-Airguns
-Dry fire
-Laser Targets

You can get in an immense amount of shooting fun as well as actual training, hell some of which very very few ranges would allow with live fire, Wity the above you can do so without ever leaving your basement or attic or garage or main hallway (I take no responsibility if your wife shoots or stabs you for that main hallway suggestion).

Point is just because you cannot get to the range or cannot find real ammo to shoot....you can still both have fun and keep your skills up quarantined in your house.

Take care, shoot safe.
Chris

Some very good points and advise. Hell, I bought an Airsoft 1911 years ago and have not shot it yet. This is just the kind of reminder (or kick in the ass) that I needed.

I am very sad to see the price gouging going on. My favorite site nearly tripled the price of my ammo. That’s bs. I know it’s capitalism but it’s still bs.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
I am very sad to see the price gouging going on. My favorite site nearly tripled the price of my ammo. That’s bs. I know it’s capitalism but it’s still bs.

Please tell me your “favorite site” isn’t Cheaper Than Dirt.

Price gouging is good. It sets limits on the market. Once things settle back down, prices will drop because they always overproduce. All will be well.

Nope. Ammoman. And I respectfully disagree with you on price gouging. I have plenty of ammo so I won’t be buying. The prices will come down but applying your dumb ass logic if your grocery store starts tripling prices on food and TP tell me again how it’s a good thing.

Think about it. The TP is cheap, a few people buy it all. When it's expensive, it's more evenly distributed by market forces without rationing. That's how supply and demand works. The alternative is government force. You want artificially low prices based on government mandate? I live thru that once before. It caused some pretty extreme shortages for a while. It's a theoretical argument for us anyway, we're both sitting pretty on ammo.

To be fair food, water, medicine etc. are human necessities. 1000 rounds of all your favorite calibers are not. I would imagine 2 boxes of 30-30 would serve any real world situation you would ever run into and would be easy to stock so to speak.

So on a luxury item which ammo mostly is I have no problem with supply and demand. As has been said numerous times buy a little ammo now and then and you will be good to go.

Just my take.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
-Airguns
-Dry fire
-Laser Targets

I do a lot of dry-firing, both with and w/o a laser, with a new handgun or when I've been out of it for a while. With my latest acquisition I dry-fired for nearly four weeks before I took it to the range.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
To be fair food, water, medicine etc. are human necessities. 1000 rounds of all your favorite calibers are not. I would imagine 2 boxes of 30-30 would serve any real world situation you would ever run into and would be easy to stock so to speak.

So on a luxury item which ammo mostly is I have no problem with supply and demand. As has been said numerous times buy a little ammo now and then and you will be good to go.

Just my take.

I 100% agree. Ammo is a *want* and not a critical need, like food, water, shelter, medical supplies, etc. We have had cheap ammo prices for years now, so if you got caught with your pants down this time, well that's on you, IMHO.

Since the election is a ways off and ammo has been so cheap and easy to get I started to allow my supply to dwindle down to almost having to buy some to go plinking.
A couple months ago I decided to get out of that habit and get my stock back up to previous levels and looks like I did it just in time. I can shoot at my normal frequency for the next 24 months give or take without running dry.
(Well, without having to dip into the shtf stash)

I understand capitalism as well as most. I also lived in areas frequently hit by natural disasters. Price gouging brings out the worst in human nature. Look at the Wuhan. Many people see this crisis as somewhat man made. Give it some time, run it’s course, and it’s over. In the meantime civilization thrives on some form of stability. It’s easy to stop hoarding. Every store around here, albeit too late, has instituted limits on purchases. It will correct itself.

Gouging on the other hand creates instability in a time when that is the last thing needed. Only time in my life I ever went to bed with loaded weapons at hand was after a hurricane. People were scared sand consequently doing dumb things. Stealing which led to others running generators insides homes to prevent theft. And some died. I am not a govt take care of me guy. However, when the Guard finally set up in town and delivered ice, water, and MRE’s, everybody settled down to the actual business of getting back on their feet.

Quoting economic theory in the midst of crisis might not be the best application of said theory. No one pretends we live in a strict capitalist society anyway. The bailout alone blows that out of the water.

So the real argument is how much and when are we ok with govt interference. Everybody has their line in the sand. Mine is pretty easy. If an emergency is declared, prices should not be able to skyrocket unless the underlying cost of production skyrocketed as well. Which in my life hasn’t happened. Hurricane in Florida didn’t triple the price. Wuhan didn’t make Tula cases magically sitting in a warehouse triple in price.

Bottom line. Society thrives on stability. It spirals on fear. Encouraging fear and instability benefits very few to the detriment of many. Some govt action I find reasonable and sound.

To add to cslinger's suggestion...

Until recently, I thought dry fire was "point gun at target, pull trigger without moving the gun". As it turns out, dry fire is actually practicing everything about shooting other than recoil management. I bought Ben Stoeger's Dryfire Reloaded book, and in a few months of following his prescription my shooting improved dramatically.

Being quarantined at home is a great time to put up scaled targets all over your home and run mock USPSA stages until your hands feel like hamburger meat. Make quick range trips to verify that you're training correctly at home!

I dug out the Beeman P1 .177, and set the silhouettes at 40 feet.

Much fun, but there's a chicken way up there in the leaves now that I can't find.

I agree large stockpiles of ammo are a luxury item. In a true apocalypse you aren’t going plinking. 100 rounds of each caliber would be more than enough. Once a true crisis hits the only shooting will be for food or defense.
After the great 22 scarcity of a few years ago, I get twitchy when my supply drops below a case.

quote:

Price gouging is good. It sets limits on the market. Once things settle back down, prices will drop because they always overproduce. All will be well.

Yup, as stockpilers, we can ease the pressure by selling some of of overstock. If someone doesn't like paying the price, don't buy it, you're making the problem worse. My buddy just noted that eveyone was sold out of eggs, he said: "if you find some by me 3 dozen". I had 18 at home which I was going to share with him. So I asked if they were cooking something and how many did they need. I was told they had 2 dozen but wanted more. I all but told him to go to hell.

See, that's becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution. And if you didn't stock ammo back when it was plentiful, DON'T go buy some now or you're just making the problem worse, and those of us selling it are making it better.

See? Those caught with their pants down will stock it when it becomes available next time, thus making the system more resilient as more and more people stock heavy. It's a good thing -despite the pain idiots and the stupid will feel. But maybe that will be a good thing if they can remember the lesson.

Stopped by Gander Outdoors this afternoon in SE Wisconsin. They were cleaned out of all handgun ammunition as of a few days ago. They actually restocked with .223, 5.56, .380 and even a few .45 ACP. I grabbed just a couple of boxes.

Their long gun is slim picking with any defensive shotgun or rifle. Most of the sporting shotguns are left unmolested. The new pistol counter was about 30% full. No Glock, H&K, Sig, or S&W. There was a few Rugers. What is of abundance were the FN pistols and Kimbers. I was chuckling. In the used counter, there were a few surplus Beretta 81, a couple of S&W 36, scattered odd calibers of .357 Sigs, and a lot of pocket pistols.

Accessories...AR accessories are not Gander's strong point but their small area was pretty picked over of any Magpul accessories. Magazine is starting to go. there were still 5 or 6 hooks full of Pmags...but demand look to be on the rise.

Crapload of people filling out their 4473.

Just an observation.

Speaking of fun, a friend of mine had a high end German air rifle(I don’t remember the make).
We would hang small pieces of meat in my backyard at about 25 feet. When the flys came in we would shoot them. That gun was super accurate.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
I dug out the Beeman P1 .177, and set the silhouettes at 40 feet.

Much fun, but there's a chicken way up there in the leaves now that I can't find

Dry fire practice is good for many things, if you can't get to the range. Many pro shooters do that exact thing. I would add to use snap caps for cheap insurance anything going wrong with your gun(s). Granted ammo. might be a considered a luxury item but many people, even when ammo was cheap, could not afford to buy more than a few hundred rounds a year due to their monetary status.

It's funny we are ok with some price gouging and not with others. If the we treated each other as good as ourselves, the world would be a nicer place. Human nature being the way it is, it won't happen unfortunately.