Top 2015 gun sales, explains the rimfire situation

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R.W.Dale

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http://www.foxbusiness.com/investing/2015/12/27/5-best-selling-guns-2015/?intcmp=obnetwork

I think at this point we can dispense with the notion that somehow hoarders are to blame. The fact is a bunch of really cool high cap rimfire guns have been introduced and production from days when the 10/22 was king is wholly insufficient.

Just ONE GUN has sucked all the 22wmr out of the market. I had long suspected this when all the ammo finding tools just showed armscor 22wmr in stock. A load that the manual for a pmr30 tells you to avoid.
 
With the low volume Kel-Tec produces, I'd be very surprised if one of their guns was a high number best seller.
 
Speedo66 said:
With the low volume Kel-Tec produces, I'd be very surprised if one of their guns was a high number best seller.
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Even going back as 2010 keltec has been in the top ten sellers. The latest numbers I've found had them right behind Taurus. In just pistols they were number 5
 
With the low volume Kel-Tec produces, I'd be very surprised if one of their guns was a high number best seller.
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The author only compiled figures for Gunbroker; not surprising that a hard-to-get weapon would top the list there.

But most people don't buy on GB. Bud's probably would have been a better metric for the market, but even then, I'd wager the extreme majority of firearms are still bought from LGS or local box stores.
 
I've long believed that the 10/22 was the every mans gun and I still think that each of the Rugers in circulation account for at least a 1000 rd stockpile in American homes.
Never would have guessed the pmr to have ranked #5.
 
You guys are missing the point.

There's no run on 22wmr. No election has taken place, no national tragedy has spurned this. Simply once pmr30 production got up 22wmr ceased to exist at a retail level.

It's not that manufacturers are focusing on 22lr as just about anywhere I go shelves are full of 17hmr or wsm
 
X-Rap said:
I've long believed that the 10/22 was the every mans gun and I still think that each of the Rugers in circulation account for at least a 1000 rd stockpile in American homes.
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I have stated this before as part of the reason for the 22LR shortage and the packaging in bulk packs (loose ammo) as a dominant contributing reason for the rimfire shortage. Most forum people just shook their heads as it being a ridiculous statement since higher capacity 22 rifles and semi-auto pistols predated the current rimfire shortage. It is not just 10/22's, but all the other higher capacity 22 semi-auto's that have been released in the last 10 years. People just like to spray 22's for the fun of it and I do too (at times). Regular people used to shoot 50 or 100 rounds in an afternoon; now it is 500+. Manufacturing capacity appears to be somewhat fixed.

I find it hard to believe that one gun accounts for the lack of 22 mag on the shelf. I have always found the 22 mag shortage a bit fishy and believe it is a manufacturing issue versus sales issue.
 
I must confess that the 22mag has been dead to me for decades and I have apparently overlooked the shortage but it had never been economical (relative term) and I just can't see people out burning up the stuff in a 30 rd pistol to be honest.
I'll give it some credit but there were probably millions of 22mag firearms when the panic hit and after the 22lr went away the mag has been swallowed up as well. There just aren't as many of the 17's but I bought one because there was ammo available.
 
I have no 17's. I just can't see the need for the 17's for me other than punching holes in paper. Frankly 22 mag has very limited use for me, but it is one that I find potentially useful. I actually would like to pick up another 22 mag rifle (CZ). Have little practical need for it as I have that base covered. But the desire is there on my end if I find one with nice wood at a local gun shop. Then I'll probably dump the other 22 mag rifle. Call it an upgrade.
 
Gun Broker is where you go to find guns you can't find anywhere else. The entire article is flawed.

If you want a more representative sample of what is selling, you'd have to get data from Davidson's Gallery of Guns or Bud's Gun Shop.
 
I read this article when it was first published. I immediately dismissed it as garbage, probably only posted in an attempt to bolster interest in a couple of stocks. The 'data collection' was completely bogus in its method. Apparently I wasn't the only one to think so, because the article has been substantially truncated with the following explanation:

Editor's note: A chart detailing the author's methodology has been removed from this article.
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A little more than a chart was removed. Unfortunately the original article was not saved to the Wayback Machine over at the Internet Archive. But one can still read the method used to get the 'data' from Gunbroker and judge for yourself. Being the top seller on Gunbroker for a month or two doesn't make the PMR-30 the top selling pistol for the year (actually just January to November, no December data was used in the article). Even if it was, there's no way to extrapolate any number of units sold.
 
I happen to own a handful of .22 WMR firearms. In the past I would only keep a couple 50 rnd boxes of ammo on hand for plinking ammo due to the cost of it. I could see the handwriting on the wall about a year before things disappeared off the shelves. So I slowly stocked up until I had three 50 rnd boxes of premium ammo for each firearm I owned and a couple K of cheap blasting ammo as well. Years earlier I had purchased a 22 Hornet rifle and all the trimmings to reload for it as well so that I would have a firearm that came close to the 22 WMR performance wise that I could reload. I also could download my 223 but that is a bit more complicated and uses more propellant. I feel that there were a LOT of others that decided to stockpile a bit of 22 WMR and that has kept it off the shelves along with all the new shooters that have purchased that caliber.
 
I can buy all the 22 WMR I want locally. Not a shred of 22 LR on the shelf though. Ive never seen a Keltec 22 WMR pistol for sale. Apparently they cant figure out how to make them fast enough to actually keep them on the market.
 
Fella's;

My take on this is: Seems there's no market for that pistol around the northern Rockies, never seen one & never heard anybody complain that they weren't available either. True, I haven't hit every Rocky Mtn. area gun shop north of Colorado, but I do keep my ear to the internet. I don't shoot a lot of .22 magnum myself, but do have guns in that caliber & am actually in the process of converting an HMR gun to .22 magnum. Not having any use at all for a sub-.22 round rim or centerfire. I'm not worried about doing it because I do have a fair amount of the magnum ammo on hand. Not some to-the-moon pile of it, but enough for my modest needs. It's certainly not on the shelves every day, but it does show up. When it does I buy a box or two, & leave some for the next guy.

900F
 
One gun can cause a run on certain types of ammo. In 2008-9 the Ruger LCP dried up all of the available 380 and even die sets to reload for it.
 
The article's sources aren't that great.

BATFE posts annual stats of the number of firearms sold be every manufacturer in the country, and their numbers are much more accurate, though I believe they're usually a year or so behind on publishing the reports.

Much better data here:
https://www.atf.gov/file/89561/download

Comprehensive data from 2012 (the most recent) that lists every manufacturer in the US with a breakdown of how many rifles/pistols/shotguns they made:
https://www.atf.gov/file/4751/download
 
What's interesting is that even as far back as 2012 when they were just getting production ramped up kel-Tec sold nearly 20k pmr's

That's half a million rounds just to load the magazines one time on just 2012's pmr's
 
I for one have twin 7-year old boys... I stuck the 10/22's and AR 22's back in the safe and broke out the Marlin 39A lever action for them to shoot - there was no way I could feed the semi-auto .22's with twin boys... It ensure they slow down and focus on aiming, instead of the temptation to shoot fast.

I love my 10/22's and AR 22's for rim fire matches...
 
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