The same story plays out, over and over again, for most of us. Something happens. It’s usually something bad and it causes a spike in demand for ammo (and sometimes guns, too). That causes Mr. and Mrs. Average Gun Owner to look around and realize that — crap! — they have, at best, a few boxes of ammo in the house.
That’s when they jump online or hop in the hoopty and drive down to their LGS or big box store where they find the pickings are mighty slim and prices have doubled. Or more. The situation doesn’t get any better any time soon. The madness of crowds, herd behavior and all that. Everyone wants more gun food. Demand stays high and so do prices. Supply and demand are funny that way.
Eventually, though, we make it to the end of the cycle. Whatever caused the spike recedes into the past, demand starts to slow and ammo makers catch up. Prices drift back down to (about) where they were before. That’s when Mr. and Mrs. Average Gun Owner swear to themselves that they’ll never be caught short again, scrambling for whatever they can find and paying top dollar for it. They’ll stock up this time. They’ll lay in a supply, buying while prices are low.
Except almost none of them ever do that. Then the cycle repeats. Again.
It’s this dynamic that’s given birth to a few online services that let you buy ammunition either in large, discreet purchases or a little at a time, say month-to-month, and hold it for when you need it. You can accumulate it, then have it shipped to you or, in some cases, get the value of the ammo back in cash if you bought low and later want to sell high.
So when we saw a press release announcing that Ammunition Depot was getting into that kind of business — they call it AmmoVault — we wondered how their operation was different from the other companies that are doing something similar.
Ammunition Depot president Dan Wolgin told SNW that the difference comes down to trust. Ammunition Depot has been around for 15 years and they sell hundreds of millions of rounds a year through their regular retail business. His competitors aren’t ammo retailers. Yes, you buy ammunition from them, but Ammunition Depot has tens of millions of round in their inventory at any given time, in addition to what they’ve set aside when AmmoVault members buy gun food.
There’s no membership fee. You can buy in separate purchases or set up regular payments as low as $5 to build up your stash over time. And they’ll ship your ammo to you free when you withdraw $199 or more.
The service is still new and Wolgin tells us they’re developing and adding more features such as changing calibers, being able to use ammo in your account to cover sales tax, cash out options and more.
As AmmoVault points out, the worst time to buy ammunition is when everyone else is. If you’re old enough to rent a car, you’ve lived through that experience. It’s not fun. So learn the lesson this time. Stock up while prices are low.
You can buy ammo the regular way and stack it yourself, or you can use a service like AmmoVault and buy a little on a regular schedule — $5, $25, $100…whatever — to accumulate the calibers you need at currently reasonable prices. The choice is yours.
Great idea, until it isn’t.
Another democrat administration tyranny worse than Bidens tyranny would march right in and confiscate the whole warehouse, or seize/subpoena their customer records to find out who has been buying ammo and then show up to ‘red flag’ you for some contrived reason, or simply ban shipments of ammo to the public at large.
We decentralized our family ammo stockpile during the Biden tyranny, and now its all stored away safely in plain sight where only a few know. Millions of rounds, purchased over many years of lot buys from manufacturers.