At One Time .22 Rimfire Rounds.....

[WeekendReloader]

Over the years I have heard various camp fire wisdom about rimfire longevity. Some folks insisting they will expire on the shelf after XX number of years because they don't seal out moisture while other folks insist the rim prime is more durable and smokeless ignores moisture, for the most part. I've used rimfires that have lived in Florida for 50 years or more and they still go bang about as reliably as new shelf stock... I've also had whole boxes go poof or refuse to fire at all. Anybody care to share their own camp fire wisdom on rimfire longevity and proper care? Seems to me the biggest factor for poof vs. bang is not moisture but rough handling and compression. I've noticed (purely observational anecdotal evidence inserted here folks - grab yer salt licks!) it seems like the boxes that look like they've been crushed, dimpled tops from bullet noses, etc. go poof most often.

Seems to me that basic storage conditions are all that's needed. Keep them dry and in a temperature range that is comfortable to a human (room temperature -ish).
When I got back into shooting with my kids, I had bricks of 22LR from high school and from my dad that were over 25 yrs old. We had a fun time sending it all down range. Recently, my boss moved to a new house and found a box of Thunderbolts and a sleeve of Mini-Mags in his basement from the 90's. Sent them all down range.
The only issue I've seen on old 22LR is some manufacturers used a waxy lube that would dry out and turn to powder over time. I suppose you could wipe them off and re-lube those. I haven't had that problem with Remington, Winchester, Federal or CCI.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

I don't know if the rest of you think this but to me the old rimfire 22 rounds that were old in the 1970 had the best smell when they were fired.
Like Hoppes used to have. Hoppes today like modern 22s don't smell so good to me.
I remember Dad used to buy cheap 22s on sale for $.49 a box at the local hardware store in the 60's when I was a youngster.
Don't remember what brand they were but I remember he had some duds.

 

[Skgreen]

An older friend at work used to buy 22 by the shell at the local hardware store

 

[wlkjr]

The service station that we bought gas from sold ammo on the side. 22 shorts were .50, longs .55, and LR .65 a box. I could never afford more than one box at a time to shoot squirrels in my granddaddy's Peerless single shot rifle. That was in the early 60's in middle GA. I sold the squirrels for 10 cents each to an old man kin to the service station owner.
Later on I bought a brand called Imperial. I think they were made in Canada but not sure. Eventually I got a Marlin 99 and was able to buy a whole brick. I still have a whole brick of Winchester Wildcats from back in the day that I paid $5.00 for. Now that I'm older, I have a stash of more than 20,000 that I have accumulated over the years when it was cheap and available. Sure would loved to have a whole brick to plink with when I was 13 or 14.

 

[bullseye308]

I still have some boxes from K-mart priced at .75 for 50 rounds. Still have some 22 shorts marked .65. We used to buy bricks by the case back then and make a weekend out of it. Good times, and some were very accurate. We used a marlin mod 60 to hunt with and for practice light strike anywhere matches at 25’. Back around 89 me and a buddy were squirrel hunting after lighting a box of matches and I shot a squirrel right between the eyes and it froze. He looked at me and laughed cus I missed. He got a “I can’t believe you said that” kinda look and we got to the tree and the squirrel was dead with a hole right between the eyes and it had a death grip on the tree. He was only about 6’ off the ground when I shot him. If I recall I used dynapoints at that time to hunt.

 

[EMC45]

I was getting CCI Blazer .22LR around 10-12 bucks a brick right up to about 2009. After a few mall/school/church shootings I never saw it that cheap again. I saw it go to about $75 a brick and I was disgusted. It shoots great out of all my rimfires. I like Fed Automatch and the Red and Black box stuff now.

 

[MacAR]

I can remember, not all that many years ago, walking the mile to town, plopping down 85 cents, and walking out of Lamb's Grocery Store with a box of Winchester .22 Shorts. Long Rifles were 99 cents, and you could have either Winchester Wildcats or Remington Thunderbolts. Take your pick. There were also a couple of odd boxes of Yellowjackets. Mr. Lamb (who was also the Superintendent of the school) would sell you individual shotgun shells for ten cents each; 10 (2 and 7/8's), 12, or 16 gauge. At the time I had an old hammer 10 gauge, and would occasionally forego the box of shorts and buy 8 or 10 shells for it. Usually only did that a couple times each year, when we went quail hunting, or down in the Bottoms after swamp rabbits. I don't recall the price of centerfire rifle ammo; we never had one to buy any for until I got bigger and bought a 30-30. By that time the store had changed hands and I was buying it at Miller's Hardware for $10/box for Winchester Silvertips, I think.

Mac

 

[BrotherMaynard]

Found this box of Hawthorne Clean Bore 22 shorts cleaning out my late sister-in-law's house.



Also found a Rohm RG20 but I will spare you that pic.

 

[mavracer]

bricks were $5 IIRC don't have any of those boxes, they usually ended up targets.

 

[Larry Ashcraft]

I used to borrow my dad's single shot Stevens and my granddad's model 90 Winchester (still have both of them), stop by the auto parts store in my 1951 Ford and buy two boxes of 22 shorts for $1.00 and take them out to the hills for plinking. This was mid-sixties.

My great uncle told me the story of the "year of the jackrabbit" on the eastern Colorado plains. I think it was 1938. My great granddad had bought each of his seven sons a Winchester Model 90 shorts only in the 1920s. Reported price was $3.95 each from Sears. Anyway, jackrabbits overran Lincoln County that year, and someone from Kansas would send a truck to Simla every week and pay .15 each for them (mink food and pelts). Since it was the dust bowl and depression, the two youngest boys would spend their days cruising the pastures and shooting rabbits. After a few weeks, they started sending a separate truck to the Ashcraft ranch every week. My uncle said the ammo was $15.00 for a case of 100 boxes. The two youngest boys kept the ranch afloat that year with a Model A Ford and two Winchester rifles. My uncle said that you could shoot from the front fender until you lost a rabbit, misses didn't count, but if the rabbit got away, you had to drive and the other brother took the fender.

 

[Catpop]

An older friend at work used to buy 22 by the shell at the local hardware store

When I was a kid, our local hardware store sold 30-30 singularity.
The good old days!

 

[aarondhgraham]

In my senior year (1968),,,
A brick of .22 Shorts was an even $5.00.

Doc, at the gas station, would sell us individual rounds of .22 LR for 2 cents a shot.

Aarond

.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

There used to be a chain in Virginia, Roses, that would occasionally run a special on Winchester Wildcat .22 LR -- just about $100 a case (5,000 rounds.) Whenever they had a special, I'd buy at least one case. This was in the late '80s.

 

[SGW Gunsmith]

My 12 year old school buddy and I both lucked out at Christmas of the same year to get Remington Nylon 66 rifles under the tree. We went to Hermes Hardware and split the cost of a brick of Mohawk .22 Long Rifle cartridges, made by Remington at just a bit over $5.00. During those years Remington was our "go-to" .22 rimfire ammunition:



After we had our ammunition, we taped flashlights to the forearms of our rifles and headed off to the open-pit dump just before dark to eliminate the rat population that hung out there. Great fun, and a ½ of a brick of ammunition didn't last very long with two 12 year olds using tube fed semi-automatic rifles that each hold 15 rounds.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Using the money inflation calculator at Wikipedia for US dollar amount, $ 0.26 (1909) = $7.40 (2021).

 

[Telum Pisces]

I can remember walking into a big Montgomery Wards store that that had merchandise in stock. I bought a box of Winchester long rifle ammo. I had 50 cents in my pocket and got change back although I don't remember the amount or the exact year. It was either 1949 or 50 I imagine. Long time ago..

Man, we had a Montgomery Ward store here that I went to all the time with my Grandmother! She was in love with that store and I would get all kinds of stupid crap when I went with her. She lived at the layaway counter putting everything should could ever want on layaway. One of the first guns I ever shot as a kid was from there as well. For a while it was a tiny secret to get a MW gun that was in fact a Colt or other great collectible.

 

[doubleh]

Man, we had a Montgomery Ward store here that I went to all the time with my Grandmother! She was in love with that store and I would get all kinds of stupid crap when I went with her. She lived at the layaway counter putting everything should could ever want on layaway. One of the first guns I ever shot as a kid was from there as well. For a while it was a tiny secret to get a MW gun that was in fact a Colt or other great collectible.

I don't believe my grandmother ever went into anything but the catalog store in our local town and I know for a fact that she never put anything on lay-a-way. Cash and carry was it for her and my parents as well. The store I went into was a a hundred and thirty mile round trip and I don't believe my grandparents ever went there. It was seldom that we did and it was usually for farm machinery parts with the other stores thrown in while we were there. I can only remember two trips we made for simple shopping and to eat at a BBQ joint that was famous area wide for it's food.

 

[kerreckt]

In the late 60's early 70's in the VA suburbs we would buy 22 bullets at the Mobil gas station at the end of our road. Shorts were .50, longs were .65, and LR were .75 for a 50 rd. box. We would then bike up Rt.123 to the Tyson's Corner area and shoot into the dirt banks that would later become a shopping mall. Can you imagine what the reaction would be now if, some 13 year old boys were biking up the road with 22 rifles tied to their bicycles? SWAT teams is my guess.

 

[deadeye dick]

I remember the early to mid 60s. Sporting goods in the A&S (Abraham & Strauss) department stores in NY paying about $0.50 a box for Remington 22 LR and a brick of 500 (10 boxes) was under a penny a round. Then too a buck bought much more than today. Gasoline as $0.25 a gallon at the Gulf station up the block. My memories were mid 50s to mid 60s (5 to 15 years old). Hell, you could buy a gun at the hardware store as easy as a pound of nails and that was NY actually NYC.

Ron

Born in Queens. You went to Jamaca to the Montgomery Ward and there was red sticks ( not road flairs) right there on the counter. This was in the early 40/s

 

[rdnktrkr]

My dad always said the hardest he ever saw someone work for pennies was when the price of 2 boxes of 22 with tax went over a dollar and I didn't want to pay that much, I was standing there with my hand out and he was also. I could buy shotgun shells but had to have a parent for 22s.
I have a plastic 100rnd box from KMART that was clearanced at .89$.

 

[3Crows]

I basically bought a pallet of .22 Winchester Wildcat at Attwoods about 20 years ago for .99 cents per brick! It is a long story but that pile of .22 was the seed for my .22 ammo reserves.

 

[.308 Norma]

I don't remember for sure, but it seems like back in the '60s, Mom and Dad had .22LR ammo marked about 50 cents a box (50 rounds) in their country store/gas station. I do remember this for sure: in 1964 (when I was 16) I was spending 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, thinning apples and peaches in the orchards around the valley for $1.00 an hour - $1.10 an hour if I thinned 3 trees a day. So 50 cents (or 55 cents if I worked real hard) essentially meant spending a half hour standing on a step ladder and thinning fruit from a tree when it's 100 degrees in the shade.




















ad's

 

[pairof44sp]

These are all full boxes:

View attachment 970192


But, these didn't make one's breath any "fresher" :

View attachment 970193

You need to get your ammo a talent agent so they can make some cameos in period-piece flicks!

srsly.

 

[pairof44sp]

Over the years I have heard various camp fire wisdom about rimfire longevity. Some folks insisting they will expire on the shelf after XX number of years because they don't seal out moisture while other folks insist the rim prime is more durable and smokeless ignores moisture, for the most part. I've used rimfires that have lived in Florida for 50 years or more and they still go bang about as reliably as new shelf stock... I've also had whole boxes go poof or refuse to fire at all. Anybody care to share their own camp fire wisdom on rimfire longevity and proper care? Seems to me the biggest factor for poof vs. bang is not moisture but rough handling and compression. I've noticed (purely observational anecdotal evidence inserted here folks - grab yer salt licks!) it seems like the boxes that look like they've been crushed, dimpled tops from bullet noses, etc. go poof most often.

Thank you for the tip. You may have saved me from ruining my stash.

Henceforth, I resolve to leave my 22 ammo in the boxes and quit dumping it into bowls and running my fingers thru it while gloating about my foresight and wisdom in having bought in at 6-8 cents a round, back in early August !

 

[forrest r]

Shooters have been spoiled for decades with the cheap price of ammo. Power buying, cheap transportation, modern equipment used to make ammo have all contributed to the "golden age" of cheap 22lr ammo.

People have already shown pricing in the 60's. It really never went up until the early 80's. I could go buy a carton, brick or CCI ammo can of ammo in the mid to late 70's for +/- $5.99 per 500 rounds.

The same thing can be seen 125 years ago. In 1896 peters 22 longs & lr's sold for $2.50 per 100


Sear's and Robuck's (the turn of the century walmart) a decade later has 22 long ammo for $.36 per 100. They did this thru lower shipping costs, better mfg'ing & buying power.