Tag: Guns and such

I managed to find the relevant Dead Tree issue of USCCA’s Concealed Carry Magazine, where Tami Keel (in a piece entitled “Stay Stocked”) talks about the vagaries of ammo supply, and keeping yours at a decent level.

Establish A Buffer:  work out how much ammo you typically shoot off in a month or so.  The higher the amount (duh), the more critical it is to replenish that ammo while it’s there to be had.  Tami’s experience is that a 3-6 month stock level should be enough for you to ride out most ammo shortages in that caliber.  Mine is somewhat higher (especially in .45 ACP, of course), but while gritting my way through the Great Covidiocy Shortage, I did manage to emerge with about a 4-month “forward” supply simply by shooting smaller amounts per session.  (The old days of 300-round sessions with the 1911 are well in the past anyway, because Olde Phartte Wrysts.)  Obviously, if you only pop off a box of .30-30 a year, whether hunting or just keeping in practice, your 100-round supply will last you (uhhh carry the three)  5 years.  It will be a totally different scenario with your AR-15 (5.56mm poodleshooter), of course, but an adequate supply of said ammo will take care of most shortages — and it helps that most AR-15 owners keep a boatload of ammo on hand anyway.  Like I with my 1911, if you manage to keep your range session to (say) four mags’ worth instead of the usual six or eight, your 1,000-round reserve (“buffer”) supply will last a long, long time.

Conversions And Duplicates:  I covered this topic in Part 1.  Tami notes, however, (and I absolutely agree) that if an ammo shortage drags on and on even these offbeat cartridges will start to disappear from the shelves.  Get ’em while they’re hot — or rather, before they start getting hot.

“Die Time”:   Ammo suppliers typically set up their production lines with a bias towards the more-popular calibers (e.g. more 9mmP than .380 ACP), but when demand surges during Covidiocy-type panics, they’ll retool their .380 lines to produce more 9mmP, which in turn will lessen the supply of .380 ACP.  If you have both — say, for primary and backup purposes — you may need to have a proportionately larger stock of .380 ACP than the shooting of the latter may justify, because its supply is going to run short for a lot longer than the 9mm P.  All part of the balancing act.

Reloading:   I don’t have to tell any reloaders about the shortage of primers during the Covidiocy, nor of the hostile intent of the anti-gun set towards people having the means of self-sufficiency in general.  Suffice it to say that in future Dark Times — and we’d be foolish to assume there won’t be any such ever again — I can see anti-gunners trying to restrict the sales of bulk powder because all that Eeevil Explosive Stuff is dangerous, don’t you know, and we need to Protect Innocnt People From Huge Explosions.  So stock up on both primers and powder during the Good Times of strong supply and lower prices;  those 5,000 small primers in your workshop are going to evaporate quicker than you think.

Rimfire (or, as Tami terms it, “Embacing Rimfire“):  Running out of rimfire ammo is as foolish as running out of salt, flour and sugar.  Having a few thousand rounds of .22 LR may sound like a lot, but if your fun plinking time with the kids / grandkids burns through a 500-round brick per session — and it probably will, or should — that’s not a whole bunch of plinking time to go by before the cupboard is bare.  So the next time you’re at Bass Pro or wherever and you see a decent price on .22 ammo, imagine the Ghost Of Kim standing behind you whispering “Do it, do it, my son” and fill your basket thereof.  Or if you’re doing some online purchasing of your regular .45 or 9mm, spare a thought for rimfire, and add a brick or two before you click “Buy Now”. (This is not a brag, but someone did ask me the other day exactly how much .22 ammo I had on hand, and I didn’t have the faintest clue.  So being a conscientious sort, I did a quick inventory the next morning and discovered that I had just over 10,000 rounds of plinking ammo, and 12,000 rounds of the serious kind — CCI Mini-Mag, my go-to feed when I’m trying for the “o” in the Coca-Cola can as opposed to just the can itself when plinking.  I need more plinking stuff.)

According to a recent search on AmmoSeek, I see that Aguila is having something of a sale at the moment, and it’s going at under 4 cents / per round at several outlets.  CCI Mini-Mag is around 5 cents, and all the others are between those two.  Eley, by the way, is under 10 cents per, for probably the first time since the early 2000s (but frankly, that’s only for the ultra-serious target shooters;  the Son&Heir does perfectly well in competitions with Federal Gold Match for about the same cost as Eley, AND Federal is made in the USA).

Now off on a semi-related tangent, as is my wont when talking about guns and such.

During that inventory, I also saw that I had a few hundred rounds of CCI Green Tag left (20 cents per, ugh), which I need to test against the Mini-Mag in a couple of my rifles acquired since last I did the comparison (executive summary:  the Green Tag was not appreciably more accurate in my guns* than the Mini-Mag at the time, but I’ve acquired a couple different guns since then).

Is that a range session calling me in my little (tinnitus-afflicted) ear?

I believe it is.  Hello, ladies:

*Your experience and guns may vary:  rimfire guns (rifles and pistols) are notoriously picky about which ammo they shoot the best — even guns that moved consecutively off the same assembly line will likely be different in their preference — so get out there and do some testing.

In a Dead Tree magazine (ergo  no link, sorry), I remember reading that Tami Keel talked about ammo shortages and one’s preparation for them, and I’ll talk about that in another post after I find the mag.

She also addressed the issue in an earlier piece in Shooting Times (talking about the Great Covid Ammo Panic) and noted:

Retail stocks of common handgun calibers, such as .380 ACP, 9 mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP, were quickly depleted.

Which they were.  However, she went on to discuss other, less popular calibers, and noted that stocks of stuff like 9x18mm Makorov were less affected — and swapping out the .380 barrel in a Glock 42 for a different one in said chambering meant that one might be less affected by ammo shortages.

I myself saw that when I went to the local Scheels store during the Great Covidiocy, among the otherwise-bare shelves were plentiful supplies of esoteric calibers like .460 S&W, which makes me ponder the question (as Tami did):

Is it worth getting a gun chambered in an offbeat caliber as a backup for one’s regular (for example) 9mmP or .45 ACP?

It’s an interesting thought.  Ordinarily, I myself would not be in the market for a gun chambered in, say, .44-40;  but faced with a shortage of my regular ammo, that venerable cowboy boolet would sure as hell make a decent backup — especially if one had a rifle chambered for the same cartridge.

So let me look at a couple of “companion” options.

I’ve written before about budget-gunmaker Rossi’s R92 lever rifle, but specifically about its desirability when chambered in .357 Mag — one of those calibers that were severely affected by the Covidiocy shortages.

However, the R92 can also be had in .454 Casull (which can also handle the .45 Colt easily), and when paired with a Magnum Research BFR:

…that’s a hell of a combination.  Manly, even.  (And .45 Colt is another cartridge that may not be too vulnerable in a supply shortage, but maybe more so than the .454 Casull.)

How about the .350 Legend?  (Also known as the .45-70 Govt’s little brother.)  I also note that Hornady makes a subsonic variant…

Here we have two outstanding choices —  the S&W Model 350:

…which can be coupled with (say) a semi-auto Ruger AR556 MPR rifle:

…or the bolt-action Howa Mini-Action:

All three look quite toothsome, don’t they?

Remember, in both the above two calibers, we’re not talking about an “everyday” shooting gun:  we’re talking about having a gun, or pair of guns, that will do duty in a pinch and which will probably not fall foul of ammo supply shortages during a period of panic.  (That the .350 Legend is not a bad choice for close-range hunting is a feature and not a flaw.)

Feel free to add other such cartridge choices in Comments.  I’ve talked about a rifle / handgun pairing, but that’s not a prerequisite for this exercise.  You can go with handgun-only or long gun-only.

Afterthought:  I know, I know;  one should always have enough ammo to withstand a temporary shortage — exactly how much, I’ll cover in that follow-up post — but hey, it’s a nice exercise anyway.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I would be selling off a number of my guns to get a better handle on my financial situation.  Several Readers contacted me, and I have to say that pretty much all have been snapped up.  To all those Readers who sent me a request for a list, sorry — but Reader Matt The Polack, who lives here in north Texas, made me an excellent offer for all but one of them and is now the proud owner thereof.  The guns also came with shall we say a substantial quantity of ammo included in the price.

I’m now down to what I consider the bare minimum of rifles — an AK-47, which as my SHTF gun cannot be sold, and my beloved Browning 1885 High Wall .45-70 Govt, which was a gift from you guys back in the day and which although originally included in my to-sell list, I just cannot bring myself to part with.  As I’m unlikely ever to go hunting again, therefore, all my other rifles were redundant and have disappeared from Ye Olde Gunne Sayfe, ditto their boolets from Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere.

Of course, my .22 rifles are not included (because they’re not guns but household commodities, as I never tire of reminding people);  although I did toy with selling the Marlin heavy-barreled varmint rifles, I’ve reconsidered because they are now the only scoped rifles I still own and with my failing Old Fart Eyes, I have to be able to hit something.

My handguns… ah, now I’m faced with a dreadful dilemma.

You see, I really have few (shall we say) extraneous handguns.  All are either needed for self-defense or else plinking — pretty much the same situation as my rifles now are.  I do have a duplicate or two, however, so I’m offering this one up for sale:

It’s a Ruger Single-Six in .22 LR (only;  there’s no .22 Mag swap-out cylinder) which I love, but it’s one of two in the safe.  POR.

The only other handgun I’m considering selling is my Ruger Super Blackhawk in .30 Carbine:

Look;  this is a fun gun.  It’s not really a hunting gun, and obviously not much use as a self-defense piece either.  BUT:  few other guns compare in that the noise is wonderful, the 18″ muzzle-flash impressive, and the recoil out of the 7″-barreled heavy revolver is somewhat less than a .357 Magnum.  If I do sell it — and I’m really torn about it, as you can see — it will carry a hefty price premium, although that price will be somewhat ameliorated by the amount of ammo that would be included in the sale.  (With the M1 Carbine gone — aaargh! — I no longer need to keep any .30 Carbine ammo.) Interested parties should email me for details.

None of my other handguns are for sale, for the simple reason that in addition to their utility, I cannot bear to part with any of them.

Finally, let me provide a humble reminder of my annual fundraiser — the last I hope to ever do — and for which the details are here.  My heartfelt thanks to all who have already contributed.