A Craigslist for Ammo: Your Thoughts?

B

BulletBay.org

New member
Hey TFL Family,

Aspiring programmer with a fire for our 2nd Amendment rights and a fresh idea I'd love to get your take on. Imagine a Craigslist, but it's all about ammo – a place where flippers, reloaders, and shooting ranges can sling their surplus and make some side cash. Or on a more casual level, a place where you can trade your excess ammo, for calibers and types you're short on.

I'm developing it to keep the ammo flowing and our rights exercised.

But, I'm curious about the view from the trenches: do you think there's room for this in our pro-gun world?
What kind of obstacles do you reckon we'd face?

Would love to hear if this is something you'd back, or if you have any pointers from your own reloading experiences.

Thanks for your feedback,
BulletBay.org
 
Sharing reloads? No.
See the recent thread in this forum regarding Reloading Liability for Friends and Family
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=617602


I've often wished there was a way to share/trade partial boxes of commercially loaded ammo to make it easier to find the ammo a particular gun likes (especially for my .22LRs). Seems like that would be easier done at the local range level vs. shipping costs, etc.

Maybe if you sell a sampler box, say 10 rounds each of CCI's .22LR, SK, Eley, etc.
Do the same for 5.56/.223. 10 rounds of each of the better match grade ammo.
Also, maybe a sampler pack of the not-so-match grade ammo like PMC, cheaper Federal, Winchester, etc. to again see which of middle tier shoot best out of my gun.
 
Swapping reloads with complete strangers? I'll pass. And I hope the strangers would, too. And why would I be loading calibers that I don't need?
 
Sounds like armslist.com but limited exclusively to ammo. I can't imagine there being a huge market for it.

I imagine many would be hesitant to buy ammo from John Q Public. There's a reason why stores don't allow ammo returns. You never know what some unscrupulous schmuck will try to pass off as "new". I've seen complaints just this week on other forums from people buying "new" ammo off gunbroker and the boxes having a variety of mismatched head stamps...
 
I could use something like that. I have @ 100 rounds of commercial 243 (but no 243 rifle) and a 50 round box of 357 Sig (but no 357 Sig pistol).
 
reddog81 said:
Sounds like armslist.com but limited exclusively to ammo. I can't imagine there being a huge market for it.

I imagine many would be hesitant to buy ammo from John Q Public. There's a reason why stores don't allow ammo returns. You never know what some unscrupulous schmuck will try to pass off as "new". I've seen complaints just this week on other forums from people buying "new" ammo off gunbroker and the boxes having a variety of mismatched head stamps...
Click to expand...
I've seen exactly that in the gun show it was the biggest red flag ever! Dude swore up and down that these were factory speer gold dots then he got really mad when I asked him why do they have different head stamps??
 
I've recently parted many of my firearms to son & daughter and sold many others to friends nearby and HAVE LOTS OF AMMO available as my old practices were to have 1000 rounds for each firearm I owned. Yes, a lot of it is reloads/re-manufactured to strict guidelines.
 
I can see a few reasons why I don't see success here. First is that ammo is a hassle to ship due to weight and the fact that you can't ship postal. That means UPS/FedEx and both are a hassle all on their own and even more expensive if you aren't near a facility and you are stuck dealing with a retail location and the added expense that goes with the retail location.

The reloading problem has been detailed by other posters already, but to take it a step further, reloaders need four components to ply their craft and if we're talking about a swapping marketplace for these components, two of them are handled as Hazmat for the purpose of shipping. What was formerly an expensive hassle is now basically impossible for the average person who doesn't own a business already set up with a Hazmat shipping account.

The final problem I see is that there seems to be no revenue stream for whoever provides this service (you) and your software and the hosting of it.
 
The video on BulletBay.org says list your ammo and set your price. Is it legal for an individual to sell reloads or factory ammo to the public for profit without a license of some sort?
 
There was an "auction" site for a while that seemed to concentrate on reloading supplies.
Mostly brass and bullets listed, don't remember anything requiring hazmat shipping, though some magazines and reloading tools sometimes.

Don't remember the URL as the site seemed to have disappeared several years ago and I deleted the bookmark.

Never much traffic, seemed mostly to be offers from only a couple of sources.
 
Buy, sell, trade locally sourced components (brass-bullets...), dies, presses, tools... yes, I would frequent such a site.

loaded ammo (new or remanufactured) Hell no! skeptical on powder and primers but loaded rounds from unknown source and data! Could be a liability to the site and buyer.
 
Great brainstorming exercise, but save your code writing time. A few points....

-you cannot sell your reloads. Unless you have a manufacturing ffl license for that endeavor.

-shipping ammo is expensive. I've done it.

-there are several similar services with strong market share to overcome (armslist being the main "free for local buyers option.")

-even armslist had to generate revenue by charging for seller accounts.

-armslist, having a significant market share of the local "for sale ad" gun, ammo, component, and accessory market, has a shockingly small number of listings for ammo or reloading components.

-the overwhelming vast majority of the ammo market is summed up in 4 flavors.., 9mm, 45acp, .223/5.56, and .308/7.62. No reseller can break into this market cheaper than the big boys. Even illicit reload sellers will have a hard time sourcing components cheap enough to compete with big boy online pricing.


When I was 15, in the '90s, I was cleaning out the gutters on the house for my parents. I thought of a screen type system to place over the gutters to prevent leafs from getting in in the first place while doing this menial job. I thought of it, then finished my chore, and largely didn't thin of it again. Fast forward to 2000. I'm not a teenager anymore. I see an "as seen on TV" ad for gutter guards. I thought back to when I was 15 and lament that I didn't act on my ingenious idea, believing I could have made millions! Then I later learned that gutter guards have existed longer than I have....

The moral? It's already being done, and even those websites diversify beyond ammo. And ammo is a pretty small portion of the traffic on those sites for local listings.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top