Purchasing and storing ammunition is both a major financial investment, it also requires a lot of decisions, before and after you make a purchase.

By understanding the ammunition market, you can not only purchase smartly, you can guarantee your ammunition is as effective as possible regardless of how long it is stored; here is what you must consider.

Top Brands, Top Quality, Top Prices

As a kid, I grew up hunting with old ammunition brands from companies like Western, Olin, Remington Green, Peters, Western-Winchester, Super-X, Monark, and others. I sure wish I had all those old ammo boxes back in a collection. Today, if you buy Remington, Winchester, Federal, or Hornady ammo, the Big Four makers of modern ammunition, you are going to get well made, precision crafted, high quality ammunition for everyday use.

The thing is though you have to expect to pay more for these brands. Sometimes the prices of these ammo brands exceed their practical value. Only you can decide if the extra expense is worth a higher level of reliability, consistency, accuracy, and function.

Second Shelf Ammunition

There are several other lesser noted brands of ammunition that will perform just as well as the top maker products. From my experience these include such brands as PMC, UMC (Made by Remington), American Eagle, Speer, CCI, Blazer, PNW Arms, Cor-Bon, MagTech, and DRT. Some of these brands may be hard to find on retail dealers’ shelves or perhaps in limited quantities.

Really Cheap is Really Cheap

Well within the last decade or so the ammunition market has become flooded with all kinds of virtually unknown or untested ammo. Much of it is made in foreign countries especially Russia under suspect quality standards despite what the catalog or internet descriptions might say.

In the case of much of this ammo, it may be suitable for practice shooting or as a backup to prime ammo choices. I advise generally to watch for ammo that uses steel cases that are reported to be sprayed with a lacquer or polymer coating to ease the cartridge case fitting into a firearm chamber. Steel cased ammo is not good for most firearm chambers especially rifles such as the AR-15. Brass cases seal to the chamber and release upon firing and extraction. Steel cases do not always do this and have been known for failures to extract leaving the headless case stuck in the chamber.

Inspection Points

When buying SHTF ammo here are some guidelines to follow. Check the packaging for well made, sturdy, good printed, heavy stock paper board. This implies the maker cares enough to package their products well. I favor ammo that comes out of the packaging box with each cartridge inserted in a divided card honeycomb or a plastic one. This protects the ammo during shipping and storage. This isn’t mandatory, but just a plus. When you inspect the ammo look for sharp pointed bullet tips, no smashed or bent over tips. The brass should look new, fresh and bright.

Discolored, scarred, scratched, or dented brass may mean suspect quality. The primers should be sealed. Check to make sure the ammo does not use corrosive primers or Berdan primers, which means it cannot be easily reloaded if you choose to. Look for boxer-primed cases, and non-corrosive powders especially with foreign made ammo.

Buy In Bulk

Here is one final tip about buying SHTF ammo. Try to buy in quantity. If you are buying cartridges that you shoot a lot or want to keep in storage for a bad, rainy SHTF type day like the .223/5.56, 9mm, or .45 ACP, then shop around for 1000 round case prices. As a rule of thumb for desirable ammo, shop for these prices. For .223/5.56 use the benchmark of 33.5 cents per round. Any good brand of ammo case priced at $350 or less for 1000 rounds is a fair price these days.

Try to buy 9mm for 26 cents a round or around $65 for 250 rounds. The .45 ACP should be bought for about 40 cents a round. These are basic factory loads with standard “ball” bullets and bullet weights.

If you plan on being prepared for a survival situation, you have to plan on securing your own food. That more than likely means owning at least one firearm and probably several.

To learn more about what to consider when buying ammunition, please visit the SHTF blog.