Before fear of the Obama anti-gun policies sparked ammo hoarding, the .25 ACP was an affordable centerfire cartridge. The 500 rounds of .25 ACP in the above photo just cost me what I used to consider an outrageous sum of money for 500 rounds of .45 hardball. We do live during interesting times.
Even though my increased recreational shooting has slightly dented my ammo reserves, for most of the calibers and gauges, I am still well set and the cache should make it to the end of my years. While still light on .38 Super, I am making steady headway on that front. A recent inventory found I was down to only 150 rounds of .25 ACP. Considering my age versus the actuarial tables and the number of guns of different calibers on the rack that I shoot in rotation, this recent purchase of 500 rounds of .25 ACP should cover my remaining years of shooting my mini-mouse guns; they get light use on their infrequent range visits.
As I have said before, I didn’t raft my cache of ammo as a contingency for the end of the world as we know it. I rafted ammo during my working days so I would have enough on hand during my retirement years to have fun and improve my shooting skills (or at least maintain my mediocre skill level). Ammo was cheap for many years and I took advantage of the prices and availability while I still had a paycheck, a most fortunate move on my part. I would sure hate to pay today’s prices for any sizeable ammo lot. In fact, I have been tempted on more than one occasion to sell some of my inventory at what would be a significant profit; I still believe that this is an ammo-bubble and that prices will someday come back down to levels that are more reasonable.
Whatever tomorrow brings, should I happen to have many cases of ammo available during some unthinkable crisis I’ll consider that a fringe benefit of my being a gun nut. Having said that, please know that I’m reverently hoping to live the balance of my life never needing to fire any gun in self-defense.
Even though my increased recreational shooting has slightly dented my ammo reserves, for most of the calibers and gauges, I am still well set and the cache should make it to the end of my years. While still light on .38 Super, I am making steady headway on that front. A recent inventory found I was down to only 150 rounds of .25 ACP. Considering my age versus the actuarial tables and the number of guns of different calibers on the rack that I shoot in rotation, this recent purchase of 500 rounds of .25 ACP should cover my remaining years of shooting my mini-mouse guns; they get light use on their infrequent range visits.
As I have said before, I didn’t raft my cache of ammo as a contingency for the end of the world as we know it. I rafted ammo during my working days so I would have enough on hand during my retirement years to have fun and improve my shooting skills (or at least maintain my mediocre skill level). Ammo was cheap for many years and I took advantage of the prices and availability while I still had a paycheck, a most fortunate move on my part. I would sure hate to pay today’s prices for any sizeable ammo lot. In fact, I have been tempted on more than one occasion to sell some of my inventory at what would be a significant profit; I still believe that this is an ammo-bubble and that prices will someday come back down to levels that are more reasonable.
Whatever tomorrow brings, should I happen to have many cases of ammo available during some unthinkable crisis I’ll consider that a fringe benefit of my being a gun nut. Having said that, please know that I’m reverently hoping to live the balance of my life never needing to fire any gun in self-defense.
Even if you decide not to reload for .25 ACP, it is worthwhile to save what brass that you can recover for trading stock. I decided that .25 ACP was too much of a pain to reload, but managed to swap my .25 dies, brass and components for .32 ACP stuff, which I do reload very successfully, to make practice ammo I use in several pistols of this caliber.
ReplyDeleteI also save my .22 brass, old keys, etc. Last brass I took to the scrap dealer got $0.65 per pound. A 5 gallon bucket netted enough to buy a thousand small pistol primers. Just a thought.
Hey ke4sky, good to see you again.
ReplyDeleteYep, that's a very good idea; I'll be saving the brass from anything I shoot, at least for a while.
Before I retired (before the ammo and component shortage) I decided to clear my basement of all boxes and bags of spent brass. None of the reloaders wanted any of it, but I did find a gun range that said they would add it to their recycle. Now everyone wants brass; one guy at the range asked if he could chase down everything that hit the floor... I told him to have at it. I never saw him shoot... he was just scrambling around everyone's feet.
Take care,
Zack