Save Money on Ammunition?

[ronb]

Hello People:

I just bought an AR-15. The ammo for the weapon is pretty pricey.

Other than doing the usual stuff like comparison shopping, and buying in bulk, are there any ways you would recommend I save money when shopping for .223 ammo? Like any manufacturers coupons that I could find?

[autoxer]

You could save the brass, buy a press and load your own.

[Fishindude77]

If your state has gun shows, I find those are just about the cheapest places to buy ammo. It's a highly competitive environment with multiple vendors, so you can walk around and find the best deal. Plus you don't have to pay expensive shipping fees, or hazardous material shipping fees.

You have to buy case quantities to get any kind of a deal.

[msomnipotent]

I usually stock up on .22 on Black Friday. All of the sporting goods stores and places like Farm and Fleet usually have pretty good ammo sales on that day. Sometimes they repeat the sale right before Christmas, too.

[sv2007]

If your state has gun shows, I find those are just about the cheapest places to buy ammo. It's a highly competitive environment with multiple vendors, so you can walk around and find the best deal. Plus you don't have to pay expensive shipping fees, or hazardous material shipping fees.

You have to buy case quantities to get any kind of a deal.

I don't think I've ever been charged a hazmat fee for ammo shipments (hazmat gets charges on reload components, not finished ammo).

For cheap ammo, I also agree on gun shows (or Academy/Walmart) because normally the quoted price is the OTD price, so includes tax; plus no shipping costs.

But, here's my method on saving ammo: I make each round count during practice. For 223 (which I use to shoot high power), I usually shoot maybe 60 rounds per session. Even for my action pistol/steel practices, I shoot around 50-100 rnds and this includes rapid fire. The key is to make every round count, i.e. you must have a purpose and learn something from it. Quality over quantity. And your scores will show.

[ronb]

Thanks guys - I've been buying 20 round boxes of .223 for 9 bucks a box. I feel .45 cents a round is too much.

[Fishindude77]

Buy 1000 at a time and you can get them for about half that price.

[Tabs]

I think the previous comments have covered most of the bases here.

Another option that has hasn't been mentioned yet is to get a .22 conversion kit.

Personally, I also have a BB gun replica of my real pistol in this case. It's so close that it can go right into my regular holster. Not quite the same as the real deal, but for light force-on-force training for example, you only need a CO2 cartridge in there to simulate the gun shot. No need for even BBs.

Of course, don't forget dry fire practice... yeah, even for an AR, you don't have to shoot live rounds to drill your carry, presentation, stance, aiming, malfunction checks, and so forth.

Finally, for serious force-on-force, you will want to use red guns anyway, so you can also train your weapon retention and melee strikes.