Beware : Picture heavy and not for the faint of heart in these tough times for American shooters.
Full disclosure : I live in Switzerland
I never meant to be an ammo hoarder but it starts to feel a bit like it. In the last few years I started shooting more, and whereas 22 lr, 9mm, and 223 has always been readily available and reasonably priced in bulk (1000 rds), some other bigger calibers (38/357, 44, 45, 10mm etc.) have seen an increase in prices, sometimes with a reduction of offer and little choice of brands.
I started checking ads from private sellers unloading ammo they didn’t need or want anymore (and I still do).
But then I placed some wtb ads and realised there’s a good number of people who gave up shooting, or sold a weapon but still had the ammo, who had an ageing or deceased parent and didn’t know what to do with the ammo.
As a rule of thumb I offer to pay 20 to 30% below the lowest price I can get from the LGS for fresh bulk ammo. I am sometimes taking a chance, don’t know how old the ammo is or how it’s been stored and have no recourse.
And it has been quite successful.
One young gentleman had a huge trove of ammo : his father’s buddy is a retired LGS in a somewhat remote region of the country. So he made a deal with the kid : he sells the ammo and they share the money plus he could keep stuff he liked for his ammo collection for free. Apparently there was over 1200 lbs of stuff. Lots of quality US and European stuff.
Now the kid lives 70 miles away from me and has no car. So he ended up coming down from his mountain on weekends by train (1 1/2 hrs one way) combining a delivery of abt 1000 rounds in his bag pack and grocery bag with a visit to his buddies in town.
That’s the bounty :
This one is old (‘56) repacked Swiss GP11 tracers
I ended up with 8300 rounds of all kinds for abt $ 2500.- spread over several months during the first Covid wave. I had to make a spreadsheet to keep up.
