Ah, the hunt for the best possible ammo at the best possible price. We all have been there. Cruising up and down the isles of our local gun store. Breaking out the smartphone calculator to figure out the cost per round (CPR). Maybe checking our bank account to see if little Jimmy can go without food today. (I kid!)
I have two simple tips for buying ammunition. Follow my tips, and you'll be at the range more and paying less to do it.
What are the tips?
1. Buy online!
2. Buy in bulk!
Simple. Not hard. Lets break it down.
Rule Number one. Buy online. This is possible and very easy to do so! (California doesn't want you to). The only extra hurdle you have to jump through is probably providing them with your drivers license, and maybe a FOID card, in an email. I use Gun Bot to find my ammo.
Pretty simple to follow. Select your ammo. Sort by price. Find a place that looks good! One thing to remember is that you will have to pay for shipping! Which is where the second rule comes in.
Buy in bulk! Lets face it. You're gonna go shooting. You're gonna stockpile. You're eventually going to buy more! I probably do a big, $300 purchase once a year and maybe a $100 later on if I have some big stuff planned. Just get the ammo.
Perhaps one of the best selling guns the United States right now has got to be the Smith and Wesson M&P Shield 9mm. Everyone I know has one, many people that I know have more than one. If you check out any Youtube video in regards to different types of concealed carry guns, this one is guaranteed to be on there. So... I picked myself up one as well.
Now I've owned this same handgun before and absolutely loved it. It is the 9mm with thumb safety. Traded it and had regretted it ever since. Haven't shot it yet, but I have added the white paint you see in the picture. I normally don't do that, but I've never really had a firearm that looked somewhat good with it, so I decided to go for it.
I decided to go with the 9mm since that is what I had before. Additionally, my Star Super B that I've shown here before is also chambered in 9mm so I'm keeping it standard. This handgun also comes in .40 in addition to both models with and without safety.
I believe that this handgun MSRPs for $450. Although looking around, your local gun shop may have them for about $400, so I would say anything under that is a good deal. I purchased this from the Palmetto State Armory store in Ridgeland, SC for $330. Here is their link if you want to order it from them. The online price is $350 right now.
Once I carry it a little bit more, I'll let you guys know what I think.
So roughly four months ago I was able to purchase a Star Super B from Aim Surplus. I got the handpicked option, and in total I paid Aim around $250. About a week or two later, my local FFL, Lightning Tactical and Training and informed me it had arrived. If you are in the SC Low Country Area, give LTT a call. They're veteran owned and operated and is the only FLL I use. What I recieved was beautiful!
Fantastic for the price. It runs 9mm, but a longer Spanish version. For this reason, I probably had about 2% failure to eject. Not bad considers it was made in 1974. If you don't know anything about the Star Super B's, I encourage you to read up on them on The Truth About Guns. Great article.
Then...to much dismay... I fucked it up.
In my infinite wisdom, I decided that I wanted to do a super deep clean. I am an idiot. I did not want to devote the time or energy to completely disassembling the handgun, so I decided to strip it down as far as I could, and then submerge it in a bath of rust remover, and then take a nap. When I pulled it out, I almost couldn't believe it. Very soon then did I discover, the metal blue is a type of rust. Rust and Rust Remover do not like each other very much. I was heartbroken!
So I decided to do a little handy work on it. The most work on a firearm I have done up until that point. I followed a few blog posts online and got it apart. Once I had it fully disassembled, I thought "There wasn't a single comprehensive, reliable post about how to take this thing apart." So I didn't do any justice and make a crappy YouTube Video. Partly to help, and partly to help myself remember when I put it back together again.
Now it was time to reblue! I decided to follow this guide I found on Reddit which has you boiling down stump remover to reblue. My first attempt failed. Do not use an electric stove for this. It does not work! The stove will not put out nearly as much BTUs as is required to turn the stump remover powder into a liquid. I was flying home in a few days, and decided to package it all up for the plane trip. Only problem was that if I left the pieces out for more than a few minutes, they would start to rust! So this was my solution for the plane ride.
Nifty right? Maybe soon I'll write another post about my experiences flying with my firearms. Once I got home, I used the before mentioned guide on a gas stove and it worked a lot better! NOTES! 1) This stuff is insanely hot! It will burn you! I still have little specks on my hands from where some splashed on me. 2) Make sure your pot is big enough for all the pieces! My slide blued perfectly. Everything else went in with the receiver, the receiver got stuck and I had to abort. They are not as colored as the rest. 3) Don't put the hot pan in your sink. I'll melt the plastic.
After all was said and done, here she is!
Not as nice as it was before, but better than the mess up!
