1911Tuner
Moderator Emeritus
People are NOT interested in small, shiney objects when their stomachs are empty. A diamond becomes a pretty little rock with absolutely no use to the adverage person.
Yes. Exactly.
Yep. Spot on.I can't give you a truckload. We need food, too. Here's your choice-- Take a bag of food for that diamond, or walk away hungry."
You'll take the deal.
And then we are back to the point that you will NEVER get what you think the value of such would be in a barter-- nor would you be able to "break" it for smaller transactions.
And that brings us to why ammunition is a good barter item. For not a lot of cash investment up front...even with the rising prices...you have something that's easily divisible and not as subjective as to what it's worth in relation to what is wanted or needed. During a national crisis, it will likely become quickly unavailable at the retail level...either because of a run on the stocks or by mandate...which I saw happen in Winston-Salem, NC during the riots of '68...and thus will become more valuable as it becomes growingly scarce.
.22 rimfire will be the one to look at closely. Almost everybody has a .22 rifle.
.38 Special is next. There are probably more .38s lying around in households than any other handgun. A reasonable store of .30-30...12 and 20 gauge shotshells, evenly split between #6 and buckshot would be a good idea...00Buck for the 12 and #1 buck for the 20. Maybe a box or two of .410 bore, too. Form there, you can decide if you want some of the other calibers to be represented in your locker...the amount of which is dictated by how prolific each one is. .30-06 and .308 would be more likely than .35 Whelen, for instance. No real need to stock up heavily on the current polular calibers.
Most of the folks who have those will probably have seen to their stores before the crunch, so the call for more than a box or so won't be too likely.
Ditto for the popular CAS calibers. Those guys reload, almost without exception. Primers and powder might not be a bad idea, come to think of it.
The list could go on...