A thought on bullets.

First off, I’m curious how many bullets people stockpile?

Secondly, I was just thinking about how long a stockpile would hold out.

Hypothetical scenario (with terrible math, you have been warned):

Let’s say I have a thousand rounds stocked, apoc happens. Let’s also say I need to hunt about once a week to maintain enough food. Let’s also say I’m a crack shot (I’m not) and I can always get an animal with one shot.

That would mean that stockpile would last me, 19.25 (rounded up) years. This assumes no reloading spent rounds either.

But, I’m not a crack shot, so, let’s do a google, “The Sandhill studies documented 3.1 to 7.4 shots per deer bagged. Studies elsewhere reported better shooting. Research in Ontario (1973) and South Carolina (mid-1990s) during herd-reduction hunts documented 1.6 and 1.2 shots per kill, respectively.” From https://www.themeateater.com/wired-to-hunt/whitetail-management/how-many-shots-are-fired-for-each-deer-tagged for source.

Okay, I’ll be generous and say an average of 2 shots per animal bagged. That stockpile now lasts 9.61 years. This also assumes I don’t reload casings. But it also doesn’t assume I ever use any rounds for practicing, or trading, and that I never get into a firefight where I need to defend myself.

I don’t have numbers for those variables but I’d be curious to see/do some number crunching and determine how big of a stockpile would be required to get you through the 30-60 years of the rest of our lives in a post-apocalyptic scenario.

And I doubt looting would stay viable more than a few months out as everyone else will also think of the same thing. And unfortunately most of their stockpiles would probably end up rusting and rotting away in a basement, as owners die from any number of possible causes.