Hunters and anglers are always looking for deals, whether it’s making a quick U-turn on a highway every time that you see a sporting goods store going out of business or rifling through the sale bin in order to find some awesome lure colors for your favorite Rat-L-Trap. I always find myself staring at the ammo aisle looking for good deals on my vast array of oddball calibers I’ve collected over the years. One of my prized possessions is a custom 35 Whelen I’ve built into a heavy timber elk gun for an upcoming (TBD) elk trip out west. However, it’s not exactly the easiest thing to get ammo for, and when it’s available sometimes it’s RIDICULOUSLY expensive. As I try out the gun and check out what type of ammo it likes to eat, I buy different manufacturers and try to dial it in. Nosler looks pretty appealing, but it’s nearly double the price of the Remington Ammo that I can readily find at the big box stores. Part of being a true outdoorsman is gathering skills and knowing how to use your resources. So here’s how to get some deals based off of using your resources.
Ammo Deal Websites
My UPS guy hates me, he’s delivered a backup generator, leaf springs, and what seems like a metric ton of ammunition over the last year and change. What really changed the game for me was using the plethora of ammunition deal sites that have cropped up in recent history. When the second Gulf War started raging there was a shortage of 5.56 ammunition, and the prices skyrocketed. In no small part, there was a shortage because people thought there was a shortage. People started buying way more ammunition than they were likely to shoot in the short term. With 5.56 ammunition also came a shortage of 22 caliber cartridges, it had seemed like the they disappeared overnight. Going to gun shows you’d see people just looking to make a buck — gouging for the ammunition that they were able to obtain because they knew there was a shortage. Supply and demand.
For the first time I began looking at ammunition in terms of cents per round. Very little I own is in dollars per round, thankfully. I would do math on my phone quickly while standing in line, trying to figure out if the pain was worth steel cases on what I was shooting (it almost never was) or whether I could recover some cost by sending my once-shot brass to my dad for reloading. I was frustrated, and apparently many other techie gun-nuts like myself were also frustrated. Data was available, and ready for analysis. Ammo websites were now on the rise. These sites are like search engines, allowing you to specify by caliber, price per round, set alerts, select by manufacturer, etc. All of these sites allow you to set up either audio or email alerts to make sure that you can get the ammunition you have your heart set on. They aggregate prices from multiple vendors, some will even tie into website APIs and they’re updated quite regularly. One of my favorites, ammo-can.net is unfortunately currently experiencing difficulties with hosting. When they come back up, they use Walmart’s API to find a place near you with specific ammo — this was exceptionally helpful in finding plinking ammo during the shortage.
For calibers not carried by Wally World, and for an amount of data bordering on obsessive, try some of these other fine websites:
- Allows you to set a “good deal” alert that will change the text to red
- You can opt for an audio alert while you’re working in the background (obnoxious, but I’m sure useful as you get closer to hunting season)
- The site auto-refreshes results so you’re not constantly looking at out-of-stock results.
- Allows you to seek by caliber, manufacturer, bullet grains, etc
- Offers saved searches and accounts for email alerts
- Covers ammo, reloading supplies, guns, and mags
- Allows you to filter by shot size for shotgun ammo
- Exclude field, hate steel cases? Don’t look at them.
- Defaults to hiding blanks so you don’t get something you don’t expect when getting 5.56 in bulk.
(Formerly SlickGuns) This site is a deal aggregator similar to the popular site Slickdeals where users post deals they’ve seen on the Internet. Not as much data as I’ve seen from the other two sites, but one I check fairly regularly.
Gun Shows
In person?! You mean I might have to go somewhere?! Yep. During the winter all the way into summer there’s generally a gun show to go to about twice a month in population centers. If driving doesn’t really bore you, you can go to a show every weekend in the winter if you’re willing to drive up to say 90 minutes one way. Growing up my dad used to take me to the gun show circuit. This is where we used to get some of the best deals on ammo as well as a ton of other things. I’m not going to give you all of my tips I’ve learned over the years but a big one for this is to talk to all of the ammunition guys. If you’re looking for something weird, like my 35 Whelen, most guys who are in the same club associated with the show will know the other guys. Using that personal network will give you a quick way to find the round you’re looking for. If you’re willing to buy more than a box or a partial box you may get a significant break on the price per round.
Don’t discount guys who collect cartridges. I’ve had some luck keeping my dad in Winchester Silvertips (for combating weredeer) by going to cartridge collectors and going through partial boxes and offering them a decent price. Any time you’re dealing with someone who is a private seller versus a shop, even a small one, you’re more likely to get a significant discount on your price per round. Lead is heavy, and people hate moving boxes of ammo show to show to show over an entire show season.
Rebates
It’s certainly not instant gratification, but I’ll troll the ammunition sites occasionally to see if there are old fashioned mail in rebates for your favorite load. They’ll be posted on a corkboard near the customer service reps at your favorite brick and mortar stores.
If you’re not into social interaction or have fully embraced being a web shopping junkie check out these sites before you head out to the store:
https://www.federalpremium.com/news/promotions_rebates.aspx
https://www.remington.com/rebates-promotions
https://www.midwayusa.com/general/rebate
Sale Ads
This may go without saying, but your big box stores like Cabelas, Dicks, and Bass Pro once they get your name on their list will send you glossy sale ads about every quarter or so with ammo. Usually these sales occur like any other sale, after the season is closed the stores need to move excess ammunition in order to make space for the next season. This comes with some exceptions of course — generally the boutique-y ammunition does not go on sale. You’re unlikely to see any 375 H&H or 416 Rigby ammo going on sale any time soon so if you see it, snap it up. However, steel ammo generally goes on sale after the last winter season for Goose wraps up, pheasant ammo (Think Federal Ammunition Prairie Storm) will go on sale after the season.
When sales are slumping, or perhaps to get people into the store to buy other full priced items these same stores will provide a teaser sale before the season as well. I find there to be a “big” sale of about 20% off before every pheasant season at the end of each summer. Since we exist in a global market, ammunition supply for pheasant ammo will begin to dip significantly after the earlier starting Midwestern seasons start. Stores will sometimes take inventory and ship it between stores in order to sell more where the buying is hot — this is one of the reasons behind places like the big box stores mentioned above putting a guarantee in their ads. Around the holidays they tend to say exactly how many minimum boxes of ammo they expect to receive.
A Shout-out to your LGS
I can’t write an article about getting deals without a little bit of a tribute to your Local Gun Shop (LGS). When you buy a new gun at your LGS you’re injecting money directly into the local economy. People whose family livelihood is directly affected by their sales are more likely to give you a deal if they think you’ll spend more money overall. This is a tactic that’s gone on as long as humans have bartered, and a solid way to maximize the benefit of both buyer and seller. If you buy a new firearm, see if they’ll give you a discount on some ammo. Don’t skimp either. During Christmas sometimes your LGS will run a promo that you get a free box of ammo, if you know you’re going to be taking it to the range or setting it up as a bench rest rifle or slaying some clay, negotiate up front for a case deal. You’d be surprised how often it works, and it’ll warm the cockles of your heart knowing that little Billy’s college fund just got some of your hard earned dollars.
