Tom is a former Navy Corpsman that spent some time bumbling around the deserts of Iraq with a Marine Recon unit, kicking in tent flaps and harassing sheep. Prior to that he was a paramedic somewhere in DFW, also doing some Executive Protection work between shifts. Now that those exciting days are behind him, he teaches wilderness medicine and runs an on-demand medical staffing business. He hopes that his posts will help you find solid gear that will survive whatever you can throw at it–he is known (in certain circles) for his curse…ahem, ability…to find the breaking point of anything.
I enjoy shooting shotgun (or maybe I should say I enjoy the *boom* and the target obliteration that it causes). But I don’t like shooting “a lot” of shotgun and, additionally, there is a reason you don’t see shotgun courses that run 500 rounds in [Read More…]
Safariland announced the expansion of the 7TSTM Holster Series with new fits for the Glock 17/22 and 19/23 with the most popular lights, and new fits for the Sig Sauer P220R/P226R, P227 full-size/compact and the P229R. These are the first fits to be introduced for [Read More…]
Arsenal has improved upon their most popular pistol with a new version, the SAM7K-03. The SAM7K series is a line of Bulgarian-made SAM7K 7.62×39 caliber pistols. The “03” now includes the Sig Sauer SB15 Stabilizing Brace. The brace uses the [Read More…]
Week 23. It seems like there was less pistol available around the net this week. Plenty of .223 Rem and 7.62x39mm though. 22LR is still challenging to find in bulk. Again, keep up the voting on which caliber you would like to see added next quarter. We do appreciate the [Read More…]
Ruger has just launched a new product to distributors today and is now offering consumers a limited time chance to win this new model (the “New Unannounced Product”) and receive it on September 8th, the exact day it will be revealed to consumers and [Read More…]
Some of you may be familiar with GORUCK packs. Albeit pricey, they are some of the most well made packs I have had the pleasure to abuse. They are also 100% made here in the USA. Not content with just making backpacks to hold your stuff (and survive GORUCK Challenge [Read More…]
Week 22. Looks like Fiocchi is putting out 300BLK to distributors now–there are several vendors with some. And 22LR is even more “stupid” expensive. Did something happen recently that depleted the stock? .223 Rem is all over the board this week. Brass [Read More…]
Week 21. What other calibers would you like to see starting next quarter? So far there have been requests for: 6.8 SPC and 38 Special? Vote for your favorites in the comments. Also, I should be bringing back Freedom Munitions (as well as a couple of others) into the [Read More…]
Week 20. So some of the tweaking did pull in some odd results, and I obviously did not check every link (1000 rd tumbler, etc…). I went a little more conservative with the data this week and spot checked a lot more. My overall goal is to add more data points so [Read More…]
Apparently the local gun shows are where I pick up many leads. A recent Saturday morning, I went with a couple of friends to the Gun Collectors of NM gun show. The show was smaller than normal, but I did my rounds anyway. BMC Tactical (the shop that did my most [Read More…]
Week 19. We have added a whole bunch of new vendors and adjusted the process a bit. If you notice anything strange please let us know in the comments. Hopefully the tweaks have not impacted the overall data. We do appreciate the support and constructive comments and [Read More…]
When I first picked up the XD-S from my FFL, I felt like some sort of British spy getting kit issue from ”Q”. It came in a huge composite case, foam lined with cutouts. The package contained a holster, magazine holder, grip extender, alternate backstrap, two [Read More…]
Week 18. There was basically an even amount of price increases vs. price decreases across all of the vectors, so no real movement or spikes that are noteworthy. Ammoman has free shipping and it looks like some of the 7.62x39mm from SWVA Arms also qualifies. We do [Read More…]
Week 17. So, it appears that prices are generally moving a bit up. We have more vendors that have increased prices on calibers than have lowered. .223 Rem and .308 Win have taken the brunt of the increases. The Armory contacted me and wanted me to let everyone know that [Read More…]
Week 16. A couple of the vendors contacted me today and wanted to pass on that they are seeing a run on ammo right now, likely due to the sanctions that were recently announced. Also given some of the other world events within the past couple of days we may see some [Read More…]
Week 15 (of data). I took last week off to celebrate the 4th with my family–I hope this didn’t impact your thirst for data trending… I think I’ve found a somewhat reliable way to flag entries if they are free of shipping costs, but it is going to [Read More…]
I’ll admit, the first thought that crossed my mind when I was told that I was to do a review on the Millennium G2 was, “Is my writing so bad that my editors are trying to kill me?”. As many of you may be aware, the Millennium G2 has a sordid history [Read More…]
As many of us have noted, ammo prices are pretty stable overall. .22LR is still overpriced. .380 ACP is actually trending down. And most dealers are pretty close in price to one another for a given caliber and lot size. There are some vendors that have generally lower [Read More…]
Welcome to our first rollup from the previous 13 weeks of data collection. We have presented the data in a few different ways. We have a breakdown of the vendors that are consistently low and high. We are showing the lowest and highest recorded prices for a caliber (as [Read More…]
13th week! The summary article has been submitted and should be live at https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/?p=75836 We do appreciate the support and constructive comments and will continue this article series as long as it is productive. As always, if you have comment [Read More…]
12th week. Next week I will do an additional post just breaking down the metrics with some graphs and stats. If there are specific metrics you would like to see, please leave a comment. While 23 vendors increased prices on some calibers, more than 2.5x as many reduced [Read More…]
11th week! Welcome to The Armory! One of you readers suggested it, and it looks like they are the clear winner for the week in terms of lowest priced ammo in almost all categories (sans shipping of course). We do appreciate the support and constructive comments and will [Read More…]
Week 10. My apologies for last week’s issue with the table headers. The problem is related to some annoyances with the content management software–basically it strips out some of the attributes I put in the headers for styling and analytics. If I don’t [Read More…]
Week nine! I know looking at all this data is just too much work for some of you :), so this week’s new feature is a summary table of the best prices by lot sizes for caliber. The vendor’s name is linked to the ammo page. It looks like LAX Ammunition is [Read More…]
Week eight! Interesting to note that this week, bulk pistol ammo is trending down from previous prices at vendors. Only a couple of vendors have increased. SG Ammo is showing the lowest of the week for 3 types of rifle ammo (in 500 round lots). Bang It Ammo is showing [Read More…]
Seventh week! Again, there are a lot more vendors selling .22LR this week. Most are still at $0.13/rd (or less; which I realize is still hideous). You 300 BLK people need to get some more vendors on board–that stuff is sparse in bulk. I may get the opportunity to [Read More…]
At the risk of starting a religious war, today I want to write about custom handgun modifications. I am of the mindset that once I have bought something, it is mine. I also believe that most things bought “off the shelf” are a great starting point, but rarely the [Read More…]
Sixth week! So, I’m not sure why but The Sportsman Guide has 500rds of .380 ACP for less than half of the other vendors with availability. It *is* Wolf, but still… Also, there are a lot more vendors selling .22LR this week. Prices are still a bit [Read More…]
Week 5 ammo prices. Last week a number of you readers took the raw data and ran with it, generating some pretty cool graphs and showing some interesting analytics. Also this week, by popular demand, I have included basic trending by vendor by caliber by lot size, kind [Read More…]
Fourth week of prices. My intention was to generate trending graphs this week, but as I started playing with the data I realized this post would become hideously huge. So what I would like the reader base to do is to determine what graphs/trends would be most useful [Read More…]