all away today and it would not make a dent in the supply/demand.
Meanwhile I am still hoarding all I can and shooting as fast as I can.

I'm just about to go back to work and am planning on stocking up on all the goodies especially due to the upcoming elections. I have to laugh if you ask most people what the best round is they would say 22lr but I like my 45s they seem to be able to do everything a 22 can and more

Here's a chance to win a little .22LR. Only 500rds but every bit helps. Just like our facebook page and share the pic like what you see below.
Here is the link to our page - https://www.facebook.com/SH00TERSPLUS

At least some of you anticipated the need for a .22LR reserve supply. Well done! But now with few chances to shoot anywhere besides the club, I seldom use my nice rifles or heaps of rifle ammo. Mostly just the handguns.

.22LR was my blind spot.

In response to post #84 by jrdolall, I get where you're coming from. However, if we extend that logic, most of us don't need car insurance or smoke detectors.

Shooting for me is now a hobby. I target shoot, blast for fun at the range and hunt. All of those are hobbies. However, at one time a carried a gun for a living. One employer (gov't) supplied one for me and another (private) required me to supply my own. So I did need a gun. Same way I now need micrometers and other machine tools.

IMO Hoarder is wrong term. To me a Hoarder is someone who once a incident happens they buy everything they can for themselves. By doing that they reduce available stock for others to buy.

What most here are talking about is buying a few boxes/cases/pallet as they come on SALE. So stock is huge, enough for everyone. You are actually making it EASIER for others to stock up. (store sells lots every cycle they order more.....)

If everyone bought extra of everything (that does not spoil quickly) and purchased when on sale. Things would be better.

I still recall being in FL before hurricane season. Pallets of batteries, flashlights, water.... (labled as hurrican supplies) and NOBODY even looked at it UNTIL threat of storm. Then it was attacked and folks MAD the store didn't have enough....

Home depot running out of plywood, generators....folks mad. BUT once storm ends they are tossing plywood (already cut to fit over doors/windows they paid $$$$ for someone to cut/set/remove) into trash. (like there will NEVER be another threat of storm)

In the first shortage... 6 years ago?... I was caught flatfooted on reloading supplies. In the second shortage, I had plenty of reloading supplies (powder and primers), but was caught without .22lr ammo/ sufficient magazines for each gun/bullets. Call it hoarding if you want to, but I am rectifying that situation.

Magazines have been cheap for a year. Bullets are readily available. I just got two of the last cases of .22lr that Midway shipped out before canceling backorders.

Every panic exposes the weaknesses in my stocks of ammo/mags. I have all of the guns I want (save for one), so it has been my focus to supply those guns for a long long time. It's not hoarding if you are going to use it... though it might take years and years to use it. And when the shortages come, and they will, you should thank your local hoarder because at least (s)he won't be competing with you in the market.

5000 rounds of .22 LR doesn't last long for the serious .22 shooter. I can easily go through 2K a year, and I don't shoot nearly the amount of .22 some people do.

Click to expand...

Exactly. I am not a hardcore shooter. So at 2K a year... with the current shortage having lasted more than 2 years, then a couple of cases in reserve is NOT hoarding even though the casual brick-per-year shooter would view it that way.

I have always been one to prepare, stockpile, cache, hoard (use whatever term you like) with things that I use regularly. I'd do it with gasoline if it was practical. The shortages in ammunition have impacted me to the extent that I decreased my shooting considerably as I couldn't replace what I already had with any kind of certainty. Price matters.

When gas prices shot up to around $4 in my area, I pretty much stopped driving anywhere I didn't need to. That meant that I wasn't driving an hour to go fishing, shooting or to take hikes. It dramatically impacted my life and the things I enjoy doing. Now with prices at about half that, I still don't drive as much or make many un-necessary trips. I suspect ammunition will be the same unfortunately which impacts a sport I enjoy.

So I vowed to stock up on all sorts of calibers, including .22, so I was sitting pretty good when the '13 Banic hit.
And when you stock up ahead of time your stockpile looks like this...

Click to expand...

Now see, when you purchased that, it was plentiful and stocking up was just "stocking up". It only became "hoarding" when retail supply plummeted and the unprepared-and-envious view your "stock" as a "hoard".

The only thing that changed was the retail supply.

Stocking up makes good sense. My basement looks like an ammo dump and I shoot a lot. Primers, powder, cases, bullets and factory ammo. I am down to 3000 rounds of .22, but everything else is fine. I also have quite a bit of M855 and M193 I picked up when it was .33 a round. One round I did really put away is various flavors of 06' ball ammo in HXP, SL, and LC. This includes quite a bit of M2-AP. The supply is finite. AP is even more so. The brass is very good for reloading ESPECIALLY the HXP. It has a more consistent weight than the SL and LC brass I have.

Who cares what other folks think. A lot had to do with location. Some areas got more than others.
Some folks are pro active. While others just re-act.

Hoarders? I think not. They just bought when they could and as much as they could.

HammsBeer said:

I started shooting just before the first ammo shortage in '09, and learned real quick how fast the shelves will empty and not replenish for years.

So I vowed to stock up on all sorts of calibers, including .22, so I was sitting pretty good when the '13 Banic hit.
And when you stock up ahead of time your stockpile looks like this...

Click to expand...

And you're proud of this? You must be, given your posting.

I remember back a few years ago, people were posting photos of their ammo hoards as if they were proud of them. Almost as if they were their children or a treasured pet. Keep in mind they didn't post these photos when supply/demand was normal. They posted the photos once they had went on a buying spree, helping to accelerate the shortages.

That mindset no doubt exacerbates supply/demand issues. Sad reality.

Hoarding can be reasonable, but it can also be pretty stupid.

For example, I had one new competition gun that I was starting load development with when the latest powder shortage struck. Prices were already inflated for powder, and some friends were giving me a hard time for the fact that I hadn't bought twenty pounds of my (now chosen) powder when I could have bought it at about a $5/lb premium when thing were just getting bad. But, that would have been illogical. At the time I didn't even know if my rifle liked that powder, and I sure didn't want to overpay for 20 pounds of it only to (perhaps) discover that I didn't want to use it.

Anyway, I've always been one to plan ahead in life, and I try to do so with things such as ammo as well. But, there are limits to this preparedness, because there are other things in life that I should also spend money on!

Honestly, I wish I could stock up on fuel at today's prices! I'd be hoarding diesel in my backyard if it were practical to do so!

After a 20 year absence from shooting due mostly to time constraints, I got back into it around the time Sandy Hook happened. Based on what was happening, I knowingly paid a premium for a number of firearms and ammunition. While I won't hoard ammunition, I learned my lesson and buy a 6 to 12 month supply when prices are down.

I know guys that rarely shoot that buy everything they see. No sense to that. I think it has gone overboard for a lot of people. Maybe a boycott would bring things back to normal?

Accumulating a stockpile of various calibers over the years is not hoarding. Just good planning. Time has proven many to be wise. Besides, ammo is money.

M

Aragon said:

And you're proud of this? You must be, given your posting.

I remember back a few years ago, people were posting photos of their ammo hoards as if they were proud of them. Almost as if they were their children or a treasured pet. Keep in mind they didn't post these photos when supply/demand was normal. They posted the photos once they had went on a buying spree, helping to accelerate the shortages.

That mindset no doubt exacerbates supply/demand issues. Sad reality.

Click to expand...

I'm sure he is, I would be. Why wouldn't he be?