Ammunition Stockpile: Defensive Ammunitionįirst and foremost I think you should develop a solid reserve of defensive ammunition. These are not unpredictable, one-off events. Even if the election is contentious and a close call, ammunition will become more expensive and less available. If the tribe that you don’t like wins, ammunition will become more expensive and less available. It’s no secret when the next election is, or the one after that, or the one after that. Probably the most predictable event driving huge price-spikes and unavailability is politics.

It is one of those products that is extremely sensitive to fear/panic-buying. Secondly, ammunition can become insanely expensive. Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, tornadoes, are just a few of the things that might keep you from getting to the store, keep the store from opening, or destroy the entire town where the store is. Riots in the streets or a pandemic are just two far-fetched scenarios I can imagine. With that being a virtual guarantee, why on Earth wouldn’t you stock some ammo when it is cheap? If you still need a reason, here are a few.įirst, there are a number of things that might keep you from getting to the store when you need some ammo. You will likely have a hard time finding the ammunition you want. People will be begin to panic-buy and it will become difficult to obtain from your usual sources. Here is the thing that really gets me: every gun owner KNOWS that every few years something will happen that makes ammunition a highly valued commodity. Any of these could mean you absolutely cannot get ammunition when you really, really need it. It may be that ammunition becomes really difficult to find, subject to licenses or permits, or just insanely expensive. Regardless of your religious, political, or ideological stance, there is some possible negative outcome that doesn’t challenge your beliefs that could impact your ability to purchase ammunition in the future. The single most important thing you can do to begin creating an ammunition stockpile is realize that bad things happen. And apparently, during good times it is really, really difficult to get people to realize that ammunition won’t always be freely available and dirt cheap – despite us all having experienced wild price spikes and limited availability. It is even difficult to get people to prepare for relatively common events, or events that have very high likelihood of occurrence, like earthquakes and tornadoes. It is very difficult to get people to imagine and prepare for uncommon events. Most people assume that things will mostly be good, mostly forever. If your primary mechanism for stockpiling ammunition is reloading, you should substitute (almost) every instance of the word “ammunition” in this article with the word “components.” Why You Should Have an Ammunition Stockpile I have seen components in high demand and low supply in the past and those shortages will probably happen again (if they aren’t already). Your reloading bench does little good without an adequate supply of brass, bullets, powder, and primers. The reloader’s burden shifts from purchasing loaded ammunition to purchasing ammunition components.

The reloader isn’t relieved from stockpiling. While I get it – you can make your own ammo – I believe that statement misses the forest for the trees.

In fact I have a bunch of buckets of brass in the garage and I may well take it up one of these days, just for fun. The last time I wrote an article of this nature I was informed that building an ammunition stockpile was unnecessary for those who practice reloading. Today I’m going to attempt (again) to encourage you to purchase ammunition at your leisure rather than in knee-jerk response to external stimuli. I have long advocated the practice of stockpiling ammunition.

2017 ammo stockpile