I received the same comments back when the shortage started and I had the temerity to suggest that the shortage of .22 ammo would last longer than 6 months, and that it might last as long as 1 or 2 years. You can go back and find where I said this before. Time proved me right then...we can wait and see if it proves me right in the next year or two about .22 pistols. If you have any counterpoints on my logic or how I've calculated weights, measures, profitability for companies..please point them out.
Northbender: It's less about passionate statements than it is logical progression. It's just how my mind works. So I apologize for the way my previous statement was written and I'll try to clear it up now.
1. A company has to purchase brass and lead to make bullets. That brass and lead costs the same no matter what you make with it. The company could produce 500 pieces of .22..or it could make one .50 caliber bullet. The cost of the material purchased would be the same and an equal amount of brass and lead would go into producing both.
2. I don't have all I need to measure all the materials in boxes of ammunition so I'm going to use lead only for illustrative purposes. Measuring a box of .22 at 500 pieces of 40 grain lead equals 20,000 grains of lead. I'll use .45 ACP as a comparison because it is a sizeable weighty round and fewer bullets can be produced for the same amount of lead. 500 rounds of it at 230 grains of weight would equal 115,000 grains. But .45 sells in 50 round boxes. So 1/10th of 115,000 grains equals 11,500 grains. That's how much lead would have to go into producing a box of .45 ACP. (Do we all agree on that?)
3. It takes 20,000 grains of lead to make a box of 500 .22... and it takes only 11,500 grains to make a box of .45, then 20,000 grains of lead could be used to make 1.74 boxes of .45. It still takes 20,000 grains to make one box of .22 at 500 count.
4. How much profit is there to produce a box of .45 ACP? What does a 50 round box sell for? I don't have a .45 at the moment so I don't know. I'd think somewhere between $25 and $35 a box for .45. Looking at a couple of Winchester offerings in .45 online seems to put it somewhere in this range. I'll go with the cheaper estimate. $25 for a box of .45 ACP. For the same 20,000 grains, you can produce 1.74 boxes of .45 ACP compared to one box of .22. Those 500 round boxes of .22 use to sell for $20 a box. If you can make 1.74 boxes of .45 ACP with the same metal input then it is equal to 1.74 times the price of the .45. So 1.74 boxes times $25. $43.50. So the choice for the company is...do I produce something that will return $43.50 in cash inflow to the company. Or does the company produce 500 .22 that will return $20? To me, that question answers itself.
And this only becomes more obvious when you start using calibers that weigh far less and need lesser amounts of metal. 9mm can be 115 grains X 50 pieces. 5,750 grains of lead needed to produce one box of 9mm. You can make 3.47 boxes of 9mm ammunition with the same 20,000 grains of lead. A hollow point box of Winchester at Walmart right now is $21. So $21 times 3.47 equals $72.82...off the same amount of 20,000 grains of lead.
And yes, there will be a difference in how much brass and propellent goes into making a .45 case versus a .22 case and that will effect the amounts of money that go into producing a bullet. If someone wants to get that nitpicky and measure it all out by measuring boxes of .22 and .45 and pouring out the propellent..have at it. But I would still bet it comes out to being more profitable for a company to make a box of .45 than it would be for it to make 500 pieces of .22. (Since I wrote that, I checked online to find out what boxes of 50 round .45 and 9mm weigh and how much .22 weighs, and the searches I found put 500 .22 at around 3.75 pounds, .45 ACP at around 2 pounds for 50. 9mm at around 1.5 pounds for 50. So I think my previous ratios are pretty close.)
5. At this point is when I make a supposition. Before this it has all been numbers and weights. Brass, propellant, lead, copper jacketing. You guys can calculate all this yourself and even check prices on the metals market and get an approximate idea of how much your box of ammo is worth if bought all of it just as metal. Like a company would. Now I go into supposition.
6. Companies have experienced a run on ammunition. Everything they produce is being bought up. By my previous calculation stated above, .22 is less profitable to produce than .45, 9mm or other calibers. So companies, in my estimation, are not going to produce .22 at the same levels as they would other calibers. The only reason they would start to produce .22 higher levels would be if they can charge more for .22 ammunition at the store. I used $43.50 for .45ACP and $72.82 as a range of what companies can make on other products. So I believe that until a box of 500 .22 LR falls between $43 and $72 in price, companies aren't going to be gung ho about producing it. Like I say...more brass and more propellent and more copper jacketing goes into producing a .45 and 9mm bullet than it does for a .22. It will cut down on that range of profitability, I'm sure, once all the components were measured and compared. But it is going to be hard to make up a $30 or $50 difference in profit. So unless .22 rises to some higher price, in my view it is more profitable for companies to produce most other calibers than .22
7. Now for my supposition. Because .22 is scarce, guns that shoot .22 are going to become less valuable. What good is a gun without ammunition? It's a paperweight. .22 pistols, right now, are bringing $300, sometimes $400. My belief is that this is the case because .22 ammo has been cheap. If you can buy 500 rounds for $20 and go shoot all day, it's fun. It's economical. $20 use to get you 500 rounds of .22 and will still get you 50 rounds of 9mm. 50 rounds is less shooting. That's lesser amounts of fun and trigger time experience. If I am correct and .22 ammo is going to go up substantially in price when it finally returns to market in large numbers, then the choice for shooters is going to be buying 500 rounds of .22...or for the same money being 3.47 boxes of 9mm (or 2.5 or 3 or whatever the ratio works out to be) and .22 will be more around that $72 amount for a box of 500. That's 173 rounds of 9mm for the same price as 500 rounds of .22. That's no longer 50 rounds of 9mm being the same price as 500 .22. That's 173 rounds being the same price. (Or 150. Or 130. Or 100). By comparison, the same money to shoot .22 is now buying you more "bang for the buck" in centerfire calibers. That's going to effect the value of the guns that shoot .22, particularly pistols. Rifles have other uses that pistols can't fill.
8. .22 pistols are losing their value and will continue to lose their value as .22 approaches prices similar to centerfire ammunition. .22 rifles will always have value as small game guns. But .22 rifles already sell at $100, $150, $200. They are already priced at what people judge them at compared to other rifles shooting more powerful rounds. That's where .22 pistols are going to end up at. Or lower, in my estimation, because .22 pistols are selling for prices at near equal to what a new LC9 or some other pistols of similar type can bring. In my opinion, that's not going to last.
9. Does all this relate to 9x18? Yeah, the same factors are at work with 9x18, only worse. It's becoming an obsolete cartridge. There are no long guns used for hunting that use 9x18 as a cartridge to promote sales of the round. Companies that produce 9x18 have to ask themselves if they should run off a batch of 9x18 which they can only sell for 12 a box, or run off a batch of 9x19 which will be far more readily accepted and find a greater market. In order to convince that company it is worth their while to produce 9x18, you have to pay more for it than 9x19. There are still quite a few 9x18s being used in the world, but I think prices on 9x18 are going to approach Nagant pistol ammo prices within a few years. Convert the ones you have to .380 would be my suggestion.
Hopefully I've clarified my position more fully.
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