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Remember when... It looks like the ammo crisis is coming to an end. We can only hope that the millions of new gun owners have been informed that the crisis prices are NOT normal and that they should hold off until prices come back down. 9mm was about $0.12/round, .223 was about $0.30/round in 2019. Hold on to that!
Rant aside, as we hopefully prepare to be able to spend larger quantities of ammo on the range what's the best way to prepare for it? Before I started the channel I used to burn at least a case per weekend of a caliber (ammo was cheaper then and I had fewer financial responsibilities). My buddies and I would head to the hills and blast away plinking at anything we could legally define as a target. Bump-firing and burn downs were part of the fun.
Back then the guys and gals would come over the night before and help load mags while we watched a movie. The pile of mags would then be loaded up for use in the morning. This was good social time and helped limit the finger soreness to the night before shooting. A problem I noticed with that was that we tended to shoot what we had loaded. If we didn't and the ammo was steel-cased there were good chances it would start to rust before the next range trip with that caliber. It also resulted in mags filled to unknown quantities and even more annoying meant that I had to unload mags if those same mags were to be used for a competition or other event (change of ammo). That was before the Podavach U-Loader had entered my shooting life.
We've owned a U-Loader for about a year now and while the occasion has been rare to use it due to ammo restrictions, it offers a smarter way to load. Instead of loading it all up in advance, load as you go, but with nearly the same speed as having it pre-loaded. The U-Loader also makes counting rounds easy and enables friends and guests to help without being nearly as tedious as normal loading. As we've shown in the video the U-Loader works for AK and AR mags and is also a rather handsome piece of kit.