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I Can’t Believe I Just Paid $.60/Round for M193 5.56 Ammo

Foghorn - comments 147 comments

XM193, c Nick LeghornAt the beginning of December, my ammo supply was starting to run low. I usually buy 5.56 ammo in 1,000 round increments and I was down to my last handful of stripper clips. I could actually see the bottom of the ammo can. I figured that I’d wait until after the Christmas and post-Christmas buying spree had died down before I headed off to Cabela’s and grabbed a crate of ammo. Unfortunately, that plan quickly went down the drain . . .

Let me just preface this by saying that yes, I know there’s other ammo out there. Walmart usually has some ammo in stock and there are other sites that are offering various other flavors of 5.56. But through my own personal testing, I have found that M193 ammunition provides the best compromise between cost and consistency. Plus, I’ve used it in competitions for so long that I intuitively know how the round performs at distance. So you could say that I’ve become rather picky about my ammunition choice.

Throughout January, there was none of my favorite ammo to be had. Niente. Anywhere. At all. Not a single solitary round of 5.56 ammo to be found. Every time I went to the local gun stores, the “ammo zombies” were out in force, combing the shelves and trying to search out that last box that no one had been keen enough to spot all week. And they were coming away empty handed, too.

Until recently, this had merely been a minor inconvenience. I’ve got enough ready-made 300 AAC Blackout ammo on hand (and more than enough powder, primers and bullets) that I could switch to my hunting rifle for 3-gun competitions while the ammo shortage continued.

Unfortunately, recent events have pushed the need to re-stock some 5.56 ammunition from “when I get around to it” to “emergency” levels. And while I’m sure I could eventually pester some PR reps into sending me some ammo to use, I’m not ready to gamble the success of a rather large project on the generosity of a company that’s making money hand over fist in civilian sales at the moment.

So I was browsing Reddit last night when I stumbled across a link to Freedom Munitions. They had 5.56 ammo in stock and at a somewhat reasonable price – 500 rounds for $300. In other words nearly double what the exact same ammo was selling for before it became scarce. But even at that price it was still less than other sites were advertising (like $990/1,000 rounds). I figured “what the hell” and pulled the trigger on a case. I needed the ammo and while prices were slightly better other places, none of them had ammo in stock.

I happened to stumble across the link five minutes after it was posted. I ordered the ammo five minutes later. Five minutes after that, they were sold out again. I ordered at 9:00 PM CST, and by 11:00 CST I had a tracking number for my order.

There has to be an end to this ammo shortage at some point. The last time it was this bad it took nearly a year to get everything settled and back to “normal,” but I’m hoping that the severity of this shortage means that people will run out of money rather soon and things will start to stabilize. Because I really don’t look forward to having a 15 minute window to order ammo before it’s out of stock again. Or, I suppose I could follow Jerry and get a cement mixer.

147 thoughts on “I Can’t Believe I Just Paid $.60/Round for M193 5.56 Ammo”

  1. if i am not mistaken, my vz. 58 was one of those ORF receivers that was then finished up by a local smith. so i’ll have to see how she runs one of these days…

    Reply
  2. Cops shoot protesters in the US with all kinds of things (bean bags, tear gas, tasers, etc.), and I do not recall a single one ever shooting back. So, I don’t really think your point is relevant.

    Reply
  3. Welcome to Obama Land! The land of Socalistic Reform, created by a FIP from Chicago, a place that has no guns, and a high rate of gun volence.

    Reply
  4. Ronnia Fornstedt is well proportioned. It would be a waste of flesh if she is one of those Swedish femi-nazzis.

    I only watched the first few seconds of the news video. Ending gun violence by banning and limiting guns does not end violence and those acts usually make violence worse than before.

    Reply
  5. Purchased the Sig 238 a few months back as CC defense weapon. First trip to range, bummed to find out it was siting in about 2.5 inches to the right at 12 yards. Gunsmith fixed that $40. Very accurate now. Light recoil, easy to re-acquire target. Have put about 400 rounds through the gun. About 1 feed problem every 100 rounds or so. Raised with 1911, so am very comfortable with the 238, and love the look and feel.

    Reply
  6. I see a lot of anti’s stating that their right to live and see a movie without the fear of being shot trumps our right to keep and bear arms. I am not sure where they get this from, I think it may be from the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    Reply
  7. wait, so they are unduly taxing people to recover costs? And would leo’s be exempt? if not then wouldn’t that be more costly for taxpayers insuring ever single officer? and What Insurance company would take a silly risk like that? Doubt that’s a money maker. And how would you enforce it? Those idiots in San Francisco and LA Keep coming up with laws that are ridiculous.

    Reply
    • That’s not saying much around here…. My walmart has NOTHING… Well, nothing in the way of common calibers. No .40, .45, 9-mm, .22LR, .38-SPL, .380. Zilcho. And, they haven’t had any… well… since Sandy Hook.

      Reply
  8. Besides creating more bureaucracy……I thought we were broke.
    The insurance for gun owners is an end around/backdoor to registration. Registration opens the door to confiscation. Govt. would only need to subpoena the records of insurance companies to get the names of all gun owners. Except the criminals of course……….

    Reply
  9. Why are we supposed to sit down, shut up and take this kind of abuse without any display of emotion. That’s exactly what the so called leadership of the Republican party does. We don’t have to be meek as a lamb and servile as a slave, that’s exactly what our enemies prefer. It’s time to make plenty of noise and get in our enemies faces, up close and personal. Our cause is righteous so why not express our convictions with passion.

    Personally, my blood has been at a rolling boil for several decades now with no end in sight. Only a thoughtless drone or moral degenerate could watch what is happening to this country and not be outraged.

    Reply
    • Here in Wyoming, you can’t even find percussion caps at some LGS.

      Apparently, people think that Joe “Hair Plugs” Biden will also recommend coming after Sharps, Ballards and 1885 High Walls as well.

      Given some of the pronouncements coming out of Democrats across the country recently, I can’t denounce behavior such as stockpiling percussion caps as irrational.

      Reply
      • I would be very surprised if there had been a run on percussion caps. What probably happened is that every outfit that can make high-demand ammo switched every production line they had over to those products, and now the inventory is depleted because replacements aren’t being made.

        Reply
    • How to take yourself out of the gene pool without killing yourself. I wonder if he used the ACME diy vasectomy kit. h/t Wile E. Coyote.

      Reply
  10. Good luck with the order. I ordered 1000 rds of 9mm from Freedom Munitions on January 12th. The website showed it to be in stock and I got a confirmation email.

    That was about it. Now everytime I login to their website, it shows my order status to be “processing”. No telling if I’ll ever see my order.

    I’ve had good luck picking up ammo at the local LGSs, Walmart, and Academy. Even with the shortages and blowing through 300 rds/week at the range, I’ve been able to maintain approximately 3000 rds in each caliber (9mm, .45 ACP, and 5.56).

    Tell Tyler to run over to McBrides in Austin for you. They’ve got stacks of 20 rd boxes of 5.56 55gr for $9.95. Not cheap ($0.54/rd after tax), but cheaper than $0.60/rd.

    Reply
  11. With my Colt AR…I can bust the wings off a gnat’s ass at 200 with this ammo. Its all u need. I set the useless steel casings up on my range as targets after.

    Reply
    • DEFINITELY not fond of that one. And “educated” is pretty vague, a LOT vaguer than, oh, say….. “atheist”. “Graduated from Hogwarts” – now THAT’S pretty specific.

      Reply
  12. I got an email regarding a Seekins upper receiver (w/FA and Side Flap) – I whipped the card out and *bam* paid. I coudlnt rememember my pasword so I quickly entered an alternate email address and said to hell with it. I have a 5 min window.

    I have a friend who’s trying to sell a bunch of Remanufactured ammo him and I picked up at a parking-lot “sale” (If you can call it one – considering prices are now double what they should be). We met up outside the lot at 5:45am – doors didn’t open until 9, and by 8am, the line was around the corner and down the adjacent street by a couple blocks. Cars where driving up, slowing down, and saying “to hell with it” and driving off.

    Reply
  13. There has to be an end to this ammo shortage at some point.

    Well, we can assume that 2016 is the first possible real end…. assuming people decide that they’d rather have a different situation than we have now. Given the sort of pablum coming out of people’s mouths these days, that’s no longer a safe assumption.

    You don’t need to go as whole hog as a cement mixer if you have more time to devote to reloading throughout the year than Jerry does. You can always look into commercial tumblers, which come in both vibratory and rotary versions. There are ceramic and stainless steel pin polishing media that do a good job and don’t get saturated with gunk the way corn cob or walnut shell media does.

    Reply
  14. When you already 10,000 rounds of ammo…. you can give it a break and let the other guys buy some.

    If it’s “end of the world ammo” why did you wait until there wasn’t any to stock up?

    I’ve heard stories… This guy showed up at a parkinglot sale and bough the two pallets a total of 16cans high on all sides. Guy asked him, “what in the hell do you need all that for?” guy says “I dunno, prolly gonna sit on it”

    Reply
    • I’m not going to say what I think of anyone who is buying far more than they can ever need hoping to get rich off of it somewhere down the road. Sadly, I expect that is often the case. The time may come when friends are more important than an excess of ammo.

      Reply
  15. I propose an in-depth experiment to settle the debate. We take a state – say, Massachusetts or New Jersey, but I’m open to suggestion, and make the entire state a gun-free zone. Some of us will have to move, but it’s for the greater good. Maybe New York, since the groundwork is there. Then we disarm the entire population, including the police. Then we go back in ten years and rescue any survivors.

    Reply
  16. I skipped the local gun show this weekend. I knew it was going to be more hassle than it was worth. And I refuse to pay $25/box for 115gr FMJ 9mm. I guess I’ll prep my CZ for long term storage. I wont be needing it for a long time…

    Reply
  17. $0.65 per round ? Sounds reasonable in this market. I have been paying $1.00 per round for quality surplus 7.62×51 (Port./Hirt.) in 200 rd. rubber battle packs for some time.

    Of course, I have stashed away 10,000 + rds…..

    Reply
  18. I’d love to see some investigative reporting on the ammo situation. If no suppliers have (hardly) any ammo, where’s it going? Was there such a large backlog of orders? Are the feds hooving up the ammo supply?

    And what’s the volume capacity of the ammo distribution channel in the US – both manufacturers and imports? How many rounds are we talking about going into people’s 10,000 round caches?

    What might break the log jam, and when? Are manufacturers actively increasing supply? Is demand going up, down or holding steady?

    Reply
  19. Imagine the howls of outrage from liberals if there was an arbitrary 18-month wait to exercise one of the rights that they cherish; say, to get an abortion.

    Reply
  20. @ Nick

    That why you buy a Dillion 550, or 650 and reload because your get hammered when buying over priced surplus ammo and your getting ripped off.

    Buy .223 brass and 55gr FMJ bullets and reload!

    Reply
    • where can you get bullets or for that matter primers …all the normal websites i deal with are out (personaly I don’t have to worry about that)

      Reply
  21. This is truly Orwellian… and something similar has been done before, but not by the Big Powers, but by the Stasi, in East Germany, or (as it was known officially) the German Democratic Republic (cough).

    The Stasi would break into your house, or creep around your work environment, the gym, your school, your car, a restaurant where you just ate, etc – and pick up your clothing, grab up furniture, things with which you’d been in contact for extended periods, then collect scents of you.

    When you’d come in for interrogation – about anything – they’d hand you something to hold for 15 to 30 minutes while they got you worked up, then use that object as a scent repository.

    They’d store these objects with your scent on them in a jam jar (similar to our Mason jars), with names and ID numbers on them and use them as a reference scent of those whom they wanted to follow or incriminate.

    Then they’d use dogs or people trained to be super-sniffers to follow people around…

    If people want to see where this type of crap leads, I highly recommend a German film titled “Das Leben Der Anderen,” or “The Lives of Others.” The commies in the DDR approached communism with a teutonic zeal for efficiency and competence that the Russians could never match, and the Chinese can’t even fathom. According to some estimates, about one-third of the country was in the employ of the Stasi, reporting on their family, friends and neighbors… and for those people who were too smart and too well disconnected from other people, the Stasi used methods similar to this DNA tagger – scent, radioactive trace powder, fluorescent dyes, etc.

    One more thing to NB:

    This sort of perverted society (the UK) is what produces knob-polishers like Piers Morgan.

    Reply
  22. Please excuse the sarcasm here…. “…..of course all the criminals have legally purchased and registered their weapons…. State and Federal laws require them to do so…..”
    Anyone who cannot understand that criminals do not obey laws has a serious logic problem.
    New laws, taxes, insurance, etc, only affect legitimate gun owners. Criminals will be pleased to see more restrictions; it will only make the illegal trade and market value for guns increase.
    I do not know of any legitimate gun owners who participate in illegal activities; smuggling, robbery, drugs, etc.
    My American privilege to own and shoot guns is no different than any other sporting activity.

    Reply
  23. I say we do a TTAG bikini calendar! 😉
    Yeah ok it is sexiest, but it would sell like hot cakes I imagine…
    For the girls we could do a guys calendar too.. just sayin..

    Oh and RF where are the IWI girls you promised!

    Reply
    • Seconded! And part of the proceeds could go to SAF / NRA / FPC / “Assaulted” etc…

      I’d buy one or more, because I love freedom so much!

      Reply
  24. for the edification of the comments above, those are LE models of tippmann paintball markers, the pistol being a TPX (8 balls/mag) or later model TiPX , and the “rifle” a model 98. these are LE models not only because of the color, but also probably have the safety valve removed so that they can fire above 330 fps (against criminals who cares about safety right). I suspect this because I have a less successful version of the Tiberius T8 called the pepperball SA-8. though why the FN 303 was not good enough is beyond me.

    Reply
  25. I can’t understand for the life of me why we lend any weight at all to the opinions of people whose primary achievement in life is pretending to be someone they’re not.

    Reply
  26. Really too bad. I respected her quite a bit when she spoke out against Jenny McCarthy’s inane anti vaccination rants. She basically suggested not to listen to celebrities, but listen to researchers and doctors.

    Wish she would at least be consistent and look at the FBI/DOJ crime statistics and make an objective assessment herself. “Don’t listen to me, I’m just a celebrity. Look up the crime statistics and see for yourself.”

    Reply
  27. I live and work in Oswego county…next county over. not too bad here. the Sheriff has a team in the civil division doing pistol permit applications during the day, and has relinquished the duties to corrections staff on certain week nights and saturdays. Turn around is still about 3 months, which is not bad considering what is happening a few miles away.

    Reply
  28. When you think Hollywood, think Herman Goebbels, The Hitler stooge who oversaw the propaganda machine for the fatherland. Todays Holleywood would make him proud (If he didn’t hang himself) :^)

    Reply
  29. Like him or hate him, I read an article earlier today that Steven Segal will be training volunteers in Arizona to respond to school shootings. Ill see if I can dig it back up, it was a Yahoo article.

    Reply
  30. 20 feet and paper? With a freaking AR? I’ve fired 30 rounds through one and only watched YouTube videos for training, and that sounds pretty easy.

    In real life, different, but hopefully someone in that position has fired more than 30 rounds and had training beyond watching random vids online.

    Reply
  31. If politicians were so sure that “gun control” laws would save children’s lives, why did they wait until 20 of them died?

    If they’re so concerned about “saving just one life”, why did they wait until 20 died when they already had the answer long before?

    Reply
  32. That WaPo column was worth a chuckle.

    Read the bit about Obama’s shotgun and the other about his hostage scenario experiment.

    It’s the same logic that announces guns are useless for defense because the author doesn’t trust themselves so nobody else can be, or if a someone is ever killed while carrying a gun of their own, or that an armed defender in a school is pointless “because Columbine”.

    Reply
  33. Wasn’t there an article on a laser gun system with a mechanical recoil impersonating thingy on here or around the net somewhere recently? Did I just dream that because of how badly I want to practice in my living room?

    Reply
  34. In light of the recent tragedies we must not let ourselves be labeled Pro Gun. A gun is an object a tool like a car, or a fork. And like a car or a fork it can be used very positively. What we are is Pro 2A. Don’t let the grabbers label us into a corner. We are fighting for our right not for an object. I have a LTC. I AM PRO 2A all the way.
    If we could work toward reciprocity we would be making some serious strides.
    Go Pro 2A!

    Reply
  35. Wave a Thermold, insert a Troy mag. A man after my own heart. I’m keeping my Thermolds, et al, but my Troy is always inside my Bushmaster.

    Reply
  36. Anybody (well, nearly) can grow it in their yard. You want to TAX something that anyone can grow. I agree with you on legalization, but meth heads should be made to wear propeller beanies.

    How about taxing LEGISLATION?

    Reply
  37. my comment is to robert the …. fellow thaqt wrote the above article as it were
    robert i think you need to do some home work as there were a number of other female competitors before miss boobie girl
    so to say that michelle was the first is not only insulting but plain fucken wrong bud

    Reply
  38. That headline could just as easily read “Nickbnumbers having trouble scrounging up sympathy for gov’t agencies inconvenienced by consequences from gov’t actions.”

    Reply
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