How Much Ammo, and Why?

Vanity | 3/8/10 | dagogo redux

[dagogo redux]

With all the talk about the Second Amendment, the ammo shortage, and about what might lie ahead after November (or before), I thought it might be a reasonable vanity post to ask what sorts of quantities of ammo are practical for a person or household to stock for an “emergency”.

A few months ago, for instance, someone here said 6000 rounds for each firearm. More recently, someone said (I think) 3000 rounds for one’s primary battle rifle, and 500 rounds for each handgun and shot gun.

Answers may depend on many factors: for instance, the scenario you think most likely, or most worthwhile to prepare for, as well as the role you might see yourself playing in such a scenario (home defense, active maneuvers, underground resistance, etc), so posting these thoughts may help explain your reasoning.

"The more the merrier,” will occur to many, but practical answers would be more helpful. And HOW did you arrived at your answer - is it calculated in some way, something you were taught, a hunch, collected wisdom, etc? If you say 5000 rounds, why not 2500 or 10,000, etc. and what do you base that on?

Thanks for tolerating another vanity, and thanks for educating us with your answers.

[Sparticus]

P.S. - there's no such thing as too much ammunition, eh?

...Except when you're on fire or trying to swim. :)

[Noumenon]

Well, there’s that.

[Atlas Sneezed]

God help them all if the house catches fire!!!

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Ammo doesn’t present a lethal threat in a house fire.
Check to see if it is covered (as any property) under homeowners insurance, and store sensibly.

[Atlas Sneezed]

500 rounds of hand gun ammo is sufficient.

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Borderline...

...for a day’s practice.

The point to having LOTS is to be able to TRAIN, without with ammo is nearly useless.

[Armedanddangerous]

If you assume that everything is going to hit the fan at some point, plan for gunshops to be either closed or out of ammo for six to nine months and plan accordingly.

Go to someplace like www.ammoman.com and buy a case of ammo for each self defense gun plus one for each homeland defense rifle.

[Armedanddangerous]

conceivably it could be anything from a 70-year old moisin nagant to an M1-Carbine to a ruger 10-22, a Winchester 30-30 or an AR-15.

Essentially, its what you have at the time it gets tense to shoot back at the bad guy. For us, a ruger 10-22, an SKS and an AR-15.

[kamikaze2000]

Play Call of Duty 2 online and have a friend count how many times you shoot before you die. Play for 3 hours or so. The most shots you can get off before you die, is how much ammo you’ll need ;)

But if you want a serious answer...I’ve heard 1,000 rounds is the minimum and that seems about right to me.

[Pessimist]

As do my wife and I. I usually shoot 100 rounds a week myself. Hence the stockpile never gets all that big.

I’ll buy 1k rounds when I can find a good deal, but then we start chewing that away pretty quick.

[GonzoGOP]

In Call of Duty 2 ammo has no mass. Unfortunately in real life ammo gets heavy fast. If you are planning on forting up, this isn't as big of a problem. But if you are planning to ship out, then there is no reason to have more ammo than you can bring with you. If you intend to lug it around with you figure out how much you can carry / load in the car.

The obvious exception, as pointed out by another poster, is practice ammo. You can burn up a lot gaining and maintaining proficiency. And don't forget to rotate your stock. Ammo has a use by date, and if you want to avoid a misfire at a critical moment, use up the old stuff as you buy new ammo.

[dagogo redux]

“Play Call of Duty 2 online . . . “

Sorry - I’m from another generation: that wasn’t my war.

[BerserkPatriot]

Like they say: Prior Planing Prevents Poor Performance.

Thinking out different scenarios and different plans is always a good idea.

There are a number different variables and types of emergencies to consider and plan for: Natural disaster, Terrorist attack – NBC warfare or whatever, “Economic Unrest”, etc.

Some if these scenarios could crop up suddenly, some over a period of a couple days.

Either way, forget about suddenly running out to “Whole Foods” and stocking up – most likely everyone else and his brother will have the same exact idea at the same exact time – the word ‘Chaos’ doesn't half cover it.

Having drills is a great idea – have your stuff in place and at some point send of a text message to all in you circle the exercise has started and see what happens – thankfully if it's just an exercise you can assess what went right and what went wrong and adjust you plans accordingly.

[DuncanWaring]

Ammo has a use by date, ...

Not that I've really noticed.

I've used ammo over a half-century old that has worked as well as new-manufacture.

1960's-era "Pakistani Ordnance Factory" (POF) .303 Brit being the notable exception.

[GonzoGOP]

I've used ammo over a half-century old that has worked as well as new-manufacture.

I guess I should have added the caveat that it depends on how it is stored. Temperature changes and moisture are obviously the enemies, not really time.

[DuncanWaring]

Temperature changes and moisture ...

That would be the "conventional wisdom".

However, someone posted a tale here a little while back about finding 60-or-so linked rounds of .30-06 ammo in the California desert in the 1970s, in the area of one of George Patton's training grounds.

That suggested it had been out there baking in the Sonora/Mojave desert sun for thirty-or-so years.

He said that after cleaning it up, it shot just fine.

Hard to tell what the real rules are.

Except for "stay the heck away from that 1960s POF MkVII stuff".

[kamikaze2000]

Every thread needs at least one flippant answer so I was just filling my quota :) Hope I didn’t rub anyone the wrong way.

One observation I did make last year during the run on guns and ammo was that the cheaper Russian imported 7.62x39 dried up fast and was out of stock from most online sources for 2 or 3 weeks. You could find brass case American made 7.62x39 but prices were through the roof.

It’s been said that 7.62x39 is one of the most plentiful rounds in the US. But the ammo shortage made me realize, what good will that do you when nobody is selling? Something to think about.

Thank you for your service..

[DuncanWaring]

Reasonable: enough to burn out every barrel.

Each barrel has a finite lifespan.

Do barrels really "burn out", or does their accuracy just gradually degrade as the rifling wears away and the thoat erodes?

[ctdonath2]

You’ve got the point.

[dagogo redux]

Don’t worry about it - I was just being flippant myself. :)

The stockpiling and the shortages have certainly raised some interesting questions, and been quite a wake up call. The answers here have presented quite an array of attitudes and solutions. We live in “interesting times.”

[DuncanWaring]

I’ve occasionally seen folks make claims that you should have “10,000 rounds per weapon” or some other similar large number ... remarked to myself that if you’ve got that much ammo, you should have a couple of spare barrels and the means to properly swap them out.

[archy]

Play Call of Duty 2 online and have a friend count how many times you shoot before you die. Play for 3 hours or so. The most shots you can get off before you die, is how much ammo you’ll need ;)

But if you want a serious answer...I’ve heard 1,000 rounds is the minimum and that seems about right to me.

That'll certainly do for a start. If you fire off even a tenth of that, you should have either obtained sufficient replacement spare firearms and additional ammo to be less concerned about running low- or you have no more concerns for things of this world.

However, one should not generally have all their eggs in one basket, so spare hardware and ammo in a resupply cache may also prove prudent.

And my own habits are developed from my days as atank crewman when we carried around 65 rounds of main gun ammo, 10,000 rounds of 7.62mm for the co-ax machinegun [and, sometimes, for the M60 MG we swiped from a Scout Section track and fixed to out Chrysler gun mount on the outside of the commander's cupola] and a thousand rounds or so [ten boxes, 105 rounds each] of .50 caliber for the tank commander;s M2 .50 caliber. Plus a couple thousand rounds of .45 for our our four M1911A1 .45 autopistols and two [sometimes three] M3 oer M3A1 submachineguns, and sometimes an M79 grenade launcher and 72 rounds for it.

That's a pretty good start.