Monday, November 26, 2012

Whoops - I Missed National Ammo Day...

...and all I can think is "So What". In fact, I missed out on buying g any ammunition during all of National Ammo Week; it was extended to a week so that anyone not being able to make a purchase on the actual day would have a chance to join in). National Ammo Day has a purpose: to show support for out right to keep and bear arms and to support ammunition manufacturers, distributors and dealers (in addition to just maybe expanding your ammo cache or getting you to go out and shoot).

National Ammo Day is called a buycot. Supporters of the second Amendment are urged to go out and make an ammunition purchase of at least 100 rounds (per person) from local gun shops, sporting good stores and the like. Note the importance of the word 'local' in that previous sentence. This day was intended, I believe, to show support for local, smaller sized, dealers - the mom & pop gun store. If I remember right, it was initiated, by Kim Du Toit, in the spirit of helping out the mom and pop type dealers as opposed to supporting places like Walmart (many of which sell firearms and ammunition). I rarely shop Walmart for ammunition but do shop there for it sometimes (not my local Walmart as they do not stock guns & ammo). Walmart has extremely competitive ammo prices but usually has a very limited variety of any given caliber of it.  I would actually prefer to support my local gun stores and the people who work i them and run them but there is a problem that makes doing so unfeasible for me.

Many if not all of the gun shops I have visited in my area, in my opinion, are pretty much thieves disguised as legitimate businesses. In them, I have seen ammo with a selling price of from 1 1/2 to 3 times the price (and maybe even higher) than I would pay elsewhere, a limited stock of different brands in like calibers, a shortage or total lack of ammo in calibers which I need, long waits for special order ammo, an uppity attitude expressed by most of the shop workers (this seems to be a common gun store employee's affliction) and almost never do they sell bulk ammo. So, the places I usually shop are: from home and the convenience of my laptop by shopping online, at large sporting goods stores or at gun shows.

I realize that smaller shops often have a higher overhead to profit ratio and have to sell at higher prices to stay in business. I would not mind paying a bit of a premium, say maybe 10% higher than where I normally shop, to a local dealer but I do not pity any businessman enough by the balderdash that he has to pay for stock, rent, salaries, insurance premiums, electricity, taxes and therefore has to charge exorbitant prices to stay afloat, all the while complaining how tough it is to make a dime.
When a twenty round box of Remington brand, CoreLokt, 200 grain, soft point ammo goes for right around $25 online, at Walmart or at a gun show, then why would anyone (in their right mind) pay a local dealer $35 to $55 for that same box of ammo?

Really now, why would you consider buying from a small local shop with prices being that much higher? For me it is no brainer especially in light of how much ammo I buy annually, I look for the best bargains I can find. Now my idea of the best bargain is not all about price - as I said above I would pay a higher price at local gun shops considering all things. My idea of a good bargain includes very competitive pricing, shipping costs, reliability of the dealer to have what I want or to be able to get it, ease of the purchase process, the courtesy of the salespeople and excellent customer service. I find that the best deals therefor are those I find online with certain online ammo dealers. Prices available online usually either cannot or will not be matched by small local dealers.

Yes, that includes with shipping. Now, if you are at all familiar with online ammo purchases then you realize that shipping can add a lot to the price of a single box of rounds. For example, as I write this article, that box of .35 Remington I described above, is available from CheaperThanDirt for exactly $25.11 but shipping adds another $12.68 bringing the total to $37.79. It looks as if my local mom and pop gun stores, at least the one selling it for about $35 a box, may even have a somewhat better price but let's not forget local sales tax of .0865%. That would make their lowest price a total of $38.03. Wow, they actually come in with a slightly better price than the big online dealer, at least the one local dealer who has it at that price. Maybe you are wondering why I usually still do not buy from the local gun store.

You see, each box of that ammo that I buy from the local guy, goes for the same price. When I buy 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 boxes of that ammo, I can just times that price buy however many boxes I buy from a local dealer. The same thing sort of happens at Cheaper than Dirt, they too charge buy multiples of how many individual boxes I buy. Yet, there is a difference, a big one in terms of overall price. The shipping, from CheaperThanDirt and many other online dealers is for a complete order and not based upon whatever was the multiple of boxes you decided to purchase. Yes it can go up, as you order more, but it is usually based upon the whole order price and based on from which warehouse they are shipping (they have a number of warehouses). So, while shipping costs $12.68 for that lone box of ammo, it costs he exact same amount if I decide to buy 3 boxes or 5 boxes of it. That means, if I buy three boxes of the Remington CoreLokt, in .35 Remington caliber, at a local gun store, it is going to cost me  $114.08 in total. The same purchase fro an online dealer like Cheaper than Dirt will cost, in total, $88.01. I think the wait of from a few days, to a week, to receive the ammo from Cheaper Than Dir is well worth the wait. After all, I will have saved $26.07 on that purchase from the local to the online dealer. That is more than enough to get another box of the same ammo, from CheaperThanDirt, with .96 cents left over (because the shipping for even 4 boxes remains at $12.68).

That kind of price difference, combined with a wide variety of available ammo, a pretty good attitude on the part of CTD's customer service department and reliable shipping from them assures that CheaperThanDirt will get much more f my business than a local dealer. Now, if by some chance, I was only going to buy a single box of ammo, or if I needed a box of ammo right away, I might buy it at a small mom and pop gun shop. The thing is, when it comes to me buying ammunition, I rarely buy just a single box of it and I tend to plan ahead with ammo purchases and thus do not usually need it very quickly. Besides that, I cannot stand the stuff they tell me at a gun store if I mention how high the price seems: gasoline prices are up and thus shipping ammo has gone up and was added to the price, they cannot come down at all on price if I buy multiple boxes of ammo (yet they add a premium for shipping onto each and every box even though they are not charged a flat rate shipping per box), how tough it is to make a profit while the store owner is driving a $50,000 plus automobile.

I have made sure, in past years, to buy ammo almost every time National Ammo Day (or week) came around. I forgot about it this year and to tell the truth, considering where I live and the ammo prices at my local dealers, it was not all that bad of a thing to have missed buying 100 rounds or more on that day. I have nothing against the concept of helping out small business owners, I am all for it if they are honest, courteous, hard working and offer reasonable prices. It is just that, I cannot see supporting local price gouging opportunists. I guess my search,  for a mom and pop gun shop within 5 miles of home and that has reasonable prices, will have to continue. There has got to be one out there.

As far as National Ammo Day goes, I will probably participate again next year to support the concept if not so much as to support local crooks gun and ammo dealers.

All the best,
Glenn B

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