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I bought a box of .380 ACP for $14.75

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Tomahawk674

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St. Joseph, MO
My wife and I went into a mom & pop gunshop looking for some 9mm. I got some for $12 a box, then I thought to look for .380, just to try my luck. My wife found their last box, American Eagle FMJ (I know it's not the best stuff but it's for plinking). Sticker price was $14.75. Talk about an honest salesman.
The name of the place is Potter's, St. Joseph MO. PM me if you want directions, they aren't in Google maps.

For fun I told my wife I was going to call the biggest gun shop in town, Dean's Gun shop. I asked if they had any .380 FMJ. My guess was they were going to sell it for $25 a box, but I was wrong. They had Magtech FMJ boxes for $34.99 :eek:

We're still laughing about that a day later...
 
I sold my LCP about a month ago because I hadn't even seen a box of ammo for 6 months. I was cleaning out my gun cabinet last night, organizing ,etc and found 26 rounds of prvi partizan .380 fmj.

I still would have sold it, but I definitely would have shot those first.....
 
Wife lucked out in a little gunshop the other day too, she got 100 rds of PMC .380 HP for 28 bucks, all in a nice hard plastic box.

i was rather dumbfounded when she showed it to me.
 
Academy Sporting Goods in Houston, has gotten some .380 in. Winchester FMJ at $22 for 50 and Monarch (made in Bosnia) hollow point for $15 for 50. Up until I found this stash, I had never seen any on the shelf anywhere.
 
That's a good price for a decent plinker brand; congratulations on the good find. I was fortunate enough to grab some American Eagle recently for the same price -- four boxes in all (limit set by the store). It's far better stuff than the last "bargain" brand I was able to find: PMC Brass for $14.95 per 50 rounds. I got six boxes of it and am sad to say that I did: It is, without a doubt, the filthiest ammo I've ever shot, bar none. The American Eagle is top-of-the-line by comparison, IMO.
 
Last week I found Remington Green Box .380, 100 rd. count for $44 at Dicks. I bought the three boxes they had on the shelf; there was still another case of it on the floor. Have yet to find any WWB at Walmart though.
 
the local RuralKing has some boxes of Remington .380 for $15 for a box of 50 (and yet they NEVER stock 9mm...WTH?!??)

if i thought i could reliably get it for that price continually, i would buy a Bersa .380 right now
 
They are priced way up there par with .45 ACPs. I sold my Sig 230 long ago and settled on my Makarov .
 
One local walmart has WWB Flat Point .380 for $35 / 100. But two others locally do not have any.
 
I loaded approx 500 rds. of 380 in the last 3/4 months & have 300 new cases ready for loading---have not purchased any ammo in a long time...................
 
Sportsman's guide just emailed me asking if I wanted to keep the .380 I have had on back-order since January!....on back-order. A new expected arrival date (to them!) of September 21.

I declined.
 
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.380 is a money maker for the ammo makers for some reason. I dont know why it cost so much to make them. They control the supply of these knowing a lot of women shooters like the caliber. And so they jack up the prices. The reason why i dump mine and switched to a more readily available cartridge. No way i d be hostage to their scheme.
 
.380 is a money maker for the ammo makers for some reason. I dont know why it cost so much to make them. They control the supply of these knowing a lot of women shooters like the caliber. And so they jack up the prices. The reason why i dump mine and switched to a more readily available cartridge. No way i d be hostage to their scheme.
Click to expand...

Really?? Please cite your source for these "facts". They run ammunition in production runs; they'll make so many at a time. Depending on the cartridge, that run might be it for a year or so, sometimes not. It has nothing to do with holding you hostage, if that were true, 9mm, 40 and 45 would be impossible to find. Costs are up for raw materials across the board. The fact you admit you do not know why it costs so much indicates a lack f knowledge of manufacturing, variable and fixed costs, overhead and profit. Changing over a production run to something else involves a lot of downtime and increased labor costs.
 
Good for you Tomahawk. I just shoot .22, 9mm, .40, and .45acp because I have lots of ammo for those. The .380 is still the hardest to find in my area.
 
I dont need no evidence, just go to your local gun or sports store and best of luck finding your favorite .380. Again, i dont own a .380 pistol , i sold my Sig 230 13 yrs ago.
 
<$15 is great! .380 is plentiful around here, though for $18+. I was lucky enough to get 2 100round value packs from walmart which was awesome.
 
This article on the ammo shortage comes from the blog at Grant Cunningham's site, www.grantcunningham.com. It's of interest to everyone who has been trying to locate anything at all to run through your guns of late:


Supply Chain Management 101: on the ammunition shortage

(Filed in the Ammunition, General gun stuff, Shooting industry section)

Gun stores continue to be a never-ending source of hilarity. Walk into your local shooting emporium and ask why there is an ammo shortage, and you'll hear inane speculation coupled with a conspiracy theory or two. The reality is that the supply chain for ammunition is relatively inelastic, and is easily overwhelmed by a sudden jump in sales.

As one industry consultant has told me, ammunition demand over the years has been remarkably predictable. Ammunition wholesalers know (within a certain margin of error) how many units of each caliber they'll sell in the coming year, and approve purchase orders for the delivery of that amount of product during that year.

Ammo makers, too, know with fair certainty how much they're going to sell to the wholesalers during that period, and sign contracts for the purchase of sufficient components to produce those products. They don't typically keep large stores of components on hand, as standing inventory is expensive, so components are delivered on a "just in time" basis.

The suppliers of those components do the same thing with raw materials; again, ammunition is a stable business, which allows them to forecast with pretty good accuracy the stuff they need to make the components they sell. This pattern repeats itself on up the chain, all the way to the people who mine the stuff necessary to make a single cartridge.

Along comes a huge, sudden spike in demand. Retailers all over the country are suddenly swamped with ammunition purchases, and quickly call their suppliers to get more. The first few calls are rewarded with replacement stock, but soon the wholesaler's shelves are bare too - their entire year allotment of ammunition is gone in just a few days.

The wholesaler calls the maker, and the same thing happens: all of the suppliers are doubling (or more) orders to get their dealers restocked, and the manufacturer is quickly stripped of on-hand components as he tries to fill those orders.

The dealers are out, the wholesalers are out, and now the manufacturers are out. But it gets worse.

The makers of the priming compound, primer cups, brass, powder, jacket material, and lead are suddenly swamped with desperate pleas for more product, and they in turn contact the suppliers of the raw materials for more. The entire chain of supply is empty, and everyone has to wait while all of the raw materials are gathered. (I shouldn't have to tell you that those folks have other contracts to fill before they can get to the rush orders - they're not just waiting around for next year's order from the ammo companies!)

That all sounds simple, but it just isn't. As an example, smokeless powder may contain a huge variety of raw materials: Nitrocellulose, Nitroglycerin, Nitroguanidine, Dibutyl phthalate, Polyester adipate, Ethyl acetate, Diphenylamine, 2-Nitrodiphenylamine, 4-nitrodiphenylamine, N-nitrosodiphenylamine, N-methyl-p-nitroaniline, tin dioxide, bismuth trioxide, bismuth subcarbonate, bismuth nitrate, bismuth antimonide, Potassium nitrate, Potassium sulfate, Talc, Titanium dioxide, Graphite, and Calcium carbonate. Each of these has to be sourced from a supplier, ordered, received, then finally compounded into smokeless powder. Think that all happens overnight??

Once the raw materials are finally in hand, the work can start. Lead has to be formed into projectiles, copper into jackets, brass into casings; priming compound is made from lead azide and/or potassium perchlorate, then the mixture combined with metal cups to make primers (they have to be made, too); the aforementioned powder has to be made (a huge job in itself.)

Once those components are ready, they can be sent to the manufacturer, who puts together into a finished round, then packages them appropriately. (Oops - we forgot that boxes and trays that have to be made and printed. That takes time and materials!) They're then shipped to the wholesaler, who (finally!) can ship to the retailer.

This whole process takes time - lots of it. If demand is high enough (which it has been), even the emergency orders placed all the way to the producers of the raw products may not be sufficient, and shortages will continue. That's what we're seeing right now.

The supply chain is simply empty, all the way up to the people who mine the raw materials. It's going to take time to replace all the links in that chain, and it's not because of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, The Joos, FEMA, the CIA, a secret agreement to implement gun control through ammo availability, or any other silly theory you may have heard. This is a textbook example of what happens when an inelastic supply chain, composed with scarce "just in time" inventories, meets insatiable demand. It's not sexy or intriguing, but that's the way it is.

You know what's scarier? Your food comes to you the same way. Imagine what would happen if...

Grant
 
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