[KW Gary M]

This might be a bit knit picky or useless information but is just something I noticed with Buffalo Bore Ammo. I was in Cabela's when up in Wisconsin. I was looking at Buffalo Bore as protection ammo for my P3AT. I saw a box on the shelf and was surprised at the physical size of the box whereas I've only seen Buffalo Bore sold in boxes of 20. The box was so big I was expecting to see it was a box of 100 rounds or more. I opened it and it was 20 rounds, a big box and a huge piece of Styrofoam holding only 20 small .380 rounds in this great big box. Then I saw their 9mm, then .357 Magnum and several other calibers up to .500 S&W Magnum. All calibers have exactly the same size box and Styrofoam holding the rounds in place. The smaller the round the more Styrofoam packaging. Two things came to mind. With the world becoming more environmentally conscious why do they use so much Styrofoam and extra card board making the boxes so big? Second, Buffalo Bore is pretty expensive ammo. Are we paying more to help pay for all that extra Styrofoam and card board? Maybe I have too much time on my hands to think of and post things like this. Maybe I'm just knit picking but it did make me think when I saw it.

[toolman]

My guess is that it's cheaper to use the same size box and different inserts that to pay for different sized inserts and boxes for every caliber.

[res45]

In the package printing process it cheaper to use all the same templates throughout the printing process and finishing when producing a one size fits all box and just changing the actual printing on the package and the insert.

[SwedeSteve]

That about sums it up !!

[KW Gary M]

Awful ammount of wasted Styrofoam though. A couple years of shooting Bufalo Bore and I could build a surf board or boat.

[res45]

Quote:      

Awful amount of wasted Styrofoam though.

Styrofoam is cheap and the setup on a moldblock as compared to the cost of setting up an individual template,press,die cutting and gluer run for each different size box.

[Elvis Is Dead]

I can understand, and agree with, all the financial points made above but how about the environmental point of view. Styrofoam isn't exactly an environmentally friendly product or recycleable as far as I know. Extra cardboard, extra ink, extra building space required to warehouse these oversized boxes. More electricity used due to bigger warehouses. Just one more thing for the liberal, anti gun, Obama loving people to use as a negative fact about the gun industry. Just about every other brand of ammo has no problem making different size boxes for different calibers.

AS KW pointed out, it might be useless information but it did make me think. I had never noticed it until reading this thread.

[Archetype_wyo]

I wonder if thats half the reason Buffalo Bore costs so darned much!!

[res45]

Custom hand loaded ammo always cost more,unless you do it yourself.

[TXplt]

The large packaging is inconvenient as hell (I usually end up getting a plastic reloader's tray and moving the rounds over for storage) but isn't any worse than anything else.

Styrofoam is mostly air. If you're looking at mass the mass is potentially less than other plastics in trays--if you weigh the styrofoam block and then weigh a plastic tray on a Cor-bon or PDX ammo tray I'll bet the quantity of non-air material is not significantly different.

Despite what the environmentalists might assert, ALL plastic breaks down over time (as well as most everything else except maybe glass). UV hastens the breakdown but even if buried and exposed to elements of any kind--heat, pressure, water, air, chemicals, etc plastic will usually break down.

I doubt the dinosaurs knew over millions of years they'd turn into something as valuable as oil either. We sometimes second guess the powerful forces of nature (and our total inability to control her) a bit much. This doesn't mean we should be wasteful or pollute unnecessarily--only that man has a far lesser impact on the world than he thinks he does.

An interesting bit of trivia is the composite sectional density of a passenger occupied airplane is actually close to what it would be if the entire volume were filled with styrofoam (but someone did this study 10 or so years ago so's it might be a bit different as people have gotten heavier).

But I don't like the packages either--they waste space IMHO.

Cheers

[twtalbot]

Quote:       Originally Posted by toolman

My guess is that it's cheaper to use the same size box and different inserts that to pay for different sized inserts and boxes for every caliber.

Yep, it just reduces their inventory of packing materials.

[twtalbot]

Quote:       Originally Posted by res45

Styrofoam is cheap and the setup on a moldblock as compared to the cost of setting up an individual template,press,die cutting and gluer run for each different size box.

If you're going to have waste on one of your materials, let it be Styrofoam. It's mostly air. Get a propane torch and spray some propane on a block of Styrofoam. Watch how much it shrinks. When all those cells full of air contract, you'll see that there's very little solid matter there.