Why is 22 LR sold out everywhere?

[TooManyToys]

Does anyone know why 22LR seems to be sold out everywhere this time around?

As I recall,... when we went through the shortage 4 years ago, 22 LR wasn't much an issue. So why this time?

 

[kyhunter]

90% is flippers on armslist/gunbroker. 10% is people who have bought or already owned .22 firearms and are interested in shooting them because its by far the cheapes to shoot nowadays. When they can buy it for 15 a brick and sell it for 100$ and people are dumb enough to pay those prices then they do.

Also ammunition companies are producing more 5.56, 7.62,9mm,.40,.45 to keep up with demand so hunting calibers and rimfires are pushed back on production.

Its been like this for 4 months where you been man?

 

[TooManyToys]

22 LR is not produced on the same equipment as centerfire ammo so production allocation shouldn't not an issue.
As for flipping, the same thing happened 4 years ago, but 22LR wasn't an issue then.

 

[kyhunter]

Well I see your point there, guess it could also be the massively successful gsg-5-22, the mp5-22, and the m&p15-22. I couldnt tell you how many people ive seen lately jumping on the m&p's. I owned one myself and stupidly sold it.

 

[FROGO207]

Add the fact that many have an old .22 kicking around that is now dusted off and used because the ammo is cheaper, others want a stash of it in case it becomes highly taxed or somehow restricted. Don't forget that a bunch of new shooters bought/also bought a .22 to shoot until other ammo becomes available again and this has happened. FWIW Around here the ammo on the shelves seem to be expensive options of uncommon calibers of long gun ammo, .22 MAG, .17 HMR, 40 S&W, and some shotgun ammo, mainly buck and slugs. I purchased a couple 40 S&W firearms last fall because the ammo tended to stay on the shelves after other things were often sold out everywhere.

 

[MaterDei]

Four years ago wasn't as bad by any measure. In economic terms 22LR is going through an economic bubble. The asset value (22LR ammo) far exceeds its intrinsic value (the value of the components to make it).

I'm not an economist but it's still quite interesting to watch.

 

[Beentown]

Finding .22lr was horrible 4 years ago, not quite as bad as today. Still quite short. Everything has been amplified this time.

Before the line was they were not going after our guns. After successfully winning his second Presidential bid, and Newton they changed their tune. They are calling for all kinds of GC. Hence, the larger panic. Everyone has a. 22 or two, three, ten....

 

[LiveLife]

One factor may be that many shooters became reloaders after the last shortage but they can't reload .22LR so they have to buy. While .22LR can be reloaded, it's more difficult than other cartridges.

It's probably just supply and demand. AR platform is very popular. In recent years, many gun manufacturers produced AR type rifles in .22LR. I am sure shooters bought up and buying up .22LR ammo as fast as they are produced like .223/5.56 ammo and reloading components.

 

[45lcshooter]

The Chinese are buying them, lol, I'm surprised the government has said that.

 

[huntsman]

4 years ago I would walk into WW and buy 100 rounds of CCI mini-mag for $6.50 when the .380acp and .45acp were sold out, so yeah it's different now and according to CCI they can put out about 4million rounds of .22lr a day. Makes me wonder how deep in the crap we really are.

 

[Jlr2267]

22 was getting scarce in my area even before Newtown. I had to start buying online instead of locally back in August 2012. As for flippers, they are a symptom of the 22 shortage, not the cause. I know the local sporting goods mgr at Walmart and they are getting about 1000 rounds per week in 22LR on avg, some weeks nothing. They used to get 20x that. Flippers got nothing to do with that.

 

[mtrmn]

22LR DID in fact disappear 4 yrs ago in Louisiana, but it didn't take this long to start trickling back in.

 

[KansasSasquatch]

The 4mil rounds per day that CCI can produce is not just for .22lr. It also includes .17HMR, .22mag, .22long, .22short, and crimped blanks (aka powerloads, used mainly in construction). They probably don't produce all those calibers everyday, they most likely switch out tooling every so often. Based on how much .17HMR I've seen floating around, I'd say they were probably setup for that caliber when the panic hit. But there's Remington, Winchester, Federal, CCI, Lapua, Wolf, Aguila, Eley, Armscor, Fiocchi, and maybe a few others that make .22lr. If they all made an average of 2mil rounds of .22lr per day, that'd be 20mil per day. If it were sold only in the US, that only would only be 1 round per week for every one of the 100mil estimated gun owners in the US. It would take over 1.37 years for them to make a common 500 round brick for every US gun owner. Now factor in everyone else in the world that shoots/owns a firearm chambered for .22lr. If stuff ever gets back to "normal" I'll be planning on never letting my .22 stash get below 5k. I never thought about it until this panic started and got caught off guard with only 1 brick of Federal. Haven't shot a single round of it since.
__________________

 

[nathan]

Goes to show its good business to be producers of ammunitions and its components. You will have a boom every few years or so.

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

I don't believe the machinery the various ammunition is made on makes a bit of difference in the situation. I do believe that the allocation of resources does make the difference. In other words, that sheet of brass stock doesn't care if it's made into .22lr cases or .308 cases. Same for the ton of lead that ABC ammo has for bullet production.

However, if your company has a contractual obligation to make and deliver 10X million rounds of .223 & .308 that order gets filled first. Particularly if there are penalties involved for failure to meet the contract specifications for quantity and delivery. I strongly doubt that any wholesaler has an iron-clad contract with (name the manufacturer) to sell them X amount of .22lr at all. Retail gets the short end of the stick compared to government and law enforcement orders.

Guess who's buying a helluva lot of ammo lately?

900F

 

[David E]

90% is flippers on armslist/gunbroker.

No, because "everyone" owns a .22 and realizing centerfire ammo is getting priced out of reach, they buy .22 to still be able to shoot something,

Also ammunition companies are producing more 5.56, 7.62,9mm,.40,.45 to keep up with demand so hunting calibers and rimfires are pushed back on production.

Except that it's not. CCI for one is cranking out 10,000,000 rds of .22 per DAY.

In 2012, ATK sold 1 billion dollars worth of ammo. By 01-21-13, they had 3 billion dollars worth of orders for 2013. Don't know how much higher the orders have gone since then, but I doubt the orders stopped coming in.

The local store has a standing order of $20,000 worth of .22. They recently got 2,000 rds of it, 4 boxes of 500.

And there was a .22 shortage 4 yrs ago, too.

 

[OldTex]

Some of it has to be the regular Joes who see that it's hard to find. If they walked by a stack of 500-rd bricks a few months ago, they might pick up one or two, maybe none, just depending on how much extra cash was in their pocket. If they walked by that stack today, they'd likely grab all they could afford just to be sure and have some on hand.

 

[nathan]

If you re an investor, better invest in factyory producing .22 Rimfire ammo . Its the thing to have when times like this comes around.

 

[jim243]

This is weard, I am starting to panic reading all these threads on 22 LR shortage. 4 years ago yes I was lite on 22 LR but as soon as it came back in stock I was buying and stocking. Buy the time I stopped I had 5,000 rounds, not a lot about 10 bricks.

Well I am still sitting on 3 or 4 thousand in an ammo can. And I am panicing?? Does not make sense since I can shoot at least for a couple of years if I am carefull.

You guys are driving me crazy as well as the price up, up and away.

Jim

 

[nathan]

I have only less than 2000 right now. Much of it are the crappy Remington Golden Bullet i got from Walmart. Its dirty alright but its better than nothing.

 

[BSA1]

Why no 22 Magnum?

With literally millions of handguns and rifles probuced over the last century I can understand the popularity and demand for 22 Long Rifle ammunition.

What is a puzzler for me is why there is a shortage of 22 Magnum ammo. The 22 Magnum traditionally has been a rifle cartridge with a realitively small, specialized market and users. It came on my radar screen as a potentially serious handgun round a couple of years ago with the Kel Tec PMR-30 and most recently in the Taurus small frame 8 shot revolver. (IMHO Ruger missed the boast by making the LCR with only 6 rounds).

Anyway even with the introduction of these handguns the availability of them is small. The Kel Tec is waaaay overpriced at $800 at the last gunshow and most of the LCR's are in 22 L.R.

I read something once that suggested the reason the 22 LONG (NOT Long Rifle) cartridge stayed in production is the average buyer doesn't know the difference between the two rounds and, since the Long will fire in the Long Rifle chamber, never know the difference. In the case of the Magnum I wonder if folks figure since it says 22 on the box they think one size fits all and the word "Magnum" just means higher velocity?

 

[JohnM]

I dunno, store owners I know tell me they're having problems getting 17HNR too, along with everything else.

 

[jim243]

Why no 22 Magnum?

Fewer manufacturers produce 22 mag ammo than the 22 LR. I haven't purchased any in a while (years) since I bought it at $6.00 per box of 50 when Walmart was having a special on them, still sitting on a 1,000 rounds. It can be found if you look around but it is pricier than 22 LR, so people stick with that.

Jim

I have a Marlin 22 mag that is supper accurate and fun to shoot, but I am hoarding my stock of ammo.

Jim

 

[nathan]

Like what we know Wideners has them in stock but double the price.

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

There is .22 mag ammo around here. What I don't know is if this is new production, which I doubt, or existing stock in the pipeline.

900F