Anyone Shooting Rimfire Due to Ammo Shortage?

Love 22lr in a S&w 617. Cheap to shoot all day.

The only shooting that I have been doing the last 6 or 7 months has been in the fun skeet leagues at the range I belong to.

It has been too hot/too high humidity here to want to go out and shoot rifle or handgun, centerfire or rimfire. And I can shoot rifle and handgun off my back porch.

At least with the skeet league, I get to shoot with others.

243winxb said:

Shooting 22LR mostly, at the club 2 or 3 days a week. Starting with 20 or 30 rounds centerfire first.

At home, about 1 day a week, shooting .177 air rifle & pistol.

After the last 22LR shortage , not getting caught short again. As soon as some became available at a good price, bought 5000 CCI Standard velocity & 10,500 Federal Value Pack.

Have plenty of primers also. Bought them when there was a surplus & a rebate.

I just hope i can outlast the current shortages ?

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Do you feel that shooting air gun improves your skill overall?

I've got a Walmart pellet gun (amazing what they sell for $100 these days) and a tiny little plate rack that I never shoot. No rifle, yet. Maybe I should just practice with the pellet gun for now.

I'm not shooting any more (or less) rimfire ammunition now than I have over the last decade. I suppose I could shoot more of it, and I have plenty, I just hate how dirty it is and what a PITA it is to clean my guns after. But I am a bit ocd when it comes to cleaning my guns.

chris

Skeeter300 said:

Love 22lr in a S&w 617. Cheap to shoot all day.

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Especially if it’s a 6 shot! Takes a bit of time to reload...

pairof44sp said:

Do you feel that shooting air gun improves your skill overall?

I've got a Walmart pellet gun (amazing what they sell for $100 these days) and a tiny little plate rack that I never shoot. No rifle, yet. Maybe I should just practice with the pellet gun for now.

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I’ve recently obtained a Coolfire trainer that uses CO2 and a Mantis X that gives feedback on the trigger press. I think any way you practice helps, providing it’s the right practice.
I am shooting my 41 at SCSA, along with 9mm. Hopefully I too had bought enough that will last through this shortage.

Earlier this year I was buying it for $17/525, I will not pay $50 or more which is what I'm seeing now.

I have way more centerfire rounds on hand than rimfire so I'll just shoot those till the .22 prices get more reasonable.

Nope. My 9mm and 45 ACP loads are less expensive than decent 22 LR.

BTW, what's 327 S&W??

pairof44sp said:

Do you feel that shooting air gun improves your skill overall?

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Better then not shooting at all. Works the same muscle group. May help focusing on the front sight and Trigger control?

But low cost air gun triggers are a real challenge. Heavy triggers with lots of travel or slack to take up. The pistol trigger is better then the rifle, of my 2.

Nothing like the Feinwerkbau 65 Pistol i had back in the 70s.

Learning to shoot a bad trigger well will make you an ever better shooter when you get to a gun with a good trigger. Being able to keep the sights on target when fighting a tough trigger is a skill that comes in handing in other difficult situation not related to the trigger pull.

I'm shooting more .22 LR just to get ready for squirrel season. Took the kids out a couple of weeks ago just to burn some powder. I pick some up whenever I see it on sale.
1/2 a brick is going for $25 to $30.

243winxb said:

Better then not shooting at all. Works the same muscle group. May help focusing on the front sight and Trigger control?

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I only have a small amount of experience with them and I would have to agree. It's much better than nothing. It's easy to practice / focus trigger follow through with out all the recoil of a normal gun.

FWIW my .22 shooting has remained about the same. At this point in time it's just as hard to replace primers as it is .22 ammo.

.38 Special said:

It's just the opposite for me. I'm holding onto rimfire stuff because I can't make any more of it if I run out!

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This.

I usually shoot a mix of 357 & 22 rf, can't find 22 on the shelf locally but I have sufficient supplies for a couple years of regular shooting 357. I'm hanging on to my 10mm & 45 acp ammo because I don't load either but I'm thinking about starting to. 10mm has been available but not the good stuff, still have a couple thousand factory 10mm rounds , so I'm not hurting but I replace it as I use it, new boxes go in back older boxes get moved forward. I'm in the best situation with 454 casull , I've got enough for a decade of shooting with that cartridge because it'll beat you up some and I'm not shooting 500 in a day, usually 100 and I'm done.

Lucky for me, I still have several thousand CCI LR primers from the late 90's, or was it the 80's? Cost was $1.79 per 100 pack. They still work perfectly. Going to count .22's tonight just 'cause I'm curious. I have 2 granddaughters and a grandson who love to come and shoot with granddaddy.

I have always loved rimfire shooting but I have a lot more centerfire ammunition and components. With my cast bullets I can shoot 9mm, 38/357 or 45 ACP for <$40/1000.

Even the last time I bought primers for $19/1000, .22 LR wasn’t at the $8/550 price a lot of my stock cost.

I've got over 8,000 rounds of .22LR. If I shot 50 rounds a week, which I don't, I would have enough for over 4 years. If I'm lucky I get to the range monthly and I take different calibers I handload for with me. I will sometime take either .22LR or .22mag.

I always shoot a lot of 22. I think I enjoy it more than centerfire. My shooting hasn't changed much. I have been buying 22s when I find them. Not ever being low is more important than cost. Most I've paid was 6 a box for cheap stuff and 10 a box for good stuff.

I'm working on building a lifetime supply for me and the son though.

I think it was before my time, or at least before I was purchasing my own ammo, but I just shot up a 50rd box of federal 22lr that still had a $0.99 sticker on it from Tractor Supply. Every one of them fired just fine. I took out my Heritage Rough Rider today, went after the front sight with a brass hammer as it had been shooting to the left. Had a ball with it once I knocked the sight into alignment. Busting bits of clay pigeon on the berm at 30yds. Went through about 150 22lr. Figure 100 of those cost me about $7.50, 50 of them cost me $.99 so for less than $10 had a pretty good outing. Though, my 9mm is costing about the same for my reloads now...its the replacement cost that will get you

I have a bunch of .22 around here but for now I can load cast 32 H&R, 38 SPL, and 9MM for less than replacment .22 will cost. When that changes I will start to buy and shoot .22 once again.

Last year when the shortage first started I bought 15K rds of .22lr and 3 Taurus TX-22s to shoot it. I also doubled my on-hand practice 9mm ammo. I now shoot 80% rimfire and 20% 9mm.

I used to shoot a box of 22LR to take the edge off before I settled in to another 50-100 center fire. Back then it saved money!
But today with cost and lack of components, the 22 is shot 50-100, before I settle into 50 centerfire.
So yes I shoot more 22 today than in the past.
Either way I’m still shooting fairly regularly!
Note: 90% of my shooting is with handguns and all reloads are with boolits.

I shoot rimfire rounds from rifles, revolvers and/or pistols with every range session... a) Because it’s a great warm up and cool down for me, and b) because I have a lot of it and my wallet won’t be dented like it would if I shot the same amount of centerfire rounds .

Stay safe.

Rimfire rifle was my first competition earlier this year. I also started practicing with my SW22 for bullseye pistol too. Not an easy game but it’s entertaining. Between the 2 I’ve been doing a fair amount of rimfire shooting.

Got away from rimfire pistols selling them off and only keeping a 25m sport pistol and a 50m free pistol. Was cleaning out the basement and found 2 50cal ammo cans full of bulk packs, bricks of hv, bricks of sv & mini-mags.

Went out and bought a ruger MK IV 22/45 to burn them up. It gets 300/400 rounds every range session along with a couple different centerfire pistols and revolvers.

Still sitting on 3 to 4 cases of target ammo for the rifles.

I’m sitting on center fire ammo. I’ve definitely shot more rimfire this year than any other past years.

Bought some reloading components from a local guy and he basically gave me some .22 shorts. Was the first time firing shorts, fun little round. Firing out of my Winchester model 67.