Having given up on finding pretty much any ammo he requires, the intrepid gunblogger turns his focus to the next task: storing what he already has. He calculates what he needs, and draws up a list of the required materials. Firing up his thinking-machine supercomputer, he begins tracking down these supplies, only to find out something disturbing: he’s too late… they’re gone…
The only places online who had any ammo cans were either overpriced or shady. Even the few places who had any for a decent price made up for it with the shipping. That left gun shows and local places… which were, of course, completely barren of anything I needed. However, my last resort had a piece of intel for me: there was a new little army surplus store right over the state line who might have some ammo cans in stock.
Well, it’s not a new store, or little, and they weren’t right over the state line, but the tipster made up for those errors by being right on the cans. Not only did they have ammo cans in stock, they had pallets of them in stock. Ten bucks for a M2A1 “fifty cal” can, and fifteen for a PA120 “40 mm” can. I picked the best three M2A1s out of the pallet, paid my bill, and went to the house to clean them up. It’s at this point I found out that there are actually two types of “fifty cal” cans, the M2A1 and the PA108 “fat fifty.” Guess which I already had?
So, all of my ammo’s sorted, counted and stored… in three different size cans. Bulk ammo in M19A1 “thirty cal” cans, some of the boxed stuff in M2A1s, and the rest in PA108s. Which means that I now have to figure out how to build a cabinet to hold three different size cans efficiently. (sigh)
There was some humor, though. One of the cans I had to pass up (it was on its last legs) had a stenciled warning spraypainted in small white letters on its lid:
THIS CONTAINER READY FOR DEPLOYMENT OR INSPECTION
DO NOT OPEN
Next time I go up there, I’m going to see if that can (or one of its brothers) is there… I want that lid… (chuckle)
