Stockpiling reloading supplies?

L

Lugnut

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With ammo costs going thru the roof (50 rnds of 9mm FMJ $10, and 50 rnds of .45ACP FMJ going over $15) I'm considering saving up a bunch of supplies. Since there is a limit on primers and powder one can store, I'm thinking of getting a bunch of bullets. I hoard as much brass as I can as well.

How many bullets do you guys store? I have a few thousand .45 and 9mm and a couple thousand .40. now.
 
I'm running a tad low. I'm gonna have to get some more 230 gr .45s

But short answer, as many as I can get ahold of. 1000 is a good place to start.
 
I haven't bought powder or primers in awhile (has there been a significant price increase?).

I'm wouldn't be that concerned about the storage limitation of primers and powder.

I'd be more concerned about the cost of bullets and brass since the demand for the raw materials abroad has had a major impact on the cost of both (that and shipping costs).

I have roughly a thousand rounds of jacketed 5.56 (.224), and .308 bullets on hand, and about 300 rounds of jacketed .45 ACP and .38/.357 bullets. A few years ago when I was at the Kittery Trading Post, I practically bought out what they had left of their Carroll .45 ACP and .38/.357 lead bullets (the owner died and the company went out of business), about 5,000 rounds worth [smile].

Brass? (God only knows... I saved it all even when surplus ammo was only a few bucks per box). I'll probably wear out my barrels before I wear out the brass. The bulk of it is mostly 5.56 followed by .45 ACP, .38 and .308.

Too bad all the 7.62x39 ammo I've burnt up wasn't reloadable. Otherwise I'd enough brass to last me for awhile.
 
I buy my bullets in bulk whenever I see a special, or I get under 1000 bullets. Like LN said, the price of bullets will continue to go up, so if you buy what you can now, you will only be saving money in the future.
 
I would be VERY concerned about storage limitations. I had an unannounced inspection of my apartment when I first moved in and the city inspector rooted through my stuff when he saw all the gun paraphernalia and reported what he saw to the police who then came to visit me. I have mentioned this too many times, but it bears repeating.
 
adweisbe said:
I would be VERY concerned about storage limitations. I had an unannounced inspection of my apartment when I first moved in and the city inspector rooted through my stuff when he saw all the gun paraphernalia and reported what he saw to the police who then came to visit me. I have mentioned this too many times, but it bears repeating.
Click to expand...

Whoaaa! I missed that one!

WTF was that about?

But, back to the OPs question...

What I meant about not being concerned about storage permits powder and primers had to do with planning ahead with regard to cost and availability.

Just keep the legal amount on hand and buy what you need or when you need it.
 
adweisbe said:
I would be VERY concerned about storage limitations. I had an unannounced inspection of my apartment when I first moved in and the city inspector rooted through my stuff when he saw all the gun paraphernalia and reported what he saw to the police who then came to visit me. I have mentioned this too many times, but it bears repeating.
Click to expand...

That's why many of us live in homes that we own!!!!

Nobody comes in announced or with nobody home, unless they have a warrant! [wink]

Anybody else tries it and they will leave in cuffs, stuffed in the back of a cruiser.
 
adweisbe said:
I would be VERY concerned about storage limitations. I had an unannounced inspection of my apartment when I first moved in and the city inspector rooted through my stuff when he saw all the gun paraphernalia and reported what he saw to the police who then came to visit me. I have mentioned this too many times, but it bears repeating.
Click to expand...
Do you realize how different most of the country is to that?

What's more, as a homeowner, the only government official I cannot keep out of my house is police with a search warrant. Since I do nothing that would give a judge PC to issue such warrant, there will be no government officials of any kind rummaging through my house.

I don't even bother with building, electrical, or plumbing permits.
 
LN, do an Advanced Search of the forum, he posted the entire story quite a few months ago. Look for threads that he started and you'll probably find it.

BTW, important point of information: Once you prime the cases, those primed cases are NOT considered "primers" for the storage regs (as I understand it, IANAL), thus you could prep a few K and still have the max of raw primers on hand. Just a thought.
 
LenS said:
That's why many of us live in homes that we own!!!!

Nobody comes in announced or with nobody home, unless they have a warrant! [wink]

Anybody else tries it and they will leave in cuffs, stuffed in the back of a cruiser.
Click to expand...

I still would not be so confident. Tis better to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission and no one is going to hold them accountable no matter what they do. On the other hand a gun owner will be held accountable even if he has done nothing wrong. What they did in my apartment was legally no different then entering your house. MGLs forbid unannounced entry to an apartment unless there is immediate danger to the property.
 
adweisbe said:
I still would not be so confident. Tis better to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission and no one is going to hold them accountable no matter what they do. On the other hand a gun owner will be held accountable even if he has done nothing wrong. What they did in my apartment was legally no different then entering your house. MGLs forbid unannounced entry to an apartment unless there is immediate danger to the property.
Click to expand...


Yes, but no nosy landlord/maintenance worker has the keys to my place. Anything else (without a warrant) is a B&E.
 
Every apartment I ever lived in I personally re-keyed the lock. If I needed something fixed, I would make them come when I was at home. I did this after pulling up to my first apartment to catch my landlord leaving my apartment, and when confronted, he gave me some BS story about fixing something, that ended up not being fixed or even touched!

I'm sure it would have pissed off a LL that thought he needed to get in while I wasn't there, but it would make him have to explain himself, and I could just play dumb!
 
When I was living in Manchester, my landlord obviously visited my apartment when I wasn't there to fix something I had mentioned to him. I drove into Boston for an interview, and when I came home I found one of my cats outside the apartment, in the common laundry area. Luckily, no one came during that time, and he'd been in there about 3 hours. If he'd been lost, I'd have made at least the New England News that night. I didn't own any guns at the time, but trust me, I'd have made the news.
 
Yes, I wasn't implying on storing anything illegally at all. But to my knowledge there is no limits on brass and bullets. Limits on ammo, powder and primers are limited to what the FD issues in a permit. In the horrifying event of a fire, I personally understand the reasons for these limits for the benefit of the local FD. When I fire happens they don't knock to see if there is a child or pet in the house.. they will go in when they can.
 
Lugnut said:
When I fire happens they don't knock to see if there is a child or pet in the house.. they will go in when they can.
Click to expand...

More like they will stand back from a "safe" distance until all of your loaded ammo, powder, and primers have finished cooking off, and your house is nothing but a pile of rubble in what used to be your basement, before they will do anything...
 
Lugnut said:
Yes, I wasn't implying on storing anything illegally at all. But to my knowledge there is no limits on brass and bullets. Limits on ammo, powder and primers are limited to what the FD issues in a permit. In the horrifying event of a fire, I personally understand the reasons for these limits for the benefit of the local FD. When I fire happens they don't knock to see if there is a child or pet in the house.. they will go in when they can.
Click to expand...
These limits have little to nothing to due with fire safety. Powder is a propellant (flammable solid), it can't burn fast enough to generate a pressure change that would be dangerous. It burns hot and fast and then it is done. Primers are the only thing close to being dangerous, but the primers contain so little energy to begin with. You also can't store them densely enough to make them go off at the same time so again no boom. Gasoline is more of a danger.

Watch the SAAMI video some time if you can find it.

Smokeless powder will not explode when unconfined unlike black powder.

Check out:
http://www.chuckhawks.com/smokeless_powder.htm
 
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Jose said:
Do you realize how different most of the country is to [sic] that?

I don't even bother with building, electrical, or plumbing permits.
Click to expand...

Do you really expect us to believe that Troy and the State of Ohio don't have building codes, or are you just trying to impress us with your chest-thumping histrionics about how you ignore them? [rolleyes]
 
Adam_MA said:
More like they will stand back from a "safe" distance until all of your loaded ammo, powder, and primers have finished cooking off, and your house is nothing but a pile of rubble in what used to be your basement, before they will do anything...
Click to expand...

Adam,

Luckily NOT all FDs! Those that are truly professional and well trained know better. I had this discussion with my fire chief and he told me that they had been trained on this and that their turn-out coats will NOT be penetrated by any loaded ammo cooking off. He wants to know what and where but he is not "worried" about it.

When our FD came to inspect my new oil burner last year, the next time I was in the fire station, the captain came over to me and started asking me about the reloaders (bolted to the bench, covered with bags so that only a shooter would know what he's looking at) . . . he is interested in starting to reload himself! [smile]

That's the kind of FD I like! And we're a very small department, just a bunch of good and brave men who know their jobs well.
 
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http://www.saami.org/Publications.cfm
Maybe we should do a group buy on:
Sporting Ammunition and the Firefighter

Item #250 - Nearly one million rounds of ammunition were subjected to ten different tests-from open burn conditions to tightly confined burn conditions-to examine what happens to sporting ammunition exposed to severe impact and fire. This video is recommended as an educational tool for fire departments and explains how firefighters face no danger from sporting ammunition in a fire when protected by standard turn-out gear.

Smokeless Powder and the Fire Service

Item #251 - This video emphasizes in the storage and display of smokeless powder in the retail environment and demonstrates that if appropriately packaged, smokeless powder will not explode and is less dangerous during fires than many other common retail materials. It addresses what the fire hazards are to firefighters or to supplies displayed in a retail store, and what quantity limits should municipal fire prevention ordinances place on the storage and display of smokeless powder in retail stores.
Click to expand...
and send them to our departments. There are also a number of pamphlets that look useful.
 
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Adam_MA said:
More like they will stand back from a "safe" distance until all of your loaded ammo, powder, and primers have finished cooking off, and your house is nothing but a pile of rubble in what used to be your basement, before they will do anything...
Click to expand...

I believe that happened in Newton not that long ago.

Report of fire in the building, FD shows up, they either get a report of a large amount of ammo being stored there or they hear a few rounds cook-off, they make a hasty retreat and lose the building. [rolleyes]

I've yet to respond to a building fire where we got a report of ammo being stored or rounds cooking-off, but if we ever do I hope I'm there for the overhaul, clean-up and disposal of the scattered ammo. [wink]
 
tele_mark said:
I drove into Boston for an interview, and when I came home I found one of my cats outside the apartment, in the common laundry area. Luckily, no one came during that time, and he'd been in there about 3 hours. If he'd been lost, I'd have made at least the New England News that night. I didn't own any guns at the time, but trust me, I'd have made the news.
Click to expand...

I like the way you think.

On the plus side, of my closest friends is a firefighter. He knows how much I have, where it is and how it's stored. He's not concerned.
 
LenS said:
Adam,

Luckily NOT all FDs! Those that are truly professional and well trained know better. I had this discussion with my fire chief and he told me that they had been trained on this and that their turn-out coats will NOT be penetrated by any loaded ammo cooking off. He wants to know what and where but he is not "worried" about it.

When our FD came to inspect my new oil burner last year, the next time I was in the fire station, the captain came over to me and started asking me about the reloaders (bolted to the bench, covered with bags so that only a shooter would know what he's looking at) . . . he is interested in starting to reload himself! [smile]

That's the kind of FD I like! And we're a very small department, just a bunch of good and brave men who know their jobs well.
Click to expand...

We have a Scott air compressor at my station. One day I brought in a couple of AK-47 parts kits that I needed to sandblast. I bought a $12.00 sandblasting gun at Home Depot and made a small homebuilt blast cabinet out of plywood and a recycling bin to act as the blast media hopper.

Because the cabinet wasn't fully enclosed I had to run an auxiliary air hose out in the parking lot so I wouldn't make a mess inside the station (I also put on a respirator and my bunker gear on so I wouldn't get crap all over my duty uniform [smile] ).

While I was blasting away my company officer comes out and asks me WTF I'm doing. I tell him I'm cleaning some gun parts and he snidely says "knowing you, you probably got an AK-47 in there". I said "no... I have two AK-47s in there". He just [rolleyes] and walked away (FWIW, we've known each other since grade school).
 
Scrivener said:
I like the way you think.

On the plus side, of my closest friends is a firefighter. He knows how much I have, where it is and how it's stored. He's not concerned.
Click to expand...

It was a mixed situation. On the plus side, they were very cool to let me have the cats in the apartment, and the other neighbors had 7 in theirs. On the negative side, they did lots of very bone-headed things to live up to the term land lord. They in fact were one of the final straws that got me to buy a house, even if it did end up being in mAss.
 
me too

I'm hoarding 45 brass and looking for 38 brass as well. I'm not near any limits
as yet on anything. I got 500 45 bullets and looking for more. I heard on the radio today that the Chinese are sucking up all kinds of metals. Well they can
shove them up their ass, thats already been tried in the past with other
metals, can't remember which ones, but they choked on all of them.

JimB[laugh]
 

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