OMG you Nancy's. Stop stressing about it. Strip, taking advice from Glok, is like a wet t-shirt contest being judged by a blind man. It just doesn't make sense. Ammo prices are not that high. I can still pick up 1,500 rounds of 9mm for about 120.00$. Even self defense ammo is not that high. You just have to know where to shop.
Then specifically where can you find such a deal as you mention here? Even low quality Russian Wolf brand 9mm ammo costs more than that. Or are you talking about buying reloaded ammo from some little known minor source, instead of a known brand of ammo?? Many people are not comfortable buying that sort of ammo.
And of all the various calibers, 9mm is one that has been affected less, because it is so common and mass produced around the world so much. Larger calibers like .40 S&W and .45 Auto have increased far more. They also use more copper and lead, both of which have dramatically risen in price in recent years on the commodities market.
And centerfire rifle ammo has gone up a great deal in recent years. In the past few years since the Iraq war started, I've seen stores actually run out of .223 ammo at times, or ration it. 7.62 NATO ammo is no longer as commonly available as it used to be, and definitely has increased quite a bit from where it used to be.
Copper is now so very expensive that thieves are even cutting into live power lines to steal it. Phone lines have been cut. Even where I live, the biggest city in our county had thieves strike the city lights over the extensive bike path system that the city has, riping out the copper wiring. Much of it is being blamed on Meth addicts, desperate to raise cash.
I'm surprised that you are not aware of all of this, as it has been big news the past couple of years. Here is a recent story on ABC News specifically about copper:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4691005&page=1.
