How many rounds do you need?

[RicInOR]

Rounds, cartridges, components, .... what ev'

Is 1,000 rounds for your battle rifle enough for a Mad Max collapse? Let's do some fifth grade arithmetic. Twenty rounds a week is 1,040 rounds a year. Or say a hundred rounds a month, which is 1,200 rounds a year. About the same. Figure three years and it comes to 3,120 to 3,600 rounds. Call it 3,000 rounds. So, 1,000 rounds seems low. If it's too much you end up with a surplus and bragging rights. If it's not enough you end up dead. Or you may end up dead with a surplus.

Look at it another way, a Mad Max collapse with extra Mad. One firefight a month using 160 rounds each, which is 8 twenty-round magazines, comes to 1,920 rounds per year. Let's be optimistic and assume you can survive thirty six gun battles—thirty five sure, but thirty six? Figuring three years it totals 5,760 rounds.

If the premises are reasonable, and who knows if they are, a stash of 3,000 to 6,000 rounds would be about right. More than you have? Cheer up, it's a near certainty something other than gunfire will get you anyway.

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Woodpile Report

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[Medic!]

Lets do the math.

I'm fifty and should live to 80?
I need 1,920 round a year by your estimation.

Looks like I'm set to be the oldest man that ever live.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

If I am shooting really good , then I only need one...
Andy

 

[Certaindeaf]

Dan'l Boone used the same round ball that was handed down for four generations. sounds true to me anyway

 

[jsparks747]

Lets do the math.

I'm fifty and should live to 80?
I need 1,920 round a year by your estimation.

Looks like I'm set to be the oldest man that ever live.

You would need 57,600 rounds of ammunition. If you were counting since you were born you would need 153,600 rounds of ammunition. Damn.

 

[Medic!]

I will neither confirm or deny my ammo count.

 

[Libertas7]

It doesn't sound like it takes into account the practice ammo to stay proficient so you could, you know, win that many fire fights.

 

[albin25]

As much as I can afford and have room to store properly. It's good as "currency" too.

Just in case I misunderstood the question though...
...Depends on whose buying, what we're drinking, and what I need to show up for the next day and still maintain enough functionality to avoid being nagged.

 

[Medic!]

When I was a kid growing up out in no mans land. I spent my snow covered winters hunting down porcupine's. They were all over the pine forests that went on for miles around my home.
Dead tree tops were an all to often seen sight. Tops that died from the ringing given them from a certain large rodent.

I would walk for miles in 16'' deep snow. My young eagle eye's cast to the top of pines. Searching out that familiar shape that blended in so well with the trees own needles.
And when I got one in my sights. It was as good as dead.

I learned that a head shot would leave them dead. But in the tree. [Did I mention they are good eating]
But a shot in the side of the gut, just above a bent knee would all but eject them from the tree!
[Probably from the extreme pain! But hey. I was a ruthless little kid.]

In three months I might shoot 8-12. All with a little model 67 Winchester 22 I think I was born with.

Anyways. My point is. I easily made a box of .22's last all winter.
Even with the occasional coyote, skunk and raccoon shooting thrown in.
Not to mention a few pheasant, quail or chuckers.

And if things ever go sideways. I can see myself picking my shots. And making them count.
The same way I did back on the farm.

 

[44 Guy]

How many rounds do you need? It's very simple to calculate. The answer is one more round than you currently have!

 

[GOG]

Never enough...

 

[Martini_Up]

well, unlike all the hollywood movies, I WILL be plucking the battlefield for guns / ammo. Those firefights the author speaks of, after winning, it's a resupply.

And I'm surprised I'm the first to mention it.

 

[Certaindeaf]

well, unlike all the hollywood movies, I WILL be plucking the battlefield for guns / ammo. Those firefights the author speaks of, after winning, it's a resupply.

And I'm surprised I'm the first to mention it.

In order to die ankle deep in brass, one needs exactly that many. lol
Along those lines, conventionally and throughout history, war has been a 1-1 trade/swap.. meaning you will kill one guy, and they will kill one guy. so the way I figure it, there's gonna be a heck of a lot a ammo everywhere.

 

[Joe13]

War, famine or whatever, I'll buy as much as I can afford when the prices are down...

 

[Caveman Jim]

War, famine or whatever, I'll buy as much as I can afford when the prices are down...

I'm gonna stock up on components while the prices are low!!! Storage is not a problem at my place....

 

[Mikej]

Just when I was starting to think I had a pretty good stock! I'd better get to loading soon. 'Cause you know, when the poo hits the fan components are going to dry up quick!

I can see a picture of driving through a waste land.....A half destroyed building ahead. Yesss!!! I't's a Sportsman's Warehouse. To hell with Twinkies! I NEED powder and primers.....Maybe some beef jerky?
Yeah.

 

[Guardian 380]

Dan'l Boone used the same round ball that was handed down for four generations. sounds true to me anyway

Read it on the inter web so it must be true.

 

[mjbskwim]

Just when I was starting to think I had a pretty good stock! I'd better get to loading soon. 'Cause you know, when the poo hits the fan components are going to dry up quick!

I can see a picture of driving through a waste land.....A half destroyed building ahead. Yesss!!! I't's a Sportsman's Warehouse. To hell with Twinkies! I NEED powder and primers.....Maybe some beef jerky?
Yeah.

I walked into the gun store yesterday and he had about a thousand bullets on the counter. He had just got his shipment of them. Just as nice as seeing a bunch of loaded ammo!
No,at 100 per box he easily had 3k sitting there. All Hornady boxes.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I remember reading about Elmer Keith getting "a pig of lead" from his Father as a present when he was a kid.. when I was a kid.
It's always nice to have a few hundred pounds of lead on hand.

 

[11Charlie]

Sooner or later the prices are going to go up and things will be expensive or non existent again. Won't say what I got now but I will keep buying as I can afford it just in case. When prices do go up I can sit back and smile.