It certainly pays to check at WalMart

[at_liberty]

This evening I was looking for .40 S&W, but the store had just gotten in Federal 115GR 9mm FMJ at $9.83/box of 50. I already have 2K rounds of 9mm and need to work on my supply of .40. I paid more than their price for what I already had, bought in bulk. I at least found (1) 100 round box of Winchester 165gr FMTC in .40 S&W for $30.97, not great but not easy to beat either. I already had a grey box of their Federal hollow points that I hadn't tried yet. That was from a different store.

I can say that there is absolutely no sense in reloading 9mm unless loving the science and busy work of it. Factory ammo is cheaper than reloads with new brass and not worth worrying about the difference with used brass.

[ripley16]

I make a point of walking through the sports area anytime I'm in my local Walmart. I've found recently, say in the last three months;

about 1000 rounds of .380 at $33 per 100, and I've even left some on the shelf for others.

that or more of 9mm at various prices, a couple hundred of the the Federal, some WWB and some Swiss stuff.

.40 S&W is about the only ammo that's been in good supply, maybe because the Walmart is only a few miles from Quantico.

Walmart is one of the very few stores that did not exploit the ammo shortage with astronomical prices. I respect that.

[In-Yo-Grill]

I make a point of walking through the sports area anytime I'm in my local Walmart. I've found recently, say in the last three months;

about 1000 rounds of .380 at $33 per 100, and I've even left some on the shelf for others.

that or more of 9mm at various prices, a couple hundred of the the Federal, some WWB and some Swiss stuff.

.40 S&W is about the only ammo that's been in good supply, maybe because the Walmart is only a few miles from Quantico.

Walmart is one of the very few stores that did not exploit the ammo shortage with astronomical prices. I respect that.

Here...Here...I agree.

[at_liberty]

Is it really fair to imply that stores charge too much for ammo, when they have to pay their suppliers increasingly more or are not prepared to buy by the truckload?

I see it in more macro terms when noticing things like Georgia Arms, an ammo company, desperately offering $50 per thousand (a nickel a piece) trade-in for used brass.

Basic economics tells us that; when demand is high, and supply is tight, prices go up. It is called a "seller's market".

I would think that investment in copper, lead, and nickel production would have a nice payoff.

We know the suppliers are really pressured, because you can't buy reloading components for prices that allow reloaders to save any money. They are competing with commercial cartridge manufacturers, who cannot get enough of the stuff or are hoarding it themselves.

I just wonder when we will see ammo made in China, like everything else. Can it be far away?

[ripley16]

Made another visit to the ammo counter at my local WM and low and behold... I saw a stack of Winchester NATO, 9mm. I've never seen this stocked there before. I opened a box to look at the case and sure enough, it had the "circled +" and was dated "10". They were selling it for $12-something.

The NATO ammo is great practice ammo IMHO because it is accuracte, clean and has close recoil and pressure to many SC rounds carried (but cost twice as much).

[O'Dell]

It certainly pays to check at WalMart

My bank branch is in WM, so I walk past the ammo case a couple of times a week. I've got plenty of 9mm, but mostly I shoot 45. They always have 9mm, 40, 357 SIG, and even 44 Magnum, but I haven't seen any 45 in several weeks. I finally had to order 500 rounds online Friday.

[cgo99]

My bank branch is in WM, so I walk past the ammo case a couple of times a week. I've got plenty of 9mm, but mostly I shoot 45. They always have 9mm, 40, 357 SIG, and even 44 Magnum, but I haven't seen any 45 in several weeks. I finally had to order 500 rounds online Friday.

Funny, my local WM always has a few boxes of 45s and 40s but is fairly difficult to get 9s (my cartridge of choice).
That said, lately it has been better (not great just better), I can find Federal 115 FMJ at $9 and change, it works out to $10 and about 4 cents per box with taxes.
There is also the swiss stuff that ripley16 mentioned and some Winchester at $14 and $12 and change each but not very often.
I'm working on my supply right now, I have about 1600 rounds right now. I'd like to be on the 2000+ mark.

[at_liberty]

Tonight I caught my closest WalMart with 4 of the 100 round "value pack" boxes of Winchester .45 ACP FMJ at, get this,...$34.97. I took two of them, already pretty well stocked and short on budget.

The word must have gotten out, because they had none left of the Federal 9mm that was under $10 per 50 round box.

They had a good stock of .40 S&W and some of the Winchester 100 round value packs. I didn't note the price, since I just recently made a big purchase on .40s.

So....waddayano...they do sometimes have .45 ACP...even here.

[wyntrout]

The first Wal*Mart I stopped at today -- not the closest -- had lots of 9mm(too much, to hear them talk -- just remove the restriction) I asked about .45 and they had a couple of boxes of Remington UMC MC... I bought both. MEGA-Packs of 250 for $84.97 each! That's $17 a box of 50 which is a buck more a box than the rare Federal for $15.99.
I stopped by the closer WM and they had plenty of 9mm -- Federal 115-gr FMJ @$9.47/50, RWS 124-gr FMJ @$12.47/50, Winchester Nato 124-gr FMJ @$12.47/50, and Winchester 115-gr FMJ @$13.47/50. I didn't notice if they had the W100-packs. They had all kinds of .40 S&W, but no .45.
Between those stops, I stopped by D!cks and they had DPX .380 for $21.99/20. They had Rem. UMC 9mm for $14.99/50 but no .45.
I felt really lucky on the .45 ACP at the first WM, and might have bought more if they had had it... 6 box limit.
My short-term ammo needs are taken care of, for now.
I picked up a good deal at Sam's Club, too -- a "Definitive Collection" Clint Eastwood: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, and For A few Dollars More. The first and the last are labeled and Wide Screen. AFOD is a dual- sided un-labeled disc with Full and WS on opposite sides... for $11.88! I couldn't pass this up. The audio is mono on all three and subtitles are available in English and French for AFOD and on FAFDM French Mono and subtitiles in English, French and Spanish. TGTBATU adds Spanish Mono as well.
Every once in a while I run across some originally not in stereo stuff like this. We could only see it in theaters and they had lots of speakers and plenty of volume.
I can pump it through all of my speakers, at least.
It's just unbelievable how cheap some of the movies have gotten. You can buy collections of 2 to 5 movies for as little as a couple of bucks a movie for regular DVDs and a little more for Blu-Ray versions at Wally World.
Wynn

[zehnmm]

Plus one for Walmart. I got 250 rounds of 9mm (100 of Win and 150 of RWS, both FMJ) for avg. price with tax of $0.27 per round.

My budget allows for me to shoot no more than 300 rounds per month. My strategy is to shoot the vast majority of my rounds with reasonable low price ammo like I got from Walmart and the remiander with premium "carry" ammo (like Speer Gold Dots, Federal Hydra-Shok, etc.) The premium rounds can and often run $1.00 each.

[Mr. S]

Tonight I caught my closest WalMart with 4 of the 100 round "value pack" boxes of Winchester .45 ACP FMJ at, get this,...$34.97. I took two of them, already pretty well stocked and short on budget.

The word must have gotten out, because they had none left of the Federal 9mm that was under $10 per 50 round box.

They had a good stock of .40 S&W and some of the Winchester 100 round value packs. I didn't note the price, since I just recently made a big purchase on .40s.

So....waddayano...they do sometimes have .45 ACP...even here.

I picked up 2 of the 100 round WWB .45acp for $32.97 each yesterday.
My local WM had plenty of .45, Remington UMC 250 round pack,Federal Champion 50 round and the WWB 100 round packs as well.
Lots of 9mm and 40 as well.

[Michael W.]

My closest Walmart is a newly built one that doesn't even have a shooting
section. (Built about 4 years ago). I drove out to another one today and
found some decent priced .40. I found WWB 100pk for $29-something and
Federal Champion 180gr for = $13.97/50. (This is the same box as the 9mm
for 9.97 but in 40 cal.) This is about as good as I've seen anywhere online or
elsewhere. I bought 6 boxes.

Incidentally, I don't recall .40 ball ammo ever being a whole lot cheaper than that.
I have an empty box of Federal American Eagle that I bought probably 7-8 years ago
with a $13.96 price tag on it.

No .45 except a couple boxes of Winchester PDX-1 230 gr. Plenty of 9mm, but
not the cheap Federal. They had both 50pk and 100pk WWB and RWS for
12.47. (Cheap being a relative term as I DO remember buying 1000rd cases of
Fiocchi ball for $6.95-7.95/per only a few years ago) They also had plenty of
the Winchester NATO spec 9mm for 12 something.

About the best "regular" price for .45 ACP I've found is for Blazer Aluminum at
Natchezss.com for $17.99 but they sell out quickly when it comes in. I set the
alert status which automatically emails me when it comes in.

Michael-

[wyntrout]

Watch for the Remington UMC Mega-Packs of 250 for about $85 ~ $17 a box of 50. Other than the ONE box of Federal I got there one time for $15.99, that's the best deal on .45 I've seen... and that only counts as one box. Six of them, now that's a bunch of bucks, but a bunch of ammo, too. I save most of my 50-round boxes and transfer the UMC to those, suitably re-marked with taped on parts of the mega boxes' labels. I like that they come in trays and not loose like the WW100 packs.
I wonder if WM will ever get in some Chinese pistol ammo. If it's cheap, I would try it.
Wynn

[Michael W.]

I wonder if WM will ever get in some Chinese pistol ammo. If it's cheap, I would try it.
Wynn

I don't think I would like it any more than I like the Russian stuff.
Wolf, Golden, Silver, Brown Bears.....all sooty, stinky, lacquer-gunked
crap that I won't be putting in any of my guns unless I was being over-run
by zombies and it was all I had.......

M-

[wyntrout]

Well, I only have one box of the Wolf left. I bought 500 rounds years ago at a gun show for my S&W 645. It'll shoot anything. After my PM45's second trip to the mothership, I shot three different boxes of ammo -- one of Wolf -- and some Golden Sabers. All went bang the first pull of the trigger and there were no failures to feed or eject.
Wolf costs more than some good US ammo at most places. I don't mind aluminum cases, but I'm gonna stay away from steel.
Lessee, the Chinese have been trying to get rid of a lot of things like mercury, cadmium, sulfur, and melamine or whatever that plastic(?) stuff was that they were putting in food products, including baby formula. What in the heck would they put in bullets that shouldn't be there? Something worse than lead??
Wynn

Oh, yeah! I've been practicing my head shots for Zombies and whatnot. One through the brain should stop most anything... lights out! I'm always yelling "Shoot'em in the head!" during the horror flicks, especially when they keep pumping rounds into the chest with no effect... Duh!
I've been thinking about some multi-purpose bullets... hollow points cast from silver with some holy water and a wooden plug to cap it off... maybe wood from a cross? Should work on vampires and werewolves, too.