I went to Walmart today and was shocked to see some .223 ammo on the shelf. I walk past the cabinet every time I go in there but its usually just a waste of time. Today was different. There wasn’t a lot of ammo on the shelf, but there was a bunch of Russian TulAmmo.
Some people might not like the stuff, especially since its steel cased, but if you’ve been following my blog for a while then you know I love the stuff. Its cheap, reliable, and very accurate for $0.25 a round (as of last year). So when I saw 20 boxes of .223 on the shelf, I bought my limit of 3. Might go back tomorrow as well.
The price has gone up, I’m sure you had guessed that. But I think I can swing an extra $0.30 a box. That extra 1.5 pennies a round certainly isn’t going to bother me at all.
And now you’re saying, “sure, they had some .223, but tomorrow there will be none left”. To that I say, 20 boxes isn’t a lot, but its far more than we’ve seen in the past. And in addition to .223, TulAmmo was also available in .40 S&W and .45ACP. Each of those sections were full as well. There were virtually no other manufacturers present anywhere else on the shelves.
This could mean two things:
- TulAmmo has upped production or began exporting more to match the increased demand.
- Walmart finally received an order they placed back in December before the Great Ammo Drought of 2013 went into affect.
The reason I don’t think this is a back-ordered shipment is because my local Walmart has told me they never stopped ordering. They continued ordering and everything they put on the shelves sold the same day. While I never saw that with my own two eyes, I can’t call them liars either. Local rumors spoke of lines in sporting goods every morning when the shipments were scheduled to be put on the shelf. Most of the ammo never even made it behind the glass.
But this is all just speculation. I’m no expert on business or firearms and I don’t claim to be. I can only make statements based on what I see and experience first hand.
Regardless, this is a positive thing. Local shops are still struggling to get ammo on the shelves, but cheap ammo is unheard of. Everything I have found locally has been high dollar brass stuff, and for me that’s just not appealing. Is this a sign that cheap (inexpensive) ammo is once again a possibility? I don’t know. All I know is I now have 60 more rounds of my favorite brand of rifle ammo.