TargetTalk

I chatted with an employee at my local gunshop/range after my Bullseye

practice session yesterday. The topic of discussion centered around the

lack of .22 ammo on the store's shelf. It looked like quite a bit of .38

Special, 9MM, .40S&W and .45ACP was available, however. I absolutely

HATE to start rumors and try to steer clear of those who like to freely

spread B.S. around. He told me that .22 won't be available for a long

time, if at all!! He stated that due to it's relatively high production costs,

coupled with the low price that consumers are willing to pay for it, that the

ammo companies are focusing their efforts strictly on their centerfire

ammunition products. He said that the CF cartridges were easier and

cheaper to make than .22's, and that the profit margins are higher with

that particular product line.



I find all of this rather hard to believe. I was/am not a Business Major,

but I know that no company makes and sells a product at cost! There

must always be some profit to be gained when anything is manufactured

and sold! Is it possible however that the ammo makers are not making

ENOUGH of a profit on .22's that they feel economically justified in scaling

back production of this round?




When I tried to dispute the points he raised, I was asked: "Then why

don't we have rimfire ammo on the shelf today?". Visiting several gun

shops and sporting goods stores in my area, I see that the CF ammo

is quite available, while the .22's just aren't around! Is this guy right?

Or is this all simply a case of "supply and demand"? Any comments?

That is so much bull

I will give you the simple answer.

Since CF ammo is now so expensive, many people have switched to shooting cheaper rimfire arms, both rifle and pistol.
Most people tend to shoot more shots when shooting 22's.

At my local range, just looking at the floor tells the story.
Very little CF brass, lots of 22 brass.

Our local range and sore is getting in a steady supply of 22's.
They have to keep the limit to 100 rounds a session.

Just too much hording.

Trooperjake is right on when you add up all the hysteria which caused the initial stock out of all centerfire ammo and now the high CF ammo pricing has caused hording of 22 ammo too. People who maybe bought 100 rounds of 22 ammo a year have bought 5 to 10 times that much and shooters that don't reload started shooting 22 because of the cost. But even 22 pricing is out of control 2 to 4 times higher than before the panic. When you multiply the per person average purchase increase by the estimated 100 million gun owners demand is now way beyond industry's production capacity.

EXAMPLE: Per a CCI claim they can produce 4,000,000 rounds per day. Plenty right. Wrong!!! Thats only 800 100 round packs per day per STATE, no where near enough to meet current demand even if you add in all the other mfg.

You can add reloading components to the list of hard to find items. Bullets are now becoming available again but some powder and primers are still nowhere to be found.

that guy hasnt got a clue, you want 22 call champions choice, they have it in stock or a backorder takes about two weeks, all the rimfire makers are running at full capacity, but as the most fired bullet in the world its in high demand, mostly filling backorders from months ago, it will be plentiful but id say 6 more months.

well here at our reloading supply dealer got a good supply of primers and powder
have 2 venders about 40 miles away who make cast bullets for us at times they a bit hard to get but for the most part doing ok

like others 22 hard to find brick of cci was 60 bucks

There is some here but I haven't tried calling up any of these URL's. Either way, it is a good site to find what you want when things aren't so wild.

http://ammoseek.com/?gun=rimfire&cal=91

Supply and demand. I am sure if you demand desperately, you can find .22lr. I am sure lots of people will be more than happy to sell you bricks of Eley or Lapua twice the retail price.

Gunrunner,

Thank you for the suggesstion of contacting Champions Choice. I called

them on Friday afternoon, September 20th. They had no CCI Standard

Velocity, no Federal 711B and no Wolf ammunition in stock. They did

have some ultra-premium imported .22's from Europe: Lapua and RWS.

AS far as my favorite (CCI) goes, they may recieve some after the start

of the new year. They do place orders directly with CCI; their previous

one was in August of 2012. About 700 cases were recieved 10

months later in June of 2013 and, as you can imagine, sold out in no time

at all! I do not know if their policy has changed now in these bad times,

but a salesman told me that they do not take back orders as there is no

certain date of product delivery to provide their customers. Oh, for the

good old days!

Well I think you have misunderstood what you have heard. You are correct that they will not take back orders FOR ITEMS WITHOUT AN ESTIMATED DELIVERY DATE. CCI has indicated they do not have a shipping date estimate for their product. Get in line for Wolf or Ely's lower end products, I was three weeks out on my last order with them. Ely and Wolf provide ECD's top Champion's Choice and they accept my backorders..... Unless they have changed policy in the last week.

Eley Target 22 LR LRN 40 Grain Standard Vel 50 Rnd Box

4.99 a box at ammo fast.
http://ammofast.com/

oldcaster wrote:Eley Target 22 LR LRN 40 Grain Standard Vel 50 Rnd Box

4.99 a box at ammo fast.
http://ammofast.com/

Limit of 2 in fine print

They also have CCI std vel for $75 a brick. 2x normal price. I see why they have inventory. A few months ago the high priced stuff flew off the shelf. Now it sits a while. The Gander Mountain by me had CCI Std vel 50 round packs for 5.99 and it sat for a week. They lowered the price to 4.99 (still to high for me) and it was gone in 2 days.

I did notice that the rest of the stuff was really high especially considering what it was. I think this might be the first of the buckling of the high prices though. The CMP did have aguila for 285 a case with 6 month wait. I have some coming in October but don't know if the same wait is still in effect or if they even still do it.

conradin wrote:I am sure if you demand desperately, you can find .22lr.

Sure. However, hoarders reduce the supply then flippers make an art of sucking up all the .22LR in the pipelines and selling it for a profit.

There are 90 different lots of .22LR for sale on gunbroker right now. Asking prices for standard-grade stuff range from ~$0.13 to about ~$0.21 per round. If you search the concluded sales, actual selling prices for, just to pick a common example, CCI Mini Mags have been running ~$0.19 per round.

There's plenty of .22LR out there for anyone willing to pay those prices. Personally, I'm shooting my old stock and waiting for availability and prices to return to normal...even if that turns out to be a "new normal" that I don't particularly like. My plan is to hold off buying until there's plenty on the shelves at every regular outlet; that's when I'll know that prices have dropped to wherever they're going to stay until the next insanity. Then I'll stock up again. I'll have to; I'm already down to my last ~12K rounds of .22LR and if this keeps up for another 6 months I'll feel forced to start buying no matter what the prices.

I've got to state that Champion's Choice is in business to make money. They kept telling everyone that they didn't know if CCI was going to be produced etc. BS. At Camp Perry in July people were walking around with Cases of CCI SV at ~$270 @. Get on line and order or backorder a case and it will be in your house in 3-4 weeks if not days. The passage of the Safe Act in NYS by the Psychotic Governor and equally bamboozled legislatures, the mass murder in Newtown CT by a totally deranged 17 year old, and the hysteria that followed that was the cause of the sudden ammo depletion. I know of shooters who have stocked and are now hoarding ammo by the case and filling up their basements. Add to the confusion and the re-election of Obamanation and the further decay and erosion of my Country by the bastard had increased the hysteria in the gunning community. And you certainly deserve to be criminalized because of your afflictive love of the gun.
Join the crowd----- "Stand Up and Fight don't Whine" "Doc"

Right on Bob

I've had no huge problems finding 22, just little ones. When I decided I wanted more, I started looking at all the standard websites pretty much every day. I wanted Wolf Match Target. After looking around for a few weeks, I found it and bought 5 bricks. The place I got it from (E. Arthur Brown in Minnesota) wouldn't sell me any more. Still, half a case was good. I still had half a case of Fiocchi 22FLRN left, so I was in no hurry. When I first started looking, Champion' Choice got it in stock and would sell by the case. Unfortunately, I "left one in the gun" and didn't buy right when I saw it. They were out by the next day.

If you have patience and buy well before you're out, you'll be fine. If you see it in stock, buy right away.

My supply and demand post aside, I have NEVER encounter .22lr shortage myself. I usually purchase Eley Match or Tenex by brick when I run low, and Champion Choice always have them. I also purchase Eley Team for the IZH35. I still have a couple boxes of them as they now become "collectors' items". On top of that I have a couple of CCI boxes for my group as community ammo. We also have the infamous Winchester 555 as community ammo.

Some gun ranges also have .22lr for sale, but limited to one box per person per day. This enures that hoarding will not occur.

Seeing lots of Federal Auto Match 22 in Minneapolis and Des Moines, limitations as low as 1 to 10 per visit. Federal, here in Anoka, MN is 24 hours a day. I don't work there, but hear the output volume is high. The latest rumor I heard was that organized buyer's groups are paying cash in advance for priority order fullfillment, bypassing the traditional jobber/distributor/wholesaler arrangement. But this is chit chat heard over the gun counter.

Get it while you can. Things could be even worse next year.

http://gunssavelives.net/news/last-u-s- ... roduction/#

PaulB wrote:Get it while you can. Things could be even worse next year.

http://gunssavelives.net/news/last-u-s- ... roduction/#

Impact yes but minor as most lead used for bullet production comes from overseas now.