One Bullet at a Time

If you ever get the chance to visit NRA Headquarters, I recommend stopping at the café for lunch. Pizza Friday is one of my favorite days of the week. Seeing that I am 6-feet tall and 300 pounds, this ol’ boy likes to eat. On a recent Friday I decided I might as well spend the rest of my lunch hour catching up on a blog post and a part of this job I wanted to share with you-ammunition-so, who’s buying and hoarding all the .22?

Trust me, I don’t have what you are looking for. In fact, I was out the other night scouring the shelves of my local sporting goods store in search of the Holy Grail and much to my dismay, no .22-still. But as I glance up from my computer screen I see a few boxes of faded, tattered, and face it-old-.22 and shotshell boxes perched atop a stack of 108 drawers, nearly scraping the ceiling: NRA Publications' vintage ammo collection. This is a treasure trove for us gun guys and gals. Inside, the selection seems endless with cartridges I have never even heard of and bullet designs that stretch my wildest imagination.

My first day on the job I got sucked into opening drawers and gawking over the collection; fascinated and amazed I went to my boss for a reason why this was part of my office. It didn’t take long to figure out the purpose-our NRA magazines.

As an example, on page 46 of March 2014’s American Rifleman is a feature article, “Wildcats That Went Legit,” by Layne Simpson. About two months ago I was asked to supply cartridges from the collection for photography and after a few minutes of ogling at .577 Snider MK IX and .219 Zipper I finally got their photo subjects. Each time I dive into the collection I am overwhelmed with history, ingenuity and technology that sends me on a day dream of how we got to where we are today-one bullet at a time.