Buckshot
12-31-2009, 03:43 AM
...........On Monday my neighbor (Ralf) had invited me to go shoot some trap with him, his son and 2 of his son's friends today (Wednesday). Of course I said sure thing. I'm no shotgun guy as shooting trap with an old 12ga Lefever double barrel doesn't appear to be 'Quite the thing'[smilie=l: However I had fun, so there! All my on hand shotgun shells are the partial boxes, onesies and twosies, and a handfull of these and a handfull of that. You know, a half box of old paper high base #4's, a bagfull of some old Peter's Blue Magics, a box or 2 of Federal ribbed field loads, etc & etc.
I figured on Tuesday I'd hit K Mart and if they didn't have what I was looking for (those 10 box cartons of Winchester promotional 12 ga I've seen) I'd head on down to Wally World (as much as I hate doing that). K Mart was a waste of time. All they had for ANY ammo was maybe 6 boxes of 20 ga, but it didn't surprise me as they'd never carried guns at all, and had never had much ammo.
So at Wally World I walked up to the ammo counter and the glass fronted case behind the counter might as well have been empty. Maybe 20 boxes of 22RF, 5-6 single boxes (Total) of 30-'06, 7mm mag, 30-30, 308............. And that was IT. They didn't have those 10 carton boxes of any shotshells, but did have those 4 carton sleeves of 20ga only.
There were 2 guys about my age (mid 50's) buying 22RF ammo. They were talking to the clerk (who probably worked in automotive). Questions like "Where's all the ammo" and "How come we can only buy 6 boxes"? They might as well have been talking to a brick. After they each got thier 6 boxes I asked if he knew if they might have some 12ga someplace else around the area? I knew better, but nothing beats a try but a failure and it turned out the latter. They had ONE TYPE of 12 ga on hand and luckily they were target loads. I bought 5 boxes. Four to shoot and one to add to my eclectic stash[smilie=1:
I mentioned the reason for the ammo situation, but this worthy couldn't have cared less. I don't know why I bothered except I thought he might be one of the benighted and besides, I felt confrontational :drinks: Anyway, it is still an amazement to me. I'll admit to being out of touch with retail ammo as I've only bought 22RF in the past several years so I'm not affected by it. I thought that since it was on the way home I'd stop in at Big 5 Sporting goods to see what they had. Their ammo is usually fairly steep and I already had my 12ga, but what the heck.
Their ammo shelves were pretty well stocked except for not having much 22RF and I figured out why they had some centerfire ammo when I saw that the price tag under the Winchester 308 that said $42 Holy Smoke!!!! At the end of the counter they had 2 cases of 20ga, a case of 16ga, and a case of 12ga field loads but none were priced and I had no real interest in shotshells at this point anyway. I'm glad all I needed was a few shotshells and if I'd had more time I could have reloaded myself a couple hundred 12 ga target loads. I have a BIG box of once fired Blue Magics out in the tool shed, and unopened bag of wads, a couple grand of 209's and maybe 50lbs of 7-1/2 shot.
..............Buckshot
I figured on Tuesday I'd hit K Mart and if they didn't have what I was looking for (those 10 box cartons of Winchester promotional 12 ga I've seen) I'd head on down to Wally World (as much as I hate doing that). K Mart was a waste of time. All they had for ANY ammo was maybe 6 boxes of 20 ga, but it didn't surprise me as they'd never carried guns at all, and had never had much ammo.
So at Wally World I walked up to the ammo counter and the glass fronted case behind the counter might as well have been empty. Maybe 20 boxes of 22RF, 5-6 single boxes (Total) of 30-'06, 7mm mag, 30-30, 308............. And that was IT. They didn't have those 10 carton boxes of any shotshells, but did have those 4 carton sleeves of 20ga only.
There were 2 guys about my age (mid 50's) buying 22RF ammo. They were talking to the clerk (who probably worked in automotive). Questions like "Where's all the ammo" and "How come we can only buy 6 boxes"? They might as well have been talking to a brick. After they each got thier 6 boxes I asked if he knew if they might have some 12ga someplace else around the area? I knew better, but nothing beats a try but a failure and it turned out the latter. They had ONE TYPE of 12 ga on hand and luckily they were target loads. I bought 5 boxes. Four to shoot and one to add to my eclectic stash[smilie=1:
I mentioned the reason for the ammo situation, but this worthy couldn't have cared less. I don't know why I bothered except I thought he might be one of the benighted and besides, I felt confrontational :drinks: Anyway, it is still an amazement to me. I'll admit to being out of touch with retail ammo as I've only bought 22RF in the past several years so I'm not affected by it. I thought that since it was on the way home I'd stop in at Big 5 Sporting goods to see what they had. Their ammo is usually fairly steep and I already had my 12ga, but what the heck.
Their ammo shelves were pretty well stocked except for not having much 22RF and I figured out why they had some centerfire ammo when I saw that the price tag under the Winchester 308 that said $42 Holy Smoke!!!! At the end of the counter they had 2 cases of 20ga, a case of 16ga, and a case of 12ga field loads but none were priced and I had no real interest in shotshells at this point anyway. I'm glad all I needed was a few shotshells and if I'd had more time I could have reloaded myself a couple hundred 12 ga target loads. I have a BIG box of once fired Blue Magics out in the tool shed, and unopened bag of wads, a couple grand of 209's and maybe 50lbs of 7-1/2 shot.
..............Buckshot