Tuesday, June 16, 2020

The Panic Pandemic, and storing up sundry goods.

My wife and I tend to hoard things.  In an effort to not appear on various TV shows, our house nothing but pathways through the mess, we actively try to get rid of things, and we don't buy things we don't need.  An often asked question from either the Mrs. or myself when we're at the store is "Yes, but where will we keep it?"  If we don't have an answer, we don't buy it.  Must fight the hoarding tendencies. 

It doesn't help that ever since our house in Wisconsin we've had to purge for every move and every new house.  Each successive house has been smaller than the last, forcing us to toss away even more of our hobbies and crafts that are unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.  Clothing that we could afford to hold on to in the previous move now takes up space in this house, so out it goes.  It was old anyways.

One of the things that we've not had a huge amount of in any house is ammunition.  I would love to have Ye Oldde Storage Loquer, a la Kim du Toit, but I have to move it myself since moving companies won't touch it, and we never have much room to store ammo in any case.  We've kept a few thousand rounds of all types combined, but never any stockpiling.  I may have grumbled about not having enough ammo in the house, but every time I had to load all of it up into a vehicle and move it across the country, I grumbled a bit less. 

And then the Panic Pandemic hit.  Next thing you know, we couldn't even get toilet paper because people were freaking the hell out.  And we went to buy a couple boxes of ammo just to go to the range, and every shelf was bare.  Gone.  Nada.  There was one lonely box of Hornady Critical Defense, and that was it for 9mm.  Pretty much all practice ammo in every caliber was wiped clean. You could by a box of 50 specialty rounds for $30, and that was about it.

And the wife got that look on her face.  Anger and panic combined, with a healthy dose of "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!" mixed in.  Flashbacks from a few situations we'd been in years ago, where everybody around us was losing their damn minds and we were just trying to keep ourselves out of the stupidity.

So a couple weeks later, I'm doing my online thing, I check a few websites, and I see a box of 1000 rounds of 9mm for about $300.  I mention it to her.  "Hey babe, you still want me to look at buying ammo?  Here's this box."  She just looked at me and said "Buy it.  Buy it now."  So I did.

We get the ammo, we go to the range, much pew pew pew, and we go through about 450 rounds.  It was a good range session.  And as we're on the way home, she looks at me and says "That ammo?  If you see any other deals in that range, don't ask, just buy."

So we've got a case of 1000 rounds unopened, about 1000 rounds in various boxes, and another 1000 rounds on the way.  And I'm figuring that each month will be another 1000 rounds, although the wife made a statement last night that we'll be trying to buy 1k rounds every pay period so that amount may double.

At this rate I'm going to need to rent a separate U-Haul truck to move my ammo once I retire, but isn't my wife's peace of mind worth it?  I also might have to look into reinforcing the floor in the gun room.  If I start to hear the floor joists creak when I walk in, a few bricks and boards underneath should help.  I could also space the ammo out through the house.

Anyways, just a little bit of what's whirring around in my brain for ya today.  Plus, I'm getting more ammo.

3 comments:

  1. Good plan. I've been buying a brick or 2 of primers alternating with a couple pounds of powder each payday. I get about 1000 rounds out of a pound and that takes about 3 hours total at the bench. BTW...snagged one of those Rugers in .40 SW the other day. Much liking! Thanks for the recommendation.

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  2. So that goes for a lot of different items. I went into the grocery store today and they had Bread Flour, I bought two bags. Did I need it no but its very scarce. and if I don't get it now I don't know when I'll see it again.

    Going through Bass Pro, Walmart, Dicks, and the pawn shop, all common ammo is in short supply. Go on line it's the same thing. 38 Special very rare.

    Anyway there are a lot of newly woke people out there.

    Me I've live it hurricane country and I've been woke pre Y2k.

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  3. We normally stock up for disasters. We've got a couple of months worth of food in the pantry, and plenty of water, plus ways to purify water. But ammo? We've had some on hand, but not a stockpile. That's changed.

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