Do you ever choose your guns by what caliber you can get easiest or cheapest?

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I think plenty of .22LR is a good idea, and I like the .45ACP and .357 Mag/.38 Special for availability, variety and affordability in pistol calibers. 12 guage is the easiest to find and probably the most affordable shotgun ammo, in any variant.

As far as a SHTF situation, I think the best bet is to rely on what you've got on your own shelves. I wouldn't plan on shopping or "scrounging" if TS really does HTF. JMO

GB7
 
I don't like to stock a lot of various types of ammo so I shoot primarily 9mm and 45 acp or else .38's for pistols. I don't like to buy new guns in wierd cartridges like 10mm or .357 sig because I like to think that if all goesto he77 I can get 9mm Luger ammo 10x easier than .357Sig.
 
Im in the .223, .45, .40, 30-06 crowd. I can finally set my mind at ease and buy that 6.5 Grendel upper now that Wolf will be making ammo for it.

It did my heart good to hear that our military will be returning to the venerable .45 soon too.
Shoot lots, gents!!!:D
 
Sure. I'm not interested in guns chambered in expensive or hard to find calibers. If I can't buy ammo for it at Wally World I don't want it.
 
I don't think so. The prices i see quoted on internet sites like Midway and others just for the bullets average between 0.09 & 0.12 ea., which makes just that one component more than i pay for a complete factory 9mm ready to go. Add another couple cents for powder and primer, and it's more still. Yet another reloading enthusiast who might exaggerate just a bit?
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Well, you're wrong. I bought some Speer Gold Dot 180's on close out at a local shop for $6/box. Primers are about 1 1/2 cents. I bought 8# of Blue Dot for $50 (screaming deal) and the cases were 3 cents for new Starlines (again, close outs and screaming deal).Even if you pay a lot for bullets, they're maybe 9 cents apiece and they're WAY better than milsurp stuff

You can MAYBE buy milsurp 9mm crap for that price, but I doubt it. Now, these are screamer 10mm's for my G20 and DE. A 9mm seems like a .22 after shooting these. Guys that think a 9mm is some kind of hotdog round have never shot a decent 10mm.

Now, if you want to shoot a 9mm, have at it. I can shoot my 10 for about the same or maybe less. Yeah, I've got to sit at my Dillon 550 for 20 minutes to crank out 200-250 rounds, but I enjoy it. Reloading is so easy, fun, and saves so much money that I can't understand why any serious shooter wouldn't roll their own.
 
I didnt think about it much until I bought my 270WSM. Not only is it $35 a box for the stuff that shoots well in my rifle, but I cant get it everywhere. Thats why I'm changing to a 308. I'll come back to the 270WSM when I decide to start reloading.
 
You can MAYBE buy milsurp 9mm crap for that price
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Oh really?
I last paid $5.48/bx. for a case of 500 new remington 9mm 115gr factory ammo last month @ DSG. It still didn't come to $6/bx. even when they added sales tax, so even @ $6/bx. your 10's are still more for than i pay for the 9's.

Reloading is so easy, fun, and saves so much money that I can't understand why any serious shooter wouldn't roll their own.
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Maybe because it really isn't all that?
As for the cost of reloads being anywhere near so cheap in general, i still doubt that too after checking component prices around the 'net, but more power to you.
 
.22LR

38/357mag

12 gauge

30/30

7.62x39 (still the cheapest .30 type caliber to feed, regardless current pricing)


the only thing i would contemplate changing might be the 30/30 lever, for a .357 lever. i'm also really looking hard :scrutiny: at the 24/47 in 8mm because the surplus is soooooooo cheap!
 
I last paid $5.48/bx. for a case of 500 new remington 9mm 115gr factory ammo last month @ DSG. It still didn't come to $6/bx. even when they added sales tax, so even @ $6/bx. your 10's are still more for than i pay for the 9's.
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Bullets (reloading components) come 100/box. So he was paying 6 cents/bullet for Gold Dots (you DAWG! I paid $10 a box on sale a couple weeks ago). The thing I like about rolling your own is you can fine tune your loads for your gun and use the bullets you want to get the best accuracy and power. Good defense ammo (like loaded Speer Gold Dot) is around 50 cents a round at most stores I see. I went through about 500 rounds of Remington and Winchester factory in the .40 the last 2 weeks, now I have some brass to play with loading Gold Dots. :)
 
Reloading is so easy, fun, and saves so much money that I can't understand why any serious shooter wouldn't roll their own.
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"Easy & FUN"??
WTH is FUN about the process? I mean really, I worked in auto plants. If I wanted to stand there and put the same blank into a punch press all day long I would be working there for $24/hour. I mean, if YOU like it, then more power to you but I personally wouldn't bother.

Let's see, gather brass. Deprime brass. Tumble brass. Inspect brass. Sort brass. Set up press. Resize cases. Buy primers, powder, lead wheel weight stock. Heat lead pot. Set up molds. Lube molds. Pour lead. Let cool, break open, relube. Repeat. Set up press. Add primers, cases, powder. Pull handle a lot of times. Gather rounds. Box rounds..... yawn.

If I was shooting a lot of rifles, doing a lot of competitive shooting, sure, handloaded is the way to go, but for general target practice, the $6/50 9mm Wallyworld stuff is fine by me. I value my time a lot more.

Let's see. I could take the two hours a week you spend reloading (probably more than that really) and put that into overtime at work. That would net me about $50. That equates to about 300 rounds of 9mm ammo. Plus it gets me more money for my 401k plan. Looks like break-even to me.
 
A lot of reloading depends on the equipment. If you have to dig a trench and only have a shovel, it's a whole lot of work. If you've got a backhoe, it's a piece of cake.

In the reloading forum there is a new thread every few weeks about "what should I get to start handloading?" I always advise a good progressive. On my Dillon, I can turn out 45 LC for $3.85/50 faster than you can shoot it. Cleaning brass means tossing it in the tub and letting it run for an hour while I do something else. One pull every 5-8 seconds turns out a completed round. Changing from 45 LC to 22-250 takes maybe 3-4 minutes.

Yesterday I was in a gun shop. There was a custom .308, Remington action with a Shilen barrel and Fajen stock for sale. I asked the guy why he was selling it. He builds up rifles, develops loads, then gets bored with it and does it over. Isn't my cup of tea, but he runs his life and I run mine.

My shop is heated, well lit, and totally stocked. I can knock out anything I want in short order. If you want to go sit in a bar in your spare time, that's your business. You can play golf, or watch NASCAR cars go in a circle for 4 hours and end up exactly where they started.
 
Yes.

I bought my Desert Eagle in .44 Magnum instead of .50 AE because of ammo availability and because .429 bullets are MUCH cheaper than .50 and are available in a much wider variety.

I bought my BFR revolver in 45-70 instead of .500 S&W for the same reason. I can easily load 45-70 to exceed .500 muzzle energy levels and the same weight bullet has a higher sectional density and ballistic coefficient. I also had a .450 Marlin cylinder fitted to it later because it uses the same bullets.

I also bought my Ruger Redhawk Alaskan in .454 Casull instead of .480 Ruger because of availability of ammo and components plus the versatility factor of being able to use 45 Colt in it as well.

I have a Lone Eagle pistol in 30-06, just about as cheap and easy to get as there ever was. I'm glad it's not in one of the short-magnum calibers because I can get cases literally 1/10 the price of some other calibers.
 
What??? No one can buy milsurp for $3.85/50???
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Don't think you can either. Again, after checking component prices around the net the parts alone add up to more than that. Guess you must make yours out of scrap metal you have in the yard then, right?

Nice thing about the 'net, anyone can claim whatever they want, but doesn't have to worry about proof. There isn't a reloader out there that can resist trying to outdo himself ( and the rest of us ) with his never ending stories of how perfect his loads are, how low his costs are, or how accurate his shooting is. The ones i've actually met have been far from that, and full of crap more often than not. Now there's a load they all seem to know how to shoot.
 
Lead bullets were $21/500 last I bought. Powder runs about 1-2 cents depending on load, maybe a little higher for full power H-110/WW-296's. Primers are a little less than 2 cents.......do the math. These are Keith style 255 LSWC for my Ruger Bisley. About 1,000-1,200 fps depending on load.

I've found better prices locally than using the internet if you figure in shipping. I have no desire to cast bullets if I can buy them for 4 cents each. I'm fortunate that I have a job in sales so I travel a lot. I accidentally stop into gun shops as I go by and end up running across a lot of deals. I bought an 8# jug of Blue dot for $50. That makes 5,600 heavy duty loads for my 10mm. I have a good friend that inherited a bunch of reloading stuff. He gave me maybe 12-15 pounds of powder.

One shop had a big lot of Hornady and Sierra jacketed bullets for $3 a box(100). I bought 19 boxes. That means I can load 22-250, .223, or .357 Herrett for maybe 11-14 cents each. $2.20 for a box of high grade centerfire rifle ammo.

If you just want to go out and blow holes in the sky and make noise, knock yourself out. I enjoy accuracy and versatility of handloading YMMV.
 
This is how my M4-gery came about and I still haven't shot any of the Green Tip Ammo, but the stock pile still keeps growing, it's a mystery?

can't shoot green tip at the local indoor range or the steel out door range I go to... so the green tip supply has become a SHTF, Zombie's attack reserve
 
My father and I shoot quite a bit (around once a week), and will go through about a hundred rounds total easily, depending on whether we're working on technique or accuracy that day. .22LR, 7.62x54R, 7.62x39, and 8mm Mauser are the cartridges we use most often, and all of those are quite inexpensive and simple to get. I purchased a very nice Finnish M39 specifically because it could shoot cheap ammo we already had accurately, and bought my dad a M59/66 Yugo SKS for Father's Day because it uses the same ammo as our new kit-built AKs.
The only outlier is my K-31, and while I do shoot it occasionally, I shoot it far less than even my Ballester-Molina .45.
 
Yes and No! Yes I buy unique (sorta like .375 Win, .356 Win, and .307 Win) but I can reload with parts from more common cartridges. My .375's run about $25-$35 for a box of 20 w/22gr Hornady FN Interloks, I reload them with 32 gr of H4198 and watch for deals on the bullets. They averaged less than $.25 ea loaded, chrono'd at 2200fps, out performing the factory stuff consistantly. Just picked up 1000 new, sized, primed .44 Mag shells for a buck and he threw in 500 new, sized, and primed .44-40 shells along with 500 .430 240gr SWC's and 500 210gr .427's. Loaded a few .44's w/9gr of Unique and they came out of the Black Hawk's barrel at 900fps and the Trapper at 1150fps. Figure I got maybe $.005 in each completed cartridge.
 
I do a balance sheet. What do I make? What are my expenses? What are my unseen, but likely expenses? After I budget that, I know what guns I'm gonna buy.

I've already bought eveything I need. One of the need guns is 6.5x55 Swede. (I needed a bolt action with a scope for long range work, and hunting/target shooting).

Is it cheap? No, but I do more shooting with my SHTF weapons than this one anyway. Even then, I'm still looking for a .45 acp 1911, and a .308 bolt action w/ a scope. But I have a couple 9mm pistols, and a .223 rifle (so my SHTF stuff is complete and everything else is cake).

The one uncommon caliber gun (6.5mm) is nothing compared to the guns I have common ammo for. However with a looming UN ammo restriction, I have been hoarding ammo lately for which I will very carefully look for guns which shoot it.
 
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. That said(TM) I suppose my 7.62x54R is a bit of an indulgence as is my desire for some other, more off the wall calibers.

But really everything else is pretty normal: 38 Special, 357 Magnum, 44 Magnum, 9mm Luger, .45 ACP, .22 LR, 5.56/.223, 7.62x39.... pretty boring.

To answer the question, a little bit of both. I'm working very hard to get it where I only use three or four types of magazines, so I can stockpile them. But there's some great old milsurp bolt guns I'd like to have no matter how weird the cartridge is.
 
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