This is a box of 525 rounds of .22 long rifle, the most popular plinking caliber for rifles and pistols.

You can easily hold it in your hand.

Early on in the ammo shortage a few years back I made several orders for cases of .22 long rifle. Each case had 5,000 to 5,250 rounds, depending on the manufacturer. Everything was backordered at the time and prices were starting to go up so I made the biggest bulk orders I could find and promptly forgot about them. I figured maybe I’d get one or two of them before they were cancelled.

Well, I got four. The first case came about a year later and when the dust settled I got over 22,500 rounds from those orders, all at less than $0.03 per round, all in.

My wife rolled her eyes about the whole thing but I didn’t mind.

By the time the orders started to arrive, the cheapest you could buy in bulk was about $0.07 per round. And that was before shipping (many places have started to charge for shipping), taxes (the good old days of no taxes on the internet are over), and FFL fees (I live in Kalifornia and now we have to use FFLs for out-of-state ammo purchases).

500 rounds? What a joke!