The recent (unseasonably) cold weather in north Texas drove me off to find an unbranded fleece sweatshirt last weekend. (I refuse to wear any sweatshirt that has writing on it, e.g. “I’m With Stupid” or “Budweiser”.) As I have lost a fair amount of tonnage recently, I needed to try the stupid thing on to get the right size, hence the actual store visit (as opposed to simple online clicking).
So I went to Academy (next door to Kroger, hence efficient trip planning), only to find that Academy, like so many clothing stores, is only selling spring-type apparel, therefore No Sweatshirts To Be Found. [2,000-word rant deleted] So there I was, in Academy, where of course the Guns & Ammo section is conveniently located right next to Men’s Clothing.
I don’t think I need to tell you what happened next.
All I know is that when I got home after my trip to Kroger, I had to carry indoors not only sundry grocery bags but also the following:
500 rounds of plinkage: 
…and 100 rounds of practice feed:
Why? Because they were on sale, that’s why.
I know, nobody needs a reason to buy ammo — and gawd knows I have quite a bit of it already — but the prices were irresistible, especially in these, the post-Obama Overpriced Ammo Years. Anytime I can get .22 for a few pennies each and .45 ACP for less than $15 a box… could we be seeing a return to reasonably-priced ammo at last?
I blame Academy. Had they stocked any unbranded fleece sweatshirts, none of this would have happened. On the other hand, it could have been much worse: I managed to resist the siren call of couple of reasonably priced guns that were on sale, too, such as this pretty little stainless Browning Buckmark UDX:
I’m so self-disciplined.
During the Great Ammo Drought of post – 2012 I got into the habit of checking the prices on .22lr whenever I was in a place that sold it.
There was a time circa 2014 when .22lr couldn’t be found for love or money anywhere in Denver. Wife and I were on a long camping vacation and happened to stop into a small “everything” store in a little town in Utah. On the wall behind the counter were HUGE stacks of .22lr. I was amazed that they had so much in stock until I saw the price: $15.00. For ONE BOX of .22lr (50 rounds.)
Well, that explained why they had so much in stock (rolling eyes.) By way of comparison, at that time you could buy non-fancy (round nose or FMJ) .45ACP for that price.
Somewhere in my ammo stash I have a “brick” that I bought at Jim’s Gun and Pawn in Fayette-Nam, NC, circa 1996 for around $5.50. No way am I paying 30 cents a round for .22, I don’t care how scarce it gets.
The funny thing is, even though the “ammo drought” seems to be over, it’s hard for me to suppress the impulse to check and see if anyone’s got a deal going on .22.
So you got some good exercise? Top man!
I have some of the top box. Has about .5 % fail to fire. And I have not had good luck with the accuracy. Need to shoot some more of it I suppose to make sure I don’t have a bad batch. I have bought a lot of the Winchester 333 boxes and some of the 525 boxes. they seem to work pretty good. Should count it some day I suppose.
You silly person – you should know that if you want seasonal wear you have to shop about six months in advance. The stores put out the warm weather clothing (shorts and T shirts) in January or February and the cold weather gear in August. They put out the Christmas trees in August and sing “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” all fall on the way to the bank. And that’s from a guy who believes in and enjoys the spiritual side of Christmas. I’m just not so big on our culture that uses every thing as a way to make money.
I’ve got about a thousand rounds of Aguila .22. I picked most of it up two years ago when .22 was just starting to hit my local Academy again. The jacketed stuff is sort of okay but the lead rounds were very rough. Lots of misfires and failures to extract from a clean Browning Buck Mark. I don’t own a chronograph, but my subjective opinion was that the lead bullets were very inconsistent. Some seemed to be respectably hot while others appeared to just clear the muzzle. I can find Federal and Winchester bulk pack on line for about four cents a round. Not a great price by the standards of 20 years ago but okay in today’s economy.
You mentioned Kroger:
https://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-culture-war-heats-up.html