Ammo Shortage - Lessons to Learn

Buy Ammo for Long Term Storage

So, for those who never owned guns and those that owned them and only had a hundred rounds of ammo set aside, how are you feeling right now? You had warnings.

 We could have to you so.

I'm not here to insult you since if I knew for sure that this ammo situation was going to occur like this I would have set aside a few hundred bricks of .22 so I could have sold them to you at $100 a pop.  I didn't do that though I do have enough to support my shooting habit until things hopefully come back around.  But what if they don't?  Then we are all in a new uncharted environment when it comes to ammo pricing.   Be sure of one thing.  The market will provide the product but the price will be set according to the rules of supply and demand even if a black market forms to fill the void.

Back in 2008 there was a temporary shortage that eventually resulted in prices that eventually stabilized at double whatever you paid before that shortage.  The prices never came down.

Ammo Shelf Life - The lie

Ammunition isn't like gasoline where you have a shelf life.  No matter what the goons tell you about shelf life on ammo I am here to tell you it is BS.  If you store it in a dry environment it will work if it wasn't garbage ammo to begin with.  I forgot some ammo in an ammo can in the woods behind a shed after clearing it out to reorganize, and a decade later I found it when clearing out a junk pile where I had left it.  Amazingly all the ammo worked despite cold, heat, etc.  It all stayed dry too in the can with desiccant.   Another time I had temporarily stored a few cans  under a rotted out trailer and forgot to retrieve it for a decade and found the cans covered in water. Some of the ammo got wet because a can rusted through and I simply couldn't believe it but 5.56 green tip military grade ammo in there still worked.  I expected a total loss.  Out of a hundred rounds there were no failures and this was in water, ice, and heat.  I don't know how long they were immersed but even a week would have been too much in my past understanding of ammo reliability.  This is admittedly unusual and may be the result of lacquered primers and tight seating of the bullet but what can you say about this other than the canard that ammo gets old unless they mean past your lifetime.

Unprotected Storage

A friend of mine gave me a few boxes of .22 cartridges stored in his garage simply in the original paper boxes and it all worked.  It had been there for over 20 years.  I have a neighbor with the same story but his are over 40 years old and still work and his were in a very humid and damp environment.  I think the lack of exposed primers combined with tight bullet seating of .22 rounds kept them well protected.  Of course they looked old and had some signs of oxidation on the outside but all of the ones he tried worked.  He's keeping most for another few decades since the rounds are now collectible as well as the boxes they came in.   They were his dad's and he remembered those rounds when he was a kid and now he's in his late 50's.  The .22 ammo will likely outlast him.

Old Surplus Ammo

I've fired 9mm corrosive from WW2 through some old guns and it lit every time.  Sure you wouldn't want to risk your life on it, but storing ammo is a sound thing to do for the long term view of having enough to practice as well as for purposeful use.  There is still WW1 and WW2 Mauser ammo that can be found on surplus tables and much of it still works.  Don't buy it for that purpose but if you buy some Soviet Era 1950-80's ammo in tins you can almost be sure it will work.  Don't take my word on it, but actually get some Mosin Nagant ammo in a tin from the past century and try it yourself.  I have never had one fail to fire.  Some will claim the powders are unstable and subject to overpressure and that may have some truth but I have never experienced it.  I have heard that mercuric primers on commie rounds do get unstable but to me that means only they increase pressure but all have worked.  I've never seen a round ignite without a firing pin causing it.  Mercuric primer commie ammo is still the most durable and reliable ammo found so unless you don't like to clean guns after use I would consider that part of my supply.  You don't have that option with an AR15 so I'm talking about AK designs and some pistols.  Use good guns like military grade weapons and they will function and if they are built to WW2 standards they can handle most any problem except squibs.  

Exceptions

On the other hand, I had some Chinese 9x18 that failed repeatedly and the only exposure it had was due to humidity exposure due to storage that I did not arrange.  I had bought the ammo second hand and I could tell the boxes were tainted by mildew and moisture.  In the end I suspect it was the crummy ammo that determined that it would fail.   There was probably no primer protection on that batch and that seems to be a big issue.   Look for lacquered primers as a way to insure your ammo survives oil and water exposure.  I had other ammo from the same storage environment that lit every time.  It was cruddy ammo that failed in this instance.

What to Learn

If things come back around I suggest you load up on ammo instead of gold, silver, and ninja gear.  Store the ammo in moisture proof and preferably waterproof containers with desiccants inside.  Military ammo cans are the best from my experience.   Store the cans in a dry and secure place.   (Remember my experience: Sitting in water on the ground in cold and heat it lasted  a decade in an ammo can.  If you put the ammo inside the can in Mylar storage bags with desiccants you may have protected them until the next century turns and your heirs open it.)