Today while out on my lunch break, I stopped by the Wal-Mart Supercenter that is a couple miles from where I work. I keep a stock of soda in my desk, and running low, I stopped there to pick some up as they were only a mile further than HyVee with lower prices.
While in there I decided to check out the ammo case to see if I might get lucky in finding either 9mm or .40 S&W ammo. I got lucky and saw they still had a good supply of .40 S&W Winchester 165 grain 100-round "white box", the stuff that my wife and I have come to prefer shooting. They also had a few 100 round boxes of Federal .40 S&W 180 grain for a little less, but again, my wife and I have come to prefer the Winchester ammo.
But the best part of finding the ammo wasn’t just finding it, but noticing that the price I paid is not much higher than what I’ve paid in the past for that ammo. Last time I bought this same ammunition from Wal-Mart, I paid perhaps a dollar less than what I did today, which was shy of $36 for 100 rounds. When times were good, it was more like $33 for 100 rounds of the stuff, so not too much more than times past.
So while many other places seem to be jacking up prices for their ammunition, I’m glad to see that Wal-Mart hasn’t done that. Yes the price has gone up some, but so have the cost of materials from some reports I’ve seen. And the last couple times I’ve been able to find ammunition through Bass Pro and Cabela’s, it also had not been marked up over what they typically charge.
And what keeps them from marking it up is putting a limit on how much ammunition people can buy, which while frustrating, it does help things. At least they’re not trying to cash in on the current panic.
But unfortunately too many people are trying to cash in, such as the numerous people who buy up as much ammunition as they can and then list it on Gunbroker.com for double what they paid for it – a couple listings for the ammunition I just bought today show it going for shy of double what I paid for it in the store.
And if you’re someone who is buying your ammo from Gunbroker at the enormously inflated prices they have listed, you are only exacerbating the problem. So please, stop giving those people your money as they are only in it for the money, only wanting to cash in on the panic. And the sooner people stop giving in to them, the quicker things will return to some semblance of normality.
I mean no one should be paying 50 cents a round or more for 9mm Luger, or really anything, unless you’re talking about Remington Golden Sabre, Speer Gold Dot, Federal HST, or one of the other high quality personal protection ammunition loads – i.e. the ammo that even before the panic was running you upwards of $1 a round or better, even for 9mm.
