In this column, I’m going to try to give you true insiders into the hunting and shooting industry. No fluff or sugar-coating, just a point of view from someone who truly hunts, fishes, and shoots and isn’t getting paid to say nice things about okay products. If you spend enough time in your local gun shop or sporting goods store you probably have a favorite person behind the counter that you truly believe their option and know it’s not a sales scheme. Growing up my dad would drag me to few different shops around the area. Most of the time he either knew the owner or the guy who was always behind the counter, as I got older I understood the value of having someone else option that is deep knowledge. This is what I’m hoping to bring to the table. I have to bring something, and it’s not going to be a case of ammo.
In fact, that’s a good place to kick off my first piece here at Bearing Arms; has the price of ammunition really gone up this much over the last year? I can’t speak for all the other shops, just what I see in the one I work at. Currently as I write this I’m looking online at 9mm and 5.56. Last year at this time 9mm was about 20 cents per round. Depending on the 5.56 round, it was running around 45 cents per round. Right now those same boxes are going for between $1-1.50 a round. Everyone thinks that because demand jumped through the roof over night and supplied dried up, that the prices were driven up as well. Well, here is the dirty little secret; it hasn’t gone up much at all. I honestly think we are getting ripped off and scalped.
Now, I don’t work at a very big shop. So we don’t have a lot of buying power, which translates to our prices being a little higher than most. But here is what we are seeing and I’m going to try to fill you all in without upsetting some other shops. As it stands the shop’s average cost of 9mm for 115gr FMJ goes up to about $10 a box. That same box is being sold online for $50 plus. As for 5.56 they are running around $9 a box but are being sold for $20 plus.
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I hate being “that guy” who asks people to donate because I think our conservative news network is so crucial, but here I am…
When I left my cushy corporate job in 2017, I did so knowing that my family would have to make sacrifices. But I couldn’t continue to watch the nation slip into oblivion and was inspired by President Trump’s willingness to fight the good fight even at his own personal expense. What I didn’t realize then is that conservative media would be so heavily attacked, canceled, and defunded that the sacrifices would be extreme.
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