Wamarts around here never have any .22 LR ammo and many others have expressed the same. Even if they did it costs too much in time and gas to drive around to them to find out if they have any. I am wondering if Walmart has a contractual arrangement with some of the ammo companies and they are shipping them just the minimum, as a chain, that the contract calls for.
And that is EXACTLY the issue. With just ten plants making .22, and the major buyers having taken up most of the production, what is the fairest way that Brand can allocate purchasing?
Void the contracts and sell bulk to the highest bidder? We've seen how some vendors did that to the public. It's poisoned the relationship with the public, and the major ammo makers aren't stupid enough to do that.
What they generally decided to do - as explained in posts online by some anonymous sources - it so simply ration output according to the amount previously purchased. Since the plant couldn't exponentially increase production - many were already working about about the fullest capacity they saw profitable - they just sold according to what was already being purchased.
Walmart might be a big chain but they certainly were not shipping pallets of .22 to each store. And trying to order them wasn't going to happen. Not hardly - more like a case or two with their breakdown of ammo from their distribution warehouses. It's done on a Just In Time basis - they formerly saw those boxes of ammo sitting on the shelf for weeks - yes, weeks - before they sold. The system wasn't geared to seling bricks at all, and neither was production. When things went south on the AR market, tho, why the .22 crowd went panicky has yet to be explained.
There was NEVER a threat to .22 ammo or any talk of outlawing them or the rifles.
And yet what happened? OMG THEY'RE GOING TO RUN OUT OF AMMO AND I CAN'T SHOOT IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!
Go figure. Kinda like sympathetic labor pains, the NON-tactical shooters got their shorts in a twist and went into hysterics.
They are STILL spinning around and buying up $50 ammo all because they believe there's a shortage. Must be if every time they walk into BoxMart there's NO .22 on the shelf.
All because one or two guys ahead of them bought bricks, not boxes.
The talk about gas prices is a great example - the socalled "Gas Crisis" of 1974. I was on honeymoon with my wife and we saw people in Texas lining up on even/odd days, with cars stretching around the block. We just happened to need to fill up, got in the short line, and were immediately questioned about our license plate being the wrong number.
Out of a week of vacationing - it was the ONLY line I saw around the area. And it was in a Metro.
I'm going to suggest that people in large numbers are the problem, not the capacity of the ammo plants. They were quietly plinking a box a month when their buddies threw their aprons over their heads and started running off into the prairie - and reacted by doing the exact same thing.
I can't explain it any other way that to suggest it's reacting to a herd "instinct." It goes to some saying that the people are like sheep - and with this panic, it's hard to argue against it.
There is absolutely NO factual reason to think .22 was going to be endangered, come under regulation, or be scarce - and yet the result is that .22 remains so in many areas - while the AR's that were being bad mouthed for banning are now selling at record low prices.
And so is 5.56. You can certainly buy bulk 5.56 cheaper than high grade .22.
If the economics aren't what you like - if feeding a 454 short bed Chevy is getting a tad expensive - maybe it's time to change. If shooting expensive .22 isn't in your budget, maybe some other cartridge can be - especially reloading it. The prices drop even more substantially doing that, easily 50% cheaper.
Of course, primers and powder are still a bit hard to come by - because the guys who turned to that drove them up, too. There is, therefore, no way to escape that demand will increase price regardless. Like it or not.
If you don't like the price, don't buy. It's working for the basic problem child of the panic that started it off, the AR, and right now AR's are about as cheap as they can get. Which was said just a few months back, and they have dropped since then. I don't think we've seen the bottom yet.
And I don't think we've seen the end of the .22 shortage, either, because there is no shortage of gullible buyers willing to pay whatever it takes to get their ammo.
Me and my buddy used to walk the couple miles through town including through the public park with our rifles uncased, usually over our shoulder, and no one gave it a second thought. My how times have changed. 
