MORE GUN STORE LORE

One piece of very interesting gun store lore I learned last week was that folks in Texas, at least a certain part of Texas, are buying .25 ACP rounds just as fast as some of the other fast sellers these
days, like .223, 5.56, 7.62 x 39, 9mm and so on.

I was in my friend's gun store, and a desperate looking fellow walked in and asked if there were any .25 auto bullets left. The owner said yes, and fetched one, and the fellow quickly paid cash and left. It was noonish and my friend said he had sold several boxes of .25 ACP that day, and would likely sell several more before the end of business.

My friend, the LGS owner, told me that this same run on .25 ACP ammo happened in the early 1990's when the Clinton gun thing kicked in, folks came in and he sold out quickly of .25 auto ammo. Fast.

He says normally, he sells a box or two a month of .25 ACP. It's a slow seller.

Although some of the buyers, like one who came in and bought the 8 or 10 boxes the store had, buy multiples, my friend says most of these .25 ACP ammo buyers just get one box.

The other fellows I know that own another gun shop some distance from the one described above also indicate a similar experience, and had actually stocked up on .25 ACP in case of a run like the one going on right now. Like my friend above, these guys say most buyers are also single box at a time buyers.

I know at least one reader of this blog has some very cool pocket autos, or at least one, and if memory serves they're in .25 auto. I wonder if he sees this .25 ACP ammo sales run phenomenon in his neck of the woods?

I have one theory, and it's one of those that popped into my head. The .25 ACP run is mostly those folks for whom that's the only gun they have, and they figure a box of new bullets might come in handy sometime. They're not preppers, they just want some bullets for their gun.

Which begs the question, does this mean that .25 ACP owners make a run on ammo more than .38 Special, .40 Caliber and .45 ACP owners do, or does this mean there are a ton of .25 ACP owners in my area?

I always figured that lots of folks have Glocks and .38 Specials and .22's and shotguns of various sorts. I guess I've underestimated the number of folks who still pack the .25 auto.

Some of the stores I've been to were low on .22 cartridges, but all have had .38 Special and .45 ACP.

Now that I think of it, I didn't see any .25 ACP ammo at Academy or at Walmart. They both had .38 Special, .45 ACP and lots of non-military hunting ammo and birdshot (all slugs and larger shot and buckshot were gone). Neither store had many .22 rounds either. Academy had .22 short rounds, and Walmart had a small box or two left of 50 rounds each.

FWIW...