My Wal*Mart Ammo Day Purchase
Well the first thing I did today had nothing to do with Mall-Wart, I stopped by my friends place of employment. He wasn’t there, so I missed the chance to interview him to see if ammo sales were on the uptick.
The second stop was my favorite used book store. It’s run by the library and takes in all kinds of used books in donations. There’s actually three Heinlein books out there I haven’t read yet, and I got one of ‘em today, along with another softbound and a hardbound Bruce Sterling that I haven’t read yet either. Half a buck for each of the soft and a buck for the hardbound, looks like a first edition in good shape too. Everything there is priced to move.
Orphans of the sky has a 1941 copyright date. My ex-library copy was bought sometime in 2001 and discarded at the latest, this year. I appreciate the chance to buy it cheap but are they going to spend more tax money to buy more Heinlein books in the future? This one is still in great shape.
Anyway books made me late, again. I hit Wal*Mart about a half hour late. The salesdroid could not tell me if they ever stocked 7.62×39, but the only rifle ammo they had left was in 22-250. Not something I shoot. Not much choice left in handgun ammo either. I ended up getting only 1600 rounds, three bricks of .22s (Winchester white box), and a even hundred of Remington skeet loads. Plus I got a brick of clays. This Mall*Wart used to have a great guy behind the counter. He actually knew how to sell you a hunting and fishing license, and he always had the open seasons up there on a whiteboard. Like I said, this guy was a droid.
Note to ammo manufactures: Gun stores inevitably stick the ammo too far behind the counter. If you go somewhere where the salesdroid does not know his stock, Winchester white box is by far the easiest stuff to see. They have obviously thought the Mall-Wart scenario out throughly.
Personally, I prefer to buy my ammo in spam cans.
Oh, something else of note. I use to buy the cheapy Federal skeet loads at Mal-Wart, but when we did a bunch of heavy shooting, all our guns started having failure to eject jams. It seems that those cheapy rock bottom skeet shells that were sold at Mall-Wart a few years ago melted, and started sticking in the chamber under heavy use. My Uncle with the model 12 started to buy Winchester AA shells after that (the hulls of which I happily carted home), I just started to keep my action open between clays to help it cool down, which worked great. The repackaged Federal shells were the same price as the Remington ones this year.
Reason #2978, of why you don’t want to live in DC reared it’s ugly head too. Said droid insisted on seeing my ID, even though I’m clearly over 21. He just wanted to know for sure I didn’t have a DC license. I wonder if my cousin is gonna get caught in that trap next time he goes skeet shooting with me in Virginia? Crazy as it seems, you need a permit to own ammo if you live in DC. Since I look exactly like a gang banger, they had to check. Even if I had a DC license, it should be a legal sale, I just couldn’t legally bring the stuff home. I guess they need to rely on gang bangers in Maryland who can make a straw ammo purchase.
Leah Says :
Droids like this are all too common at walmart and not as common at local stores. Would your local gun and ammo store keep someone on who couldn’t sell a hunting/fishing license or know the types of ammo? I think not.
2005-11-20 01:21 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
You are quite right here Leah. Mall-Wart is quite good at negotiating the lowest prices from it’s suppliers, minimizing costs, and getting the stuff to the stores where I can cart the stuff home. They’re just salesdroids there, and if you want advice, these are not the droids you are looking for.
But ammo is just a commodity, not in the sense that all brands are the same, but in the fact that all Winchester white box in 9mm is the same.
So if I want to get something in 7mm Mauser, or .221 Fireball I know where to go. If I need a spare firing pin for that Turkish large ring bolt action, I know where to go. And no, it isn’t the local bigbox, and it never will be.
Some lefty people (not you) laugh at conservative bent people and their ?Family Values?, saying we can’t go back to the 1950s. This is exactly the same argument to tell those bigbox haters. Never again will consumer electronics be worth repairing at the local TV shop. Never again will your shoes be made based on measurements of your own foot. Never again will you buy most of the food you eat at a farmers market because that is the only choice you have besides growing it yourself (barring any future ?road warrior? style collapse, but in that case we will likely be trading a sack of potatoes for a few rounds of 22 rimfire, and I’ll have been happy that I stocked up when I could)
I think the best we can hope for is to prevent stuff like those big mult-national corporations from reading the RFID chip that is implanted in you credit card the moment that you walk into the store and use it to track you as you shop. How much money you have in the bank determines what kind of service you receive. Noticing that you paused before the attractive brunette sales display, it makes a note of you habits in a huge database. Later, noting your preference in men, it remotely programs your blu-ray DVD player, to show the kind of commercials that global bigbox thinks might appeal to you, perhaps even targeting the actor plugging the other type of beer that many people in your demographic has been successfully switched over to. You agreed to all this invisible monitoring when you didn’t read that 27 page long shrink wrap agreement surrounding your new DVD player (which you are actually leasing, and are prohibited from opening, disassembling, or modifying because you don’t really own it)
2005-11-20 02:28 PermalinkPawpaw Says :
If that picture of my cornbread ingots makes you sick, you ought to see what I melt the lead in.
Those cornbread molds are easy to find around here, in yard sales and flea markets. That one, I picked up at an estate auction for $2.00 american. The pot I melt lead in, a baby dutch oven, cost me $5.00 at a flea market.
The little cast iron muffin tins are great for making duck decoy anchors. I’m looking for one of those next. Under $10.00 and it’s mine.
2005-11-22 22:17 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Note to my readers: Pawpaw’s comment was in response to the message I left on his blog post here:
http://pawpawshouse.blogspot.com/2005/11/processing-wheelweights.html
Pawpaw, Thanks for stopping by, but you do know you’re a daily read for me, right?
Unfortunately, the cast iron I’ve seen coming in from China isn’t finished ground and won’t season properly to that non-stick finish that I remember from my boy sprout days. Just guess how I know that. That’s why I’ve been looking for something used. I’m gonna try to smooth it down with the angle grinder, but if that does not work, I guess I’ll have my own wheel weight lead pre-processing pot too.
2005-11-23 01:04 Permalinkcountertop Says :
Are you in DC, Maryland, or Virginia?
DIdn’t realize you were another Beltway blogger. Which Wal Mart did you go to?
We should hit the range one day.
2005-11-23 14:38 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
I did my purchase at the Wal*Mart in Laural, MD.
Yea, we ought to go shooting some time. I used to belong to the AGC.
http://www.associatedgunclubs.org/
My dues have lapsed. I’ll have to get caught up again.
I live in the (cough) Free (cough) State for the moment.
2005-11-24 00:23 Permalink