Forgive me, I misunderstood.
Re-population occurs on a 15 or 20 minute timer, and not sure if continued player presence might delay the re-pop, but I suspect so or you'd be looting a cleared town and have a NPC spawn next to you and lights out. This holds true for both NPCs and loot.
Do I really need that many of X?
Yes indeed, I'm always doing this. Yesterday I made a stash pass and I'm like .222 rounds? I'll never shoot that rifle. Gone. Hollow points? I'll never load those again. Gone. AK-74? Good gun but it doesn't shoot 5.56 does it? Gone. Three sets of binoculars? One's gone. All those front and rear sights I've removed from the M4s? Gone. It's a never-ending battle of Tetris culling.
