If you're thinking about getting your Tennessee concealed handgun carry permit or have recently obtained one, we highly recommend you look online to buy ammunition (or "ammo").
Our TN concealed handgun carry permit course on this website covers this, but for people thinking about getting their permit or have obtained their permit, there are really two main ways to buy ammunition for your firearm. Those are 1) going to your local gun store or a big box retailer such as your local Bass Pro, or 2) buying online.
The instructors at Waypoint Defensive almost exclusively buy ammo online, because about 98% of the time, it's most cost-effective. Local gun stores (on forums or online you'll often see this abbreviated as your "LGS") often charge considerably more than online retailers.
How to Buy Ammo Online
A popular place to buy ammo for your handgun is www.ammoseek.com because it's essentially a search engine like Google for ammo. Depending on what ammo your handgun is chambered in (don't worry, your gun will say on it what type of ammo you're supposed to use in it - if you're not sure, look on your handgun or in the manual that came with your firearm), you can simply select it from the Ammo Seek website. A huge number of handguns in the U.S. are chambered in 9mm (listed as 9mm Luger on Ammo Seek), so we'll show you how below.
For this example, we'll be buying regular training ammo in 9mm, since it's cheaper to use regular 9mm ammo vs. self-defense ammunition. Self-defense ammo is what you should carry in your gun, but when you go to the range to practice (which we highly recommend), most people use regular (meaning not self-defense ammo, because again, that type of ammo costs more).
How to Use Ammo Seek
1) First, visit www.ammoseek.com and from the "quick seek" box in the upper left-hand side of the screen, select "9mm Luger." You'll see a page that looks like this:
2) From here, we recommend you select the "modify search" button at the top of the list on the left-hand side.
3) From that list, select "Condition" and click "Factory new ammunition." Also on that list, select "Case material" and then "Brass case only." Steel or aluminum cased ammunition can cost a little less, however it has a tendency to not work well with some firearms. We recommend brass cased ammunition when available for a multitude of reasons we will cover in another blog post. Also look for brass or copper jacketed bullets if possible. Bi-layer jacketed ammunition, especially with rifles, can cause a little extra wear and tear. Your search should like something like this:
4) From that menu, hit "Search" and it will show you your options listed by the lowest price per round, increasing in price down the list. At the time of writing, the cheapest option is 24 cents per round, with the next price being 30 cents per round.
5) Simply click on the ammo that fits within your price range, and the website will take you directly to the website selling that ammo. For our purposes, selecting the second on that list (as the first option said they're experiencing shipping delays), that page looks like this:
6) From here, you'd simply add as many boxes of ammo (in this case the page says each box of ammo, priced at $14.99, has 50 rounds in it) to your cart, and you'd proceed to checkout.
Due to COVID-19 ammo prices are higher than usual (9mm is usually closer to 17 or 18 cents a round), so that's simply something to be aware of.
Note: if you're competitively price shopping, remember that some websites charge more for shipping. So you can always have a web browser with several tabs open containing however many boxes of ammo you're looking to buy, go to the checkout page, and see how much shipping will cost to your location.
It's as simple as that!