I was able to score some of the federal auto match .22LR that the local Ace had on sale today, and got to see a hilarious meltdown.
We have this scummy store in town, known as Rough and Rustic, who is a shady gunshop. The owner has had several ND's in the store (caused by him, not customers), and likes to send his buddies to buy up 22 ammo when it is in stock, to sell at exorbitant prices. Most of us know to avoid the guy, and refer to his shop as "Ruff and rusty."
Anyways, when I was in Ace getting in on their sale today (not a super cheap sale, but $21.99 a brick for 325rd packs of federal auto match) one of their shadow buyers came in. Ace knows they do this, so for this sale they wrote on every single brick they had (500,000+ rounds) "Ace Hardware $21.99" in red sharpie. The shadow buyer guy was absolutely livid that they would do this, but would not explain why he was so mad if he was going to shoot the .22 and throw away the box. The owner and the sporting goods manager just laughed in his face which seemed to send his blood pressure even higher. The owner of ruff and rusty is not permitted to be in the store (for trying to start a fight with the sporting goods employees a while back over pricing), so he has to send his friends.
About an hour later, I see a post in the sporting goods facebook group from the owner of ruff and rusty, complaining how Ace is selling ammo and guns under cost to purposefully drive him out of business. This is the same guy advertising "Rare" ruger precision rifles for $2199, with a cheap chinese scope on it and nothing else.
I think that the sharpie trick is a good idea to keep the guys trying to buy this stuff up for resale, or at least put a dent in it. It is not a huge deal where I live, as at least Ace gets .22 in stock fairly regularly, but it was a good idea. Watching that guy throw a temper tantrum, and the second facebook rant by the owner of the crappy shop was entertaining at least.
And I did get 10 bricks of auto match today, $219.90