Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Ammo Auctions

I am bidding on some bulk surplus ammunition manufactured by the Austrian company "Hirtenberger". I bid a lot of auctions but win very few because I feel that auctions are for getting deals. I bid what is a good deal to me and if someone overbids me, so be it.

I did a web search to find the going rate for this ammo in bulk so I can make informed decisions in my bidding.

One GunBroker auction has the opening bid at $700/1000 rounds with no reserve.

Click to Visit Auction

70 cents a round is pretty much what I thought was a reasonable price so as long as I can stay under 70 cents a round including buyers premium and shipping, I will consider it a good deal.

There is another GunBroker auction for this same ammo that is way out there in left field.

Click to View Auction

Take a quick guess at what this guy is asking for this case of ammo, the same 1979 manufacture date at the previous lot.

You are too low.

His open is $1900, and his reserve is not met! Holy Guacamole Batman. $1.90/round for 30 year old surplus .308 NATO ammo.

One more thing about this auction. He...

Will only sell to TX Concealed Handgun Permit holder with TX driver's license.
I'm thinking his wife told him to sell off his ammo so he listed it on GunBroker. When no one bids he can tell her that he tried.

Either that or he is way proud of his Austrian ammo.

This is just an example of why you should shop around a bit before bidding in any auction, even one on the internet.

1 comment:

theirritablearchitect said...

Ya know, that is probably a lot that was loaded by Hirtenberger. Very highly sought after these days.

I wouldn't pay almost 2-large for it either, but there may be someone who will. Probably few and far between I'm thinking.

I'm quite sure he could unload it for something closer to a thousand bucks, bringing cost per round down to $1, which is parity with other commercial stuff.