4411 Mercury St, Suite 103 · Kearny Mesa, San Diego
The catalog
Every caliber we stock, new and remanufactured, over the counter in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Browse the catalog by caliber and by what you are actually shooting, then call and we will quote you today's price.
Catalog, not a checkout
This page is a list of what we carry, not a store you can check out of. Here is the honest version of how you get from this screen to ammunition in your hands.
Every category below lists the calibers we stock and what each one is normally bought for — range practice, self-defense, training or hunting. If the caliber is on the page, it is something we carry.
Call 858-987-0509 and tell us the caliber, the load and roughly how much you want. We will tell you what is on the shelf right now and what it costs today. If we do not have it, we will say so instead of taking your drive time.
Every ammunition sale in California happens face to face at a licensed vendor, so the purchase itself is at the counter in Kearny Mesa. Bring your California ID — the eligibility check is part of every sale.
Ammunition pricing moves. Component costs shift, distributor allocations change, and a case price can be different two weeks later. A number printed next to a caliber on this page would be stale before most people read it, and a stale number is worse than no number — it either loses us your trust at the counter or costs you a wasted trip.
So we quote the catalog on the phone. It takes a minute, you get a figure that is true today, and nobody has to argue with a web page. Deals are the deliberate exception: a deal is a fixed price on a fixed quantity for one week, which is exactly the kind of number we can stand behind, so this week's deal prices are published in full.
We are building up our inventory over the next few months, so the catalog is wider than any single day's stock. Nothing gets hidden for being out — a caliber we are short on stays listed and is marked Back in Stock Soon. Call before you drive out and you will know exactly what is waiting for you.
We sell ammunition and shooting accessories. We do not sell firearms, and there is no shooting range at this location. There is no online checkout, no cart and no shipping — California requires every ammunition transfer to happen in person at a licensed vendor, and that is what we are.
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Pistol Ammo
The calibers San Diego shooters actually run. 9mm gets the most shelf space because it is what most people bring to the range, and we carry both new and remanufactured so you can pick by budget instead of being talked into one.
Calibers we carry
Normally bought for
9mm, .45 ACP and .38 Special are the ones we work hardest to keep on the shelf. The heavier magnum loads move in and out.
Rifle Ammo
.223 and 5.56 stay in stock because that is what moves. Beyond the staples we carry .308, 7.62x39 and .300 Blackout, plus hunting loads when California season comes around — ask us about lead-free requirements before you drive out.
Calibers we carry
Normally bought for
.223 and 5.56 are staples here. Hunting loads are seasonal, so call ahead if you need a specific bullet weight.
Rimfire Ammo
.22 LR is the cheapest way to put rounds downrange and the best way to teach somebody new. We keep standard and high velocity on hand, match ammunition for anyone shooting for a score, and .17 HMR for small game.
Calibers we carry
Normally bought for
.22 LR is a staple. .17 HMR comes and goes with what our distributors can get us.
Shotgun Ammo
12 gauge split clearly into bird, buck and slug so you are not guessing at the shelf — target loads for clays, buckshot and slugs for defense and hunting. We also stock 10, 16, 20 and 28 gauge, so the odd-gauge guns are covered.
Calibers we carry
Normally bought for
12 gauge bird, buck and slug are the core of what we keep, and we carry 10, 16, 20 and 28 gauge as well.
By the box or by the case
Buying by the case is the cheapest way to shoot regularly, and the most expensive way to find out you don't like a load. Here is how we tell people to decide.
Bulk pricing is real and it is worth having. On the calibers we move most — 9mm Luger, .223 Remington and .22 LR — the per-round cost of a 500 or 1,000 round case is meaningfully below the same ammunition bought a box at a time, and for anyone shooting a few hundred rounds a month that difference adds up over a year.
The case is the right call when three things are true: you have already shot the load and know your gun likes it, you shoot the caliber often enough to get through it in a reasonable time, and you have somewhere dry to keep it. Ammunition stored cool and dry lasts for years, so the shelf life is rarely the constraint — the space usually is.
Buying a case of something you have never fired is how people end up with 900 rounds their pistol does not feed reliably. Buy a box, shoot it, then come back for the case — we would rather sell you one box today and a case next month than have you stuck with the wrong ammunition.
Bulk also makes less sense for defensive loads. You are not shooting hundreds of rounds of hollow point, and the premium defensive ammunition worth carrying is priced per box for a reason. A case of range ammunition and one or two boxes of defensive is the split most of our regulars land on.
Case quantities move with what our distributors can get, so call 858-987-0509 and we will tell you what is on the shelf in Kearny Mesa today and what it costs. When a case is the week's deal, the price is published on the deals page.
Straight talk
Half the questions we get at the counter are some version of this one, and most places will not give you a straight answer because one of the two makes them more money. Here is how we explain it.
New ammunition is loaded on factory equipment using brass that has never been fired. Every component — case, primer, powder charge, projectile — starts life in that cartridge. You are paying for consistency and for a case with a known history, which is why new is the default for anything where a single round has to work.
Remanufactured is not used ammunition, and it is not somebody's garage handloads. Once-fired brass is collected, sorted by headstamp, cleaned, inspected, resized and trimmed back to spec, then loaded with a new primer, a new powder charge and a new projectile. A reputable remanufacturer loads to the same published specification as a factory line and pulls samples to check them.
The saving comes from the brass, which is the most expensive part of a cartridge. That is the whole trick — nothing else about it is cheaper.
A few ranges have their own rules about what they will let you shoot on their line. Worth a phone call before you buy a case of anything.
Our policy either way
All ammunition sales are final, and every round we sell — new or remanufactured — carries a 90-day warranty against defective ammunition. If a round does not do what it is supposed to do, bring it back and talk to us. We would rather sort it out than have you wondering about the next box.
Pick by what you are doing
Caliber tells you what fits your gun. The load tells you what the round will do when it gets there. If you only remember one thing from this page, make it this: practice ammunition and defensive ammunition are not the same product.
Full metal jacket, usually. FMJ.
The bullet is a lead core in a copper jacket, it feeds reliably, and it is the cheapest way to put rounds downrange. It is designed to punch a hole and keep going, which is exactly what you want on paper and exactly what you do not want inside a house. This is where remanufactured earns its keep — buy the volume, shoot more.
Jacketed hollow point. JHP.
The nose is designed to open up on impact so the round transfers its energy into the target instead of carrying straight through a wall behind it. It costs more per round because the bullet is a more complicated object. Buy it new, buy the load you intend to keep loaded, and run at least a box of it through your gun so you know it feeds. Then practice with FMJ.
Soft point, bonded or controlled expansion.
Hunting bullets are built for a specific animal at a specific distance — enough expansion to be effective, enough structure to hold together. Bullet weight and construction matter more than the headstamp. California also requires certified nonlead ammunition to take any wildlife with a firearm, statewide, and the rules vary by species and area.
What counts as certified nonlead, and where the rule applies
Not sure which one you want? That is a normal question and nobody here will make you feel stupid for asking it. Tell us the gun and what you are doing with it, and we will point you at two or three options and explain the difference between them. If you are new to this, the questions we get most often at the counter are a decent place to start.
Secondary, but we have it
Ammunition is the business. These are the things people realize they need on the way out the door, so we keep them behind the counter rather than send you across town for them.
Electronic muffs, passive muffs, plugs and shooting glasses.
Splatter targets, paper silhouettes and stands.
Caliber-specific cleaning kits, solvents, rods and patches.
Ammo cans, range bags, cases and magazines.
Roll your own? We keep reloading components too — brass, projectiles, primers and powder, when we can get them.
Accessories follow a different returns rule to ammunition: opened products cannot be returned, but anything unopened can come back to us until the end of the calendar month you bought it in. Ammunition sales are final, with the 90-day defective-ammo warranty above.
On the shelf
We stock what people around here actually shoot, not whatever carries the best margin. Availability rotates with what our distributors can get, so treat this as the list we buy from rather than a guarantee that every name is on the shelf today.
If you shoot something we do not have listed, tell us. We can usually get a line on it through a distributor, and knowing what people are asking for is how we decide what to stock next as we build the inventory up.
One trip, not two
Buying ammunition in California takes a few minutes longer than buying anything else, and almost every problem we see at the counter is something that could have been sorted out at home. The short version:
General information, not legal advice — and California's ammunition rules are the subject of ongoing litigation, so they can change. Last reviewed . The full explanation, including what to do if a check comes back rejected, is on our California ammunition law page, and the official source is the California DOJ Ammunition Purchase Authorization Program. If you have an unusual situation or believe a rejection is a records error, talk to a California firearms attorney rather than to us.
Where to find us
LAX Ammo San Diego4411 Mercury St, Suite 103Call 858-987-0509 or text 310-499-3499 with a caliber and we will tell you what is on the shelf. For opening hours, parking and turn-by-turn directions, see our hours and directions. If you want to know who you are buying from, read about the shop.
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Stock & deal questions
We're building the inventory up over the next few months, so what's in stock genuinely changes week to week. Call or text and we'll go look — it takes a minute and it saves you the drive.
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Restock & deal alerts
The catalog doesn't carry prices because they move weekly. The Sunday email does — so you'll see the week your caliber comes up before you drive out.
