SendRounds
Methodology

How SendRounds Works

Last updated: April 2026

Every ammo retailer puts the cheapest number on the product page. That number is incomplete. By the time shipping and tax hit, you're paying more. SendRounds shows you the real number before you click Buy.

The Formula
true cost per round = (listed price + estimated shipping + tax) ÷ round count

The math is simple. The work is in collecting accurate inputs for every product, every day.

How we collect prices

We pull prices from retailer catalogs via their APIs: Shopify Storefront, WooCommerce, and direct product feeds. Structured data, not scraped HTML. That means we get the same price the retailer's checkout uses, not a number that's lagging hours behind a flash sale.

The pipeline runs daily. Products that go out of stock drop off within 24 hours. Products that come back in stock reappear.

How we extract round count

Retailers title things like "Blazer Brass 9mm 115gr FMJ 1000 Rounds" or "500 Round Case – .308 Win 147gr FMJ." We use Claude to parse those titles and pull out round count, caliber, grain weight, bullet type, and casing.

Round count is the denominator. A $220 case of 1000 rounds is $0.22/rd. A $22 box of 50 is $0.44/rd. Comparing prices without it is useless.

Products with no reliable round count get excluded. Components (brass, primers) get excluded. We only index loaded ammo.

How we estimate shipping

Each active retailer has a published or verified shipping policy encoded directly into the calculation. Whether shipping adds $0 or ~$15 depends on your order total.

Retailer Flat Rate Free Over
SGAmmo~$14.99$200
Freedom Munitions~$14.99$175
Steinel Ammunition$10.99$175
Velocity Ammunition~$14.99$200
Fenix Ammunition~$12.99~$200
True Shot Gun Club~$14.99No threshold

True Shot is the outlier. No free shipping threshold means every order carries freight. A $0.30/rd listing from True Shot can end up costing more than a $0.32/rd listing from Freedom Munitions. That math doesn't show up anywhere on either product page.

On "hazmat fees"

A lot of people think ammo shipping triggers a $27.50 hazmat surcharge. It doesn't. Not for loaded rounds.

Loaded cartridges fall under DOT "Limited Quantity / Cartridges, Small Arms (1.4S)." UPS and FedEx don't apply a dangerous goods surcharge to that classification. The $27.50 hazmat fee is for primers and smokeless powder. Our estimates reflect this: hazmat = $0 for all loaded ammo.

On tax

We don't add state tax to the estimate. Rates vary too much and some states exempt ammo entirely. You know your state. We don't.

The ammo index

The SendRounds Ammo Index is a 0–100 buyer's market score. 100 = pre-panic pricing (2018–2019 baseline). 0 = peak COVID shortage (2021). Higher = better time to buy. Built from 109 months of real transaction prices from actual in-stock listings, not manufacturer list prices.

Six caliber groups weighted by purchase volume:

9mm Luger
40%
5.56 NATO
20%
.22 LR
12%
.308 Win
8%
12 Gauge
7%
Other
13%

The index updates monthly as new price data is collected.

What we don't do

We don't sell ammo. We're a price aggregator. All transactions happen on the retailer's site under their terms.
We don't guarantee prices. Prices change. A price accurate at 6am may be different by noon. Always verify at checkout before purchasing.
We don't show out-of-stock products. If it's on SendRounds, it was in stock the last time we checked. If the retailer runs out before you click Buy, that's a data lag, not a false listing.
We don't rank by commission. Results are sorted by true cost per round, ascending. No placement fees, no featured slots, no paid rankings.

Retailer coverage

We currently index 6 active retailers. Lucky Gunner, Ammunition Depot, Brownells, and PSA are on the roadmap. Most run on platforms that require a feed relationship rather than a public API.

If you're a retailer and want to be listed, apply here. It's free.

Questions or corrections

If you spot a price that looks wrong, a shipping policy that's changed, or a product that shouldn't be in the index, email [email protected]. We take data quality seriously.