Due to high demand amid the national debate on gun control, most types of bullets must be purchased on backorder right now.
"With some of our rifle ammo we're at about five months," Ackerman said.
Police don't want to use bullets in the real world, but in training session on firing ranges, the force of 600 deputies in Jefferson County go through about 150,000 rounds of ammunition each year.
A shortage of ammo can put a damper on things.
Because demand for ammo sometimes spikes like it is now, Ackerman does what his counterparts at most police agencies do. He stockpiles about six month's worth of practice ammo.
Nobody wants to mess with training schedules. It's a bad idea to let your gun skills get rusty.
Ackerman works with deputies on all the fine points: good grip, proper stance, trigger press, and sight alignment.
More important than all those is simply using the guns on a regular basis.
That way, when a deputy has to actually draw a weapon in a real-world crisis, it comes naturally.
"Drawing your weapon and actually using it are secondary to making the good decisions," Ackerman said.
The stockpile is holding up, but it may not last long with an academy coming up.
If supply and demand stay out of synch, the department may need to cut back on how often deputies can train or limit the number of rounds they can fire in training sessions.
(KUSA-TV © 2013 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)