One unusual way I know the .22 rimfire shortage has largely ended.

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Reminds me of the time when I was at a square dance during "the scare". A buddy had a pocket of .22's and was tossing them at friends of ours to annoy them. Most people would give him the finger or throw them back at him. But a couple of the guys were diving on the floor for those .22 rounds! No way were they letting em go!
 
ColtPythonElite said:
How do you know what they are?.... I talked to a genius one time who admitted pulling the bullets out of two .22 lr shells, dumping the powder from one case into the other and pushing the bullet back in. He said he was hoping to make some long rifle magnums. He said he blew up a semi auto Winchester rifle instead.
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Not a lot of .22RF reloading going on to my knowledge. The probability of picking up a round that you describe is zero.
 
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Solomonson said:
Not a lot of .22RF reloading going on to my knowledge. The probability of picking up a round that you describe is zero.
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Unless some joker wants to set up a booby trap for the picker upper.... In today's world that is not too far fetched. For that reason, I leave all ammo laying.
 
I will NEVER leave a live round on the ground at the range or anywhere else unless something is chasing me. I was taking a class this past weekend and picked up several. If i dump one clearing a malfunction I will take the time when the drill is over to find it, just like picking up an empty mag that was dropped. I will shoot them if they are clean, but that might change if I was shooting around people I did not know and trust, or throw them away if they are rusty etc, but leaving a live round on the ground is a big no, no for me. I shoot outdoors and do not want anyone on a mower to chance finding a live round with the blade is among the reasons.

To the OP I agree, we seem to be coming out of the drought. :thumbup:
 
CraigC said:
I'll consider it over when I can walk into any store and buy as much as I want. That still ain't happening.

I rarely pick up .22LR ammo that hits the ground because they are coated in lube and that tends to pick up dirt. I don't want to be grinding dirt into my rifling.
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Academy, check

Cabela's, check

Bass Pro, check

Atwood's, check

About the only store that doesn't have shelves groaning under the weight of .22 lr is Walmart. Even then they have it in stock.
 
I, too, think the shortage is about over. Lots of 22 ammo at the stores I visit and I have finally gotten to the point I look at the shelf of 22 ammo just to see what the prices are and then walk out. I am flush for the time being.
 
Hardtarget said:
Even as a kid...when I could buy .22s for a dollar for 50 rnds...I would re try the misfires four times. I'd rotate the round to get a different strike position 'till it fired. It was a rare thing to actually throw a cartridge away. Just not in my DNA !

Mark
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You must have been shooting Remington's famous golden bullet. When I was a kid we bought our .22 ammo at a 7/11. Shorts were .59, longs .69 & long rifle were .79.
 
bannockburn said:
drband



I'm seeing this too at a number of the big box stores. Plenty of .22 ammo out on the shelves with standard, high, and hyper velocity to choose from. And none of that "3 box limit" restriction they use to have.



Yes sir, happy days are here again!
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yes at 300% more then they were before
 
When we were cleaning up a local shooting pit 2 weeks ago, I found 4 unfired 12 gauge rounds of various types in a couple locations.................WHAT does that mean?:rofl:
 
Cannibul said:
CCI has been running their rimfire lines 24/7 for a few years now. They can produce around 4 million rounds per day. The rimfire pipeline has always been short, usually about 30 days supply. Also rimfire rounds are the most labor intensive ammo to produce. It takes 2-3 years to bring a rimfire production line online and it takes 7-10 years to see a return on the investment. The companies don't make a lot of money on those little guys, it's all about volume.

The companies that make the stuff didn't raise the prices when the shortage hit It was the people selling it that did.
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Anyway you can cite this claim? 7-10 years on a return?

I can't see that.

All drawn, no machining rims, few 1/10 of a cent to produce.

Sorry, I'll have to call bull on that one.

If you can prove me wrong, by all means..
 
There are sick individuals everywhere...i reckon one or two have probably read this thread and now have a new idea planted in their heads.... Lol
 
1990s, 2000s, I'd accummulate foundling .22s at the range. On a dull weekend I would clean and inspect them, and sort them into unfired, one strike, two strike. When I had accumulated enough for a day at the range, I would take my old Rumanian army .22 training rifle and shoot them. (It was, ahem, research for a survival story.) The dropt unfired rounds would all fire. Most single strikes would fire when struck 90 degrees opposite the failed strike. A lot of double strikes turned out to have no primer.
2010s there were simply not a lot of discarded .22 LR at the range, and I scratched the plot point of scavenging dropt range ammo from my commonplace notebook of plot ideas. The drought of .22LR was visible in the lack of discarded rounds at the range.
The presence of discarded rounds (left by clearing a gun to empty it and leaving the round on the ground) may be a sign the drought is abating.
 
Cannibul said:
Academy, check

Cabela's, check

Bass Pro, check

Atwood's, check

About the only store that doesn't have shelves groaning under the weight of .22 lr is Walmart. Even then they have it in stock.
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Same way were I am, Cabela's, Bass Pro, Dick's, and all the small gun shops all have plenty of .22. But I haven't seen a single box at Walmart yet. A buddy of mine called me a few months ago to tell me that Walmart had cases and cases of Mini Mags for sale if I wanted any, but he works 2nd shift so this was early in the morning when I'm at work. When I stopped the next day it was all gone. I suspect there's still a ton of hoarders in my area that keep buying up Walmarts .22 ammo every day while the rest of us are at work.
 
Cannibul said:
Academy, check

Cabela's, check

Bass Pro, check

Atwood's, check

About the only store that doesn't have shelves groaning under the weight of .22 lr is Walmart. Even then they have it in stock.
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I am well aware of this situation and where I can find what. I have slowly been able to stock up over the last few months, mostly buying online but very little bulk. I just got another shipment from Academy last week but the stores are always a bust. You do realize that you are in Texas and I am in Tennessee and that this is highly regional, right? It also takes me a 2hr drive to get to BassPro or Cabela's. A lot of this also depends on your perspective. If you're only shooting a couple hundred rounds every couple months, I'm sure it does seem over. I was burning through 2000-3000rds a month before the shortage. I'm a long way from being there again.

Let's see, Academy has ZERO in stock online and when it was in stock, it was 150% of what it used to be and there is a 3 box limit. And they are the cheapest I've found.

Cabela's, double the price it was before the "shortage".

BassPro, it's only about triple the pre-shortage price.

Atwood's, never heard of them before today. Nothing available online.

It's also available at CDNN for more than double pre-shortage prices. Same for Midway.

I haven't seen any in three local Walmarts in four years. ANY. Same for Dick's Sporting Goods. You can, however, buy all you want from the local flea market for $80 a box.
 
I bought three boxes from Walmart last year, by pure luck. Haven't seen them before or after that.

When Walmart has .22 for $18 a brick, then I know the shortage is over.

I hope the hoarders and scalpers end up with thousands of dollars in ammo that nobody is buying from them.
 
Wanderling said:
I bought three boxes from Walmart last year, by pure luck. Haven't seen them before or after that.

When Walmart has .22 for $18 a brick, then I know the shortage is over.

I hope the hoarders and scalpers end up with thousands of dollars in ammo that nobody is buying from them.
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exactly but when you got guys shooting thousands of rounds a week and the hoarders I say 22 will still not be in wal mart
 
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Are you guys specifically quoting CCI Minimag prices? As I mentioned, I bought 5000 rounds this past weekend for $0.05 a round delivered ($249.50 delivered).
There is still 60+ cases left. It is a good quality, HV ammo. Standard velocity is also available for the same price. I don't know what is expected to be a good price any more. The days of $0.02 ammo is long gone.
https://www.targetsportsusa.com/aguila-superextra-ammo-22-lr-40-grain-hv-sp-p-3436.aspx
 
CraigC said:
I am well aware of this situation and where I can find what. I have slowly been able to stock up over the last few months, mostly buying online but very little bulk. I just got another shipment from Academy last week but the stores are always a bust. You do realize that you are in Texas and I am in Tennessee and that this is highly regional, right? It also takes me a 2hr drive to get to BassPro or Cabela's. A lot of this also depends on your perspective. If you're only shooting a couple hundred rounds every couple months, I'm sure it does seem over. I was burning through 2000-3000rds a month before the shortage. I'm a long way from being there again.

Let's see, Academy has ZERO in stock online and when it was in stock, it was 150% of what it used to be and there is a 3 box limit. And they are the cheapest I've found.

Cabela's, double the price it was before the "shortage".

BassPro, it's only about triple the pre-shortage price.

Atwood's, never heard of them before today. Nothing available online.

It's also available at CDNN for more than double pre-shortage prices. Same for Midway.

I haven't seen any in three local Walmarts in four years. ANY. Same for Dick's Sporting Goods. You can, however, buy all you want from the local flea market for $80 a box.
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I can walk into Academy and the shelves are loaded. No limits. I know where we both live. Bass Pro is 40 minutes from my house and Cabela's is an hour.

I'm not sure when you think the shortage started but I was paying $5 a stick for Mini Mags on sale, normal price was $5.59. The same retailer now has them on sale at $6.50, normal price is $7.39. Sadly I no longer live close to that retailer. Walmart is in the $7.50 range for them. Cabela's had Mini Mags for $7.99, Bass Pro was $8.19. So you're saying the pre-shortage price was in the $2.73 to $5 range? Cabela's and Bass Pro have been more expensive that most retailers for a long time. Check out powder and primer prices at Bass Pro if ya want a shock. BTW, powder and primer prices have gone up a lot in the past 8 years too.

Part of the problem is that now days people go out and shoot a full brick in a day where it used to be they would shoot 100 rounds or so. The mag dump mentality is strong in the American public. I see it at my range. People on the 25 yard range, actually at about the 10-15 yard line shooting a couple hundred rounds through their AR.

I just checked Academy. Mini Mags are $7.99, limit 10 boxes and are in stock.

Lead prices are at all time highs. This impacts .22 ammo two ways, priming compound and bullet. They have doubled in the past few years and have gone up 5x since 2004. Of course .22 ammo prices have gone up. The days of finding decent .22 LR for $0.04 a round are gone. Saying there's still a shortage is wrong. It's available everywhere but Walmart. Sure there are regional shortages, but that doesn't mean squat.

I haven't bought any .22 LR in a few months. I have around 40k on hand and that will hold me for quite a while. I can actually reload and shoot 9mm for less than the cost of decent .22 ammo. I just need to pick up a good 9mm carbine and I'll be set.
 
Cannibul said:
I can walk into Academy and the shelves are loaded. No limits. I know where we both live. Bass Pro is 40 minutes from my house and Cabela's is an hour.

I'm not sure when you think the shortage started but I was paying $5 a stick for Mini Mags on sale, normal price was $5.59. The same retailer now has them on sale at $6.50, normal price is $7.39. Sadly I no longer live close to that retailer. Walmart is in the $7.50 range for them. Cabela's had Mini Mags for $7.99, Bass Pro was $8.19. So you're saying the pre-shortage price was in the $2.73 to $5 range? Cabela's and Bass Pro have been more expensive that most retailers for a long time. Check out powder and primer prices at Bass Pro if ya want a shock. BTW, powder and primer prices have gone up a lot in the past 8 years too.

Part of the problem is that now days people go out and shoot a full brick in a day where it used to be they would shoot 100 rounds or so. The mag dump mentality is strong in the American public. I see it at my range. People on the 25 yard range, actually at about the 10-15 yard line shooting a couple hundred rounds through their AR.

I just checked Academy. Mini Mags are $7.99, limit 10 boxes and are in stock.

Lead prices are at all time highs. This impacts .22 ammo two ways, priming compound and bullet. They have doubled in the past few years and have gone up 5x since 2004. Of course .22 ammo prices have gone up. The days of finding decent .22 LR for $0.04 a round are gone. Saying there's still a shortage is wrong. It's available everywhere but Walmart. Sure there are regional shortages, but that doesn't mean squat.

I haven't bought any .22 LR in a few months. I have around 40k on hand and that will hold me for quite a while. I can actually reload and shoot 9mm for less than the cost of decent .22 ammo. I just need to pick up a good 9mm carbine and I'll be set.
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if wal mart don't have it there is still not enough. wal mart is the canary in the coal mine
 
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