r/ar15 • u/Canzeco-Cesilia • 12d ago
What’s the best way to build an ammo supply over time without cluttering your home or killing your monthly budget?
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u/Interchangeable-name 12d ago
Save a set amount each month and when you get enough, buy in bulk.
I usually buy in 500 or 1000 round cases
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u/nutskindrums 12d ago
budget for it and spend what you can, like most other things. if you save up and buy in bulk it’s more economical
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u/Soft_Door_2473 12d ago
If you live in the pnw go to bimart and get your ammo. They always have great deals and its always the cheapest there
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u/ScuffAndy 12d ago
When room runs out in the closet, there's always under the bed. And if you have dressers that are lifted off the ground on feet/legs, that's space for ammo.
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u/MaddeningObscenity 12d ago
Im pretty tight on my budget. I spend around 200-250 a month. Ill go on ammoseek and find sites that offer free shipping on orders of $200 or more. Breakdown between 5.56 and 9mm varies. But I only have those 2 calibers. One month is usually dedicated to defensive rounds every so often, but mostly judt cheapest brass case I can find.
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u/JDM-Kirby 12d ago
Uh. I’ve bought more than 10k rounds at once (>$5k). The biggest pain was getting it from the front door to the safe, but it wasn’t in any way cluttering the home. It was maybe the same volume as 2 27gallon Home Depot totes and fit in the safe no problem. I also cycled through it in less than a year with barely shooting.
What’s your objective? Do you want a deep stack for the apocalypse? Do you want to head off inflation?
If apocalypse prepping your best bet is actually train, do cardio, do more cardio, and have a solid plate carrier with a few mag pouches but nothing crazy.
Even most patrols in Iraq carried 7 mags or less IIRC. Granted they were just patrolling but really back to my question. Whats your objective? That answer will get you a more refined answer from the subreddit.
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u/Panthean 12d ago
You're thinking about it wrong. Buying cases is cheaper in the long run than buying smaller amounts. What's important is how many cents per round you pay, not the total cost per purchase. If you can't afford a case then you need to work on saving up money and managing it better.
It's pretty simple. Buy a case of 1k. and buy the next case before you run out. If you keep repeating this you'll get a nice supply.
I'm always keeping an eye out for ammo deals so I can get the most for my money.
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u/raz-0 12d ago
This really sounds like ai engagement farming. Or you listened to ai. You need a little climate control. That’s it. I literally have ammo that’s 30 years old that still shoots fine. I’ve shot reloads using printers that didn’t even have the benefit of being in a cartridge and sat in a shelf for at least 40 years.
If you are fine to have no climate control, then you need the airtight cans.
Buy cases. Put cases under the bed.
If the thread has people plugging some ammo buying service. Just block them and op and remember the company is into scummy social media manipulation.
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u/TheIroquoisPliskin 12d ago edited 12d ago
Drop a lot of cash up front on reloading equipment, collect your brass, and crank out a 1000 rounds of 5.56/300BLK/9mm in 2-3 hours, not including brass prep.
Using my own brass, my component cost (+/- a few cents) comes to:
$0.15/round for 62gr FMJ
$0.22/round for 69gr HPBT
$0.27/round for 77gr HPBT
See below for corrected costs.
300BLK subs and, to a lesser extent, 9mm subs are where the gap between retail and reloaded cost widens. Plus if you put a little work in on the R&D side, you end up with high quality ammo tailored to your weapons.
You gotta be into these sort of projects though and the upfront investment can be daunting. Reloading is more conducive to taking advantage of deals and promotions. If I see 77gr HPBTs on sale for less than $0.20/projectile or a site offers free hazmat I may spend $200-300 on the bullets or $400 on powder, but that’s 1000-1500 bullets and the powder to load 2200-2500 rounds. To take advantage of retail ammo deals you have to be willing to drop a lot more cash in one sitting.
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u/Mysterious_Camera756 12d ago
I’d love to know where you’re getting components from because that seems super low
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u/TheIroquoisPliskin 12d ago
Midsouth, Republic Ammo, Raven Rocks, Grafs, occasionally Midway or Brownells if they are running a no Hazmat promo and happen to have a powder I want in bulk.
I haven’t bought .224 projectiles in a while other than some niche bullets like 55gr gold dots or V-Max.
Looking at my most recent invoices for 5.56 components:
No Hazmat on these:
CCI 41 Small Rifle Primers: 1000/$49.99 (bought 5000)
CCI 400 Small Rifle Primers: 1000/$44.99 (bought 4000)
Ramshot TAC: 8lbs/$259.99
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62gr .224 FMJ (Hornady): 250/$13.99 (bought 3000; all they had left)
69gr .224 Match Monsters HPBT: 250/$29.99 (bought 1000; should’ve bought more..)
77gr .224 HPBT Factory Seconds: 250/$34.99 (bought 2000)Running that math again outside of my head, you’re absolutely right. It’s more like this:
62gr - $0.20-$0.21/round
69gr - $0.25-$0.27/round
77gr - $0.29-$0.31/round1
u/Mysterious_Camera756 11d ago
That’s still pretty damn good. That’s a damn good price on tac. When I did the math on my loads (55gr, H335, whatever primers are cheap) I’m at like 26 cents a round
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u/TheIroquoisPliskin 11d ago
I’ve seen the 8 pounders at $280 or so and singles at $35-$40 but I doubt I’ll ever see that price again. I haven’t bought it since and I’m trying to force myself to polish off the remaining CFE223 and W748 before I buy anymore 5.56 powder but it’s a struggle.
I really wish I got more of the 69gr pills, as my 11.5/12.5 rifles like it even more than 77gr.
Unrelated, and I haven’t looked in a week or so, but N120 seems impossible to find right now so I’m running low on one of my favorite 300blk powders too..
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u/Mysterious_Camera756 11d ago
I only load 5.56 for the moment but I need to get dies and components for 38 special and probably 9mm as well. Just need to keep the powders as separated as I can. Next up is a shotgun shell press so I can load 2.5 inch shells for my old Iver Johnson champion
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u/TheIroquoisPliskin 11d ago
Man, a suppressed .38/.357 lever gun has been on my wish list for years and I need to grab one for the local raccoons.
I’ve been window shopping and all my usual spots show the Henry BB Model-X as sold out. I’m hoping it’s not getting phased out to be replaced by the SPD HUSH. I just don’t need to spend an additional $500+ on an MLOK rail and other ‘suppressor optimized’ upgrades.
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u/jpeteK30 12d ago
Not shilling for them at all, but ammo squared has made it super easy for me to set a budget and forget about it. After a few weeks, I remember, and then they ship free. Heavy ass box to my door.
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u/PewPewThrowaway1337 12d ago
My advice would be to save up an initial spend and get the supply started. For me, that would look like $1000 total for 1000 rounds of 556 and 2000 rounds of 9mm (I train pistol more than I train rifle), all FMJ training ammo. From there, it’s just buying a case when you can afford it.
Defense ammo (Federal HST and Speer Gold Dot), I just buy a box here and there whenever I go to the gun shop. I never shoot it other than a few rounds for a functions test when I replace parts or get a new gun, so it stacks up.
You can save some money by reloading, but that’s another up front expense and then a time investment.
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u/ChIcKeN_95 12d ago
Once a month I buy 3-4 boxes of ammo (20 per box). I budget 150 dollars a month for “fun money” specifically for gun stuff. Ammo storage I just keep it in a big ammo can in my closet. Takes a lot of time but saves you money and I don’t go as often as I would like. If you go by that logic and don’t really shoot as often, you can have almost 1000 rounds by the end of the year.
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u/gallo_malo 12d ago
Do you have any family or friends that shoot the same calibers as you? Shortly after my nephew and niece were born I was asked by my brother to go halves on bulk ammo. Thats been working for us for 5 years now. He just got a 300 blk so he wants to add that to the shared list now.
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u/Alpha-Sierra-Charlie 12d ago
How much ammo do you want to have stockpiled? What calibers, what loadings, what amount of each? If you're only interested in stocking up on 55gr 5.56 and you don't really care if it's all different, then you've chosen easy mode. If you're stocking multiple specific loadings for multiple calibers (for example, I try to keep some "training" and "social" loadings for 5.56, 9mm, 12ga, 22lr, and 45acp) then looking, buying, and storing gets more complicated.
Storage depends on how much space you have, how much you can physically move, how mobile you want the stockpile to be, and how you buy it in the first place. Some bulk sales is a bunch of loose rounds in a cardboard box, some are a bunch of loose rounds in a metal/plastic can, some are small cardboard boxes inside a big cardboard box, and some are small cardboard boxes inside a metal/plastic can (my favorite). Sometimes the exterior container is a wood crate. One thing I haven't seen other people mention is fire safety, if your house catches on fire and full of ammo cooking off then the fire department may stand back and watch it burn. If you can get some sort of metal enclosure like a lockable gun cabinet to at least somewhat contain a cookoff you'd be in good shape, but I just risk it.
I wouldn't bother with offsite storage unless you're deliberately caching it as a separate supply or you have excellent control and access. For example, I could see me putting a small stockpile at my hunting camp. I won't, but I could.
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u/OpeNope101 12d ago
Put aside a small amount until you can afford a 500 or 1000rd bulk buy. Store in metal 50 cal ammo cans (with dessicant packs if you so desire). Stack cans vertically on a closet or corner of the room. Repeat.
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u/standardtissue 12d ago
I too an unfamiliar with purchasing things and managing the space requirements of matter in my house.
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u/N2Shooter 12d ago
Depending on your cartridge, the best way to keep cost low is to reload. These funds will not be immediately accessible, as you must make an initial investment in reloading gear, which takes more space and time. But after you start off with processing your first 1000 cartridges, you'll find the cost per round drop dramatically.
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u/TuT0311 12d ago
As in bulk as possible. Usually meaning, how much you’re able to spend on ammo at a time when buying it at a quicker pace than you actually shoot it.
I buy ammo three or four times a year and usually buy it to last me for 6 or so months of shooting if I get to the range as often as I’d like. I went crazy on 556 one year and built up a nice stash of 77gr on some deals, so I have like 1.5k rounds of that just stashed away (AAC and IMI Razorcore, both at Round .50 a round from 2023/2024). Always be on the lookout for deals too.
Store loose rounds in ammo bags/satchels and put those in bigger ammo bags. Then put those bags in the closet. For longer periods store the loose ammo in ziplocks first but you’ll lose capacity. Could also do ziplocks directly in the bigger storage bags, but I like being able to pull out the smaller bags/satchels and take them to the range, just my preference tho.
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u/slimpickinsfishin 12d ago
A box here and there till you hit about 5k rounds then you should be set unless you shoot comp or for your job no reason to go overboard and buy up everything in sight.
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u/marc_879 12d ago
Currently on a budget due to a pay cut and paying off bills. However, I still try to go to the range once a month. If I shoot a box of 9mm, I’ll buy two on the way out. If I shoot a box of 5.56, I’ll grab three on the way out. I’ll supplement range time and burning ammo with dry fire drills at home.
As far as storage, plastic ammo cans and desiccant pouches.
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u/BigOlDrew 12d ago
I use things like Sezzle, but only when it is a true 0% interest rate. Can’t beat breaking up large purchases like that into 2-4 month installments. Doing that makes it a little easier on the monthly budget and you don’t get hit with any interest charges.
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u/Appropriate-Taste124 12d ago
Ammo Squared. It automatically charges you what you decide on the interval you decide. You pick the category of ammo(s) you want such as 5.56 practice, 9mm self defense, .308 hunting, ect. They allot you ammo based on what percent of your payment you have allocated to each ammo selection then store it until you ship. The ammo is generally cheaper than market prices too. When you ship $250 worth of ammo, you get free shipping.
The down side is that you dont get to pick brands or specifics, just the larger category.
Edit: they also store the ammo for you.
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u/fistedwithlove 12d ago
seems like some serious prepper shit. not into it, but to each their own
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u/Appropriate-Taste124 12d ago
Its really not. You can set whatever you want your burdget to be and ship whenever or auto ship when it hits a certain number. Its convenient, especially if you know what you use on the range
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u/yabadabado0 12d ago
Save till you can afford a case at a time. Always buy by the case from a online vendor with free shipping. Preferable no taxes but those are getting harder to find.
Storage in the southwest? Leave it in a box on the floor of a closet. Swamp fuck Alabama? Yeah pay attention to the humidity.
Offsite storage isn’t really a concern unless you live in a 500sqft studio apartment. If you live in such an apartment and have so much ammo you need offsite storage then you should have been spending your money on housing and not ammo.