Many years ago, I downloaded a spreadsheet titled listoflists from JWR's website, SurvivalBlog.com. It's not a bad place to start if you're starting to think along these lines. I always find it interesting to peek into the mind of someone that is hyper-focused on the security aspects of a post-SHTF society. Surprisingly, JWR's lists are broken down into a granular and easy to follow tab naming structure. There are many practical ideas contained in this document; some of which may or may not apply to you or me depending on location (urban vs. suburban vs. rural) and mindset when approaching this topic. There are some tabs that are a little over the top for me, but these are his lists so who am I to judge. He is former Army and I believe his first wife was a nurse, so that explains some of his information and thought processes.

Several of his topics stick out to me given my own proclivities and the current season, which are ammo and reloading. I've discussed reloading previously, but my brother dropped off his 12-gauge press so I'm starting to figure that out. It's also late fall, early winter and my first duck hunting trip is right around the corner. So, that leaves the topic of this post, popular ammo calibers.

Now, JWR mentions ammunition in passing on his Barter and Charity List tab, but doesn't specify calibers. He only says, 'Ammo of various calibers'. So, that got me to thinking, which calibers?

Cue the research... Here's what I found. The following images were found on the Knowledge Glue website. According to this site, the top five calibers are: 9mm, 223/5.56, 45 ACP, 12 gauge, and .22 LR. Here's their full top 20 list of calibers in the United States as of 2015:

Nothing really surprising there. Their article also contained a full list of 91 tracked calibers (by sales). However, the data set that was of the most interest to me was where they broke down each state's top five calibers. This is important information if you are planning on adding ammunition to your stores of barter and charity items as JWR suggests.

Because I'm a curious fellow, I clicked a link at the end of their article to find out the top manufacturers by state. This is also important information particularly if you plan on having spare parts available for barter and trade. Here's what Knowledge Glue had for this particular topic: 

When they compiled their data, they did make note that what they were seeing for North and South Dakota was inconclusive so those states were not included. Here are the links so you can read the Knowledge Glue articles in their entirety. Also, take this information with a grain of salt as these articles were written in 2015. Granted, I don't think there's been some kind of massive shift in the data during the ensuring two years.

What Are the Most Popular Calibers in the US?

What Are the Top Firearm Calibers and Manufacturers by State?