Precious Metals: Investing in Steel & Lead






Precious

Metals: Investing in Steel & Lead



Contributed By: L. S. Barrel







I just finished a series of articles on buying a basic firearms battery on a budget and it occurred

to me that a follow-up article was necessary in regards to purchasing certain calibers of

ammunition and guns in those calibers.

 

Shotgun Gauges: Only 12 and 20 gauges make enough sense to justify having firearms in these

calibers. These two gauges are the most common available, they are on sale most of the time,

year-round, at all of your gun stores and at your discount stores as well.

 

Rifle Calibers: The first calibers that I would consider are the military's. .22 Long Rifle is cheap

and effective out to 100 yards. You should pick up as much of this a possible. $100.00 will buy

you almost 5,000 rounds, which will all fit into a GI .50 caliber ammo can. The U.Sm military rifle

cartridges will almost always be available on the civilian market. The first U.S. Army rifle

cartridge that was adopted in 1872 is still available at your local K-Mart store - .45 - .70. The .223

has an effective range of 300 yards for hunting small to medium sized game. The .308 has an

effective range of almost 600 yards for medium to large sized game. It virtually duplicates the

performance of the next cartridge, .30-06, at up to 600 yards for less than half the cost of the

.30-06 ammo. The .30-06 cartridge can be used for hunting almost anything on the North

American continent. Normally, I would also suggest that you seriously consider any

cartridge that has become popular with the police departments, but in this case, the choice of the

police is identical to the choice of the U.S. military.



The foreign rifle cartridges are not always available, and if you want ammunition year-round, it is

usually to your advantage to buy it in quantity, if at all possible. 7.62x39mm is an excellent

example of the price savings if you are willing to buy in case lots. The .303 British, German

8x57mm and the Russian 7.62x54R cartridges are usually available, but sometimes there is

none to be had until the next shipment comes into the country. My advice here is, when you find

a manufacturing lot of these calibers, that your rifle shoots well, buy all of that lot that you can

afford to in preparation for the day that the ammo might not be available when you need to buy

it.



Pistol Calibers: As with the rifle calibers, I would only consider calibers that the police or the

military have adopted for their own use. .22 Long Rifle is the first cartridge that I would acquire in

quantity. The .38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9mm, .45 ACP, and the .40 S&W calibers are all

commonly used by either the police or the military, so they are available all over this country and

are fairly affordable. There are other more powerful handgun cartridges on the market, but they

are more difficult to learn to shoot well, or they have greatly increased costs. While I love the .41

Magnum cartridge, I would not recommend it to anyone who is not into reloading their own shells

due to the high cost of the hard to find factory ammunition.



NOTE: This was based strictly on the ready availability of ammunition off of the shelf at

your local gun store, discount store, or local gun show. If a ban or other catastrophic event

occurs, will you be able to feed your firearms during the time it takes for the distribution channels

to re-establish themselves? I would suggest that you acquire enough ammo now, while you can

still get it, to tide you through. Federal studies indicate that the average gun owner has fewer

than 200 rounds of ammunition for ALL his/her firearms (excluding .22 rimfire ammunition).  	



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