How much Ammo?
 

In preparation for "difficult" times ahead, how much ammo for each weapon is recommended, 100 rounds, 250 rounds, 500 rounds?

Thank you and God bless!

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I'm up to 22,000 rounds, but i mainly bought what I bought over the years cause the price kept going up, it's been a pretty good investment. I could prolly use it to trade for things already.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

How much ammo would you buy if you thought you could never get any more?

For starters, maybe a minimum 500 rounds per handgun, 500 rounds per shotgun, and 1000 rounds per rifle...then double it...at least.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I don't look at the ammo I buy, as something I will barter with later.
I do consider though that the government feels it will be easier to control ammo then to take guns.
There is and has been talk of high taxes coming for ammo, also the possibility exists that bullets will be laser inscribed and you wil have to sign for them, therefore linking your name to your lot. This would also add much expense to ammo.
Back to your question, consider buying more for your most practiced weapon, 1,000 rds. for semi-auto rifles you don't shoot often I think is reasonable.
500 rds. for handguns and 500 for shotguns assorted, slugs, buck and bird.
Another thing to consider is purchasing bullets, primers and smokless powder, even if you don't reload yet.
I've become a big fan of Blazer Brass ammo at Wal-Mart. Quality clean target ammo for cheap!
$8.97 - 9mm, $12.97 -.40 S&W, $15.97 -.45

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Re: How much Ammo?
 

How many rounds do you shoot now? How many do you shoot in a months time? How many do you shoot per year? If you can figure a number for any of those, you can simply multiply that by the number of years you wish to be prepared for.

I'm not really sure you want to be known as the ammunition guy during hard times. Keep a lid on it.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

depends where its made

I have 16,000 rounds of 5.45x39 only because its all imported ( have two AK74)
just in case we have a ban on imported ammo. and have another 10,000 back ordered anywhere from $137 a tin to $225 tin we will wait and see if I get it, not holding my breath if anyone will honor that price once it comes in. but I need it and will pay what it takes and these places know it.

not to worried about ammo made in the states

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Just put down a racoon. Off to wally world for more .223

As long as you purchase more then you use, you'll always have something when you need it.

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Re: How much Ammo?
 

:adore::adore::adore::adore::adore::adore::adore:

Re: How much Ammo?
 

There's no set limit. I've been buying ammo, powder, and primers over the last few years. If some folks knew how much I have they'd say it's more than enough.
Not to me. I'm treating the above items like they are made of unobtainium.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

It's a case of "How long is a piece of string?"

People can throw out figures but really who knows?

The more the merrier IMHO. But do you really want 10k ammo and 1 month food? It's really a case of weighing up your priorities.

If you are thinking about LA riots then those Korean shop keepers didn't have to have to many. Display and they go away worked for them. But I stress, who knows? Far better to have to much than not enough (in all preps)

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I often wonder this myself. I think I have about 220 rounds for my 40 S&W and about the same for my .357 mag. I think I am going to make it a part of my prep routine to get a box of 50 or 100 at least once every couple of weeks. That's not counting what I shoot at the range so if I shoot 50 at the range, that gets replaced plus the add on.

My next goal is to get to 500 for each gun I own.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Wiser words I have not heard spoken.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I don't really know what I would need that much ammo for.

If I had to shoot an intruder I'd shoot him maybe 1 or 2 times (10mm) then the police would probably take my gun and maybe they'd give it back or if it was illegal then they'd arrest me and I'd never need it again where I was going

So I figure I need about 10 or 12 bullets for the old 10mm because I'll probably only need to shoot 5 or 6 intruders max. lol

Do you really need that much practice to hit somebody accross the room? If TSRHTF you would be dumb to practice because your gun might wear. You could buy a complete set of spare parts and 5000 rounds but I think it's a waste of a life. I'd rather buy a new suit, if I'm goin to hell I wanna look good.

Honestly I'd be fine with a sharp knife, that's all I had for years and nobody bothered me. I guess being eager to fight tends to deter people because I can't beg someone to attack me.

If I ever had to fight the men in black I figure they'd drop me before I emptied my second 40 rounder so no more than 80 rounds needed for the AK.

The wimpy 7.62x39 would all bounce off anyway, the gun would be mainly so I wouldn't have to go alive and in that respect I think it's well worth it. Prolly be more effective just to blow the whole house up and take them all with me. It would probably be 10x more effective and no gun required.

I'm starting to think the gun thing is a little dumb, kind of like the silver thing. Nice to have, I'm glad I have it but at the same time worthless after a point.

I spent way too much and the more I think about it, it probably won't help as much as you think it will.

Ironically you will probably end up spending so much on ammo that when you lose your job you won't have enough cash to last until you find the next one, so you'll lose your house and become homeless and then you'll have to sell all your guns and silver and end up in a fema camp becuase you're indigent.

Wouldn't that be funny? Life has a sense of humor that way.

The advice I would give is think about the thing that scares you least and prepare for that because that's what's gonna get you.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

The 7.62x39 round seems to have done its job quite well in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. etc. I'm curious as to why you would call it "wimpy?"

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Wow, what a downer of a post. You say that for guns but you could say the same thing about anything else in life. Why excersize and eat healthy? You'll just end up dead anyway. Learn a skill, why bother? One day your arthritic hands will stop you from doing it. You want to restore a classic car? Why? The second you drive it down the road you're already starting to wear it out again. For me shooting is FUN. Even punching paper with a .22.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Yeah, it works great against people who don't wear ceramic plates and carry fully automatic shotguns with armour piercing grenade launching rounds to your home invasion. Ever see what one of those things does? You wouldn't have a chance. AKs are also made to be select fire, you can't really call what we're allowed to have an AK.

I would put .308AP and 30-06 in that camp as well, none of it penetrates so you might as well use a .22 on full auto and shoot their legs. Are you seriously going to try to use an 8 shot Garand with that ridiculous ping noise it makes every 8 shots while they tear you up with their MP5s, M4s and full auto shotguns?

Anything under a .50cal is gonna bounce right off and even if it doesn't there's way too many of them firing full auto at you. Where's your cover? Where are your force multipliers? What is your strategy?

If your strategy is taking on a trained team that has you cornered that's a bad strategy, wouldn't matter if you had 8000 rounds.

I mean a semi-auto AK is kind of a joke these days although vastly better than a sharp stick.

At bare minimum you would need alot of force multipliers (claymores, grenades, etc.) and good strategy to produce a respectable number of kills.

Outside of that what do you need an AK for? Shooting a burglar?

I mean I'm not anti-gun, I have all this stuff but it's mostly obsolete junk.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I didn't mean that you shouldn't have a gun and plenty of ammo but more on the limitations of such things.

There comes a point of diminishing returns and also a false sense of security.

It also drains other resources, I'd stick to what I could easily afford.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Already been done with level VI, besides the rate of fire with the Garand against so many men is not realistic. A BAR would be nice.

As you can see, it's head shots, leg shots or nothing.

http://www.securityprousa.com/noname101.html

Also defeats such rounds as:

o .30 caliber 166 gr. MZ Armor Piercing (AP) at 2880 fps

o 30-06 AP 166 gr. at 2850 fps

o 12 gauge slug at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 51mm NATO ball ammunition at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 51mm AP M-61 at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 51mm Swiss Munitions AP (WC Core) at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 39mm mild steel core, AK-47 at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 54mm lead core ball ammunition, Dragunov Sniper Rifle at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 54mm AP, Dragunov Sniper Rifle at 0 meters

o 7.62 � 63mm AP at 0 meters

o 5.56 � 45mm SS109/M855 at 0 meters

o 5.56 � 45mm M193 ball at 0 meters

o 5.45 � 39mm Russian ball at 0 meters

Re: How much Ammo?
 

How good is that ceramic plating with a head shot?

Instinct is a very powerful motivator and good reason to be prepared for an event never b4 witnessed by any living generation.

TSHTF over the next 2 years and you should be well prepared IMVHO.

No point in having regrets after the fact. :ok:

Kiwi

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I'm a frugal single income guy.....still have my job and still have a nice income....we save a lot.....we just purchased $4000 in 22 LR ammo and primers and powder....all items I can't make on my own....

This is not a lifetime supply.....but a good start......will try to double this as we have 2 kids growing up that I want to be shooters.

Get it now....I've seen everything double in under 10 years.

It is a good trade out of FRNs....

Re: How much Ammo?
 

What you is say is nothing but defeatism. "They" won't all have cutting edge equipment, "they" are not invincible, "they" do not not make mistakes.

Hollywood fantasies about ninja-boys from the US military or local SWAT team are just that: fantasies. If they were as omnipotent as you imply, Iraq would have been crushed utterly years ago. High tech can often be equally compensated for by sheer willpower: to survive, to defend oneself. Case in point, the thugs with badges are not impervious to fire, still one of the most terrifying weapons available (I'll face a grenade before I'd face well-placed Molotovs, or worse, an improvised flame thrower). There's something dastardly primal about fire, that imbues the target with pure animal terror.

I won't bother trying to defeat aluminum/silicon ceramic armor. I'll try my 000 buck aimed at the thugs' groins; if I don't succeed, so be it. But the likelihood of succeeding in causing severe arterial damage is high; no body armor covers that area.

In any case, I don't care if they have laser cannons, microwave beams, and whatnot. The point is TOTAL RESISTANCE, until death if necessary. I'll fight with an axe, a knife, a baseball bat, or barehanded if I must. I simply will not "go quietly," and in fact, to quote Charlton Heston playing John the Baptist, "I am not going anywhere with you."



“At what exact point, then, should one resist? When one’s belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one’s home?...”

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?...The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!"

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, p. 13 and footnote 5.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Level what?

Do you mean Level IV, or are you that ignorant?

Re: How much Ammo?
 

http://weapons.travellercentral.com/...gun_scmitr.gif
http://weapons.travellercentral.com/...un_scmitr.html

http://www.xacto.com/images/large/x5282.jpg

http://www.tpub.com/content/medical/...14295_39_1.jpg

~

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I keep 1000 rounds loaded and enough primers, powder, and bullets for another 6000 reloads. Total 7000 potentially. I figure that mobility must be maintained, and more than 1000 rounds impedes getting around unless one has a pickup full of ammo. Really, we can't hold off the swine, just hope at best to shoot our way through on the run at night.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

where the hell does this kind of attitude come from?

stop putting tbtb on a pedestal

Re: How much Ammo?
 

On this point I agree. I won't be selling ammo to someone just to have them come back when it's dark.

Also, ceramic plates may not stop API's? Well I don't see that anywhere. My plates say .308 147gr. And even at that the 'blunt force trauma' will make anyone think twice about charging again. Plus they will become ineffective once taking a hit. How much confidence does that inspire?

Store what you believe is enough for you, nothing more.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Re: How much Ammo?
 

You might hold them off for a while if they decide to baby you but in the end you'll be dead and you'll wound or kill only a few. Once you kill one of them they won't baby you..

You may want to ponder that point about loved ones because you're going to see each one of them take a bullet.

If they decide to charge or dump rounds into the house, that's it for you and your loved ones. They won't need a TV dinner, maybe a sandwich or two.

Remember that was a civilian swat team, these people are not as nice.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

well said , right to the point

Re: How much Ammo?
 

This is true.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

....................

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I didn't say that, I said if I TRULY expected (which I don't) to take on a team like that I'd work on getting something a little better than a semi-auto AK.

I'd be looking at a .50 machine gun, recoiless rifle, rpg, etc and a few buddies.

12 guage may work but don't forget they have the full auto with the 20 round drums and the rounds are grenades. These guns have virtually no recoil so it's no problem controlling on full auto.

How does your body armor stand up to that?

Be realistic, that's all.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

So you've got a 10-15 man team dumping rounds at you and you're going to take them out surgically with shots to the head and legs?

It's much easier for them to take a head shot on you than it is for you to take that shot.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

BW does have cutting edge equipment, alot of them are experienced combatants as well.

I'm not saying they are the greatest but I wouldn't think I could take on a squad of them with a neutered AK.

I don't think one of them fully armed with the best of everything could take on a squad of them if they had him cornered.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

In this video you can see the myth of blunt force trauma. Takes a .308 standing on one leg, didn't even bother him.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Once they've got you cornered in your own little house it's all over. You simply can't compete with their firepower. Anyone who thinks they can blast their way out is clueless. They have infinite resources and unlimited backup. You aren't going to get out alive. The best you can do is to take as many of them with you as you can.
The real trick is to stay on the run, always moving while armed to the teeth. Sleep during the day and travel by the most remote roads at night. A GPS and either a jeep or more preferably a dirt bike is essential. Only a dirt bike can really compete in terms of mobility. Which means you are limited to a backpack level of carrying weight. Choose the contents of your bugout backpack wisely.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

markt,
While a lot of what you say is correct, especially the 'you can't compete with their firepower', some of us CAN'T bugout. Or if we can, it won't be on a dirt bike or a small jeep.

Some of us will be using a LARGE military truck.

Oh, also. Forget the GPS. It will most likely be shut off to all but the military. So make sure you've got great maps of the area you will be 'bugging out' to.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I dont think it's them with armor you have to worry about, rather the usual trash that lives off of others, they will have no armor.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Are you American?

Re: How much Ammo?
 

I'm relatively new here, so please no shooting the questioner.

I'm confused in reading the answers here as some of the amounts of ammo suggested are very large, and some make it sound like they'll be fighting out of their homes and others will not be sitting in their homes and will be on the hunt. Some of this makes sense but some makes me ask just a few questions for my own learning pleasure.....

How do folks believe they will be getting around when TSHTF?
How will folks be moving these thousands of rounds, guns, plus supplies etc... ?
Where will they be storing these thousands of rounds, guns, supplies etc... ?
How will they be getting back to ammo stored if for example at home ?

So let me ask where is everyone meeting up for this coming revolution ?

:10_1_19:

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most people who stockpile ammo in the thousands think of it as an investment. In a revolution the value of ammo will rise and can be used as a bartering tool.

Not all of the ammo people are shooting is meant for people, too. Many people would like to get target practice ammo while they still can/ while it's still cheap.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

As for the ammo question, I say 1000 rounds per firearm minimum. Those with fortified compounds of course should have pallet fulls by now.

Agree holding off the gangs in black at ones domestic residence is a futile resistance. Holding off zombies is a different scenario, as with a total breakdown in society the gangs in black will be protecting thier own families ( they are human too).
After all why should they attack people when the risk is greater than the reward (ie not being paid).

Everyone of course has thier own ideas, but having a good home defense will deter criminal elements(street gangs) and zombies if the economy totally collapses.

Food supply will give some time to reorganize if it looks like things are getting worse. Bug out will be when one realizes that the domestic residence is no longer defensible or there are more favorable places to migrate to. Those will use some type of heavy duty vehicle to travel unmaintained or backcountry roads, that can pull and haul enough provisions.

Could be someplace like Montana or other places where the people are like minded. This is how any sort of hope of reorganization after a complete total collapse would happen. Hopefully there will be enough oasis of liberty minded people getting together that those that prepared will survive and succeed.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Re: How much Ammo?
 

Yep, I know plenty of people that won't go quietly into the night. Boys that have been stomping through the mountainside since they could walk.

Re: How much Ammo?
 

mtnman,
Thanks for the response....so you are suggesting that one should be accumulating ammo, but not keep all within immediate reach, as some above suggest, but stash in different locations?

I was thinking more along the lines of CAVU's response, in keeping all close so when 'Local' stuff goes bad and there is rioting etc....one can protect their own.

In all honesty, for a Noob, it's confusing in that folks say buy Precious Metals, Ammo, Supplies, but I was starting down this path with the thoughts of storing ALL accumulated at home in SAFE places. I was thinking this way, because I would imagine if things truly get that bad, travel would seriously be limited, and I for one was thinking about protecting immediate family and friends first. Also taking all of this or stashing elsewhere is a bit concerning.

I have not thought, until I read here, about a possible Millitia, not to say I wouldn't be partial to it if truly required.

Thanks to y'all for lessons/recommendations etc.....
RK

Re: How much Ammo?