Day 19: Cheap Ammo

Shopping for ammo online can save you a lot of money if shop around and know whats good versus what's junk. But if you're in the market for cheap practice ammunition for common calibers, Wal-Mart is actually a great place to go. This afternoon, I bought a few boxes of Federal Champion 9mm Luger 115 Grain FMJ RN. At $9.97/50 it's the best deal in town.


I read somewhere that Federal Champion is simply Federal American Eagle re-boxed for Wal-Mart, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this were true. The case markings are identical and the rounds are indistinguishable. The prefix of the item number printed on the box is “WM” which gives credibility to this idea. Seeing as American Eagle is my favorite type of practice ammunition, this is a good thing, especially since I can’t find F-AE for much less than $12 anywhere while F-C goes for roughly $10.


The Ann Arbor Gun Guys team has registered for the Handgun I & II classes at the Michigan Defensive Firearms Institute (MDFI). The classes require a combined ammo count of 1100 rounds per student, so needless to say, we’ve been scrounging local Wal-Marts to slowly build up to the couple thousand rounds of 9mm we’ll need by mid-July. This ammo fits the bill for training applications, and we’ll provide detailed range reports after we’ve been through the classes.

On the topic of ammo cost, you may have noticed that we added an “ammo fund” donation box through PayPal on the sidebar of this blog. Not that I we expect anyone to actually use it, but hey, if you ever win the lottery and want to donate to the common people, we’ll be here! For the rest of you, please "follow" this blog if you like what you see!