Why there is no 22 to buy.

[Sawyer Rob]

Because guys are hoarding it and also reselling it...but it looks like some folks here refuse to believe that...

I walked into a Dunhams (chain) store a few days ago and they had hundred packs of Remington 22lr. The guy in front of me was pulling ALL of them out of the case, I reached over him and grabbed one for my wife... lol He bought all the rest...

There was a lot of Federal MATCH ammo still on the shelf when I walked away, as it was priced at retail, that is like $22 bucks a box!

SR

 

[om21braz]

I know many manufacturers are probably running .22's on equipment made years ago and considering the state of things today (gov, lawsuits, etc) are not going to invest in new equipment until they must. Around here the .22's, primers, powder are easier to find than they were a year or two ago.

 

[RollingsFarms]

I had well over 2000 rounds before this mess even started and I still have over 2000 rounds and laugh at these people buying it to resell it. They won't be reselling it to me that's for sure, this fool and his money shall not soon be parted. I like to keep a hefty stock of ammo for ALL my guns. While people are in a tizzy about .22, I've been buying up ammo for my pistols and shotguns and rifles of various calibers at normal prices.

 

[JMER817]

All I know is there hasn't been any .22lr ammo to buy locally here in Wal-Mart since January of 2013. So we are 3 years in to this .22 drought. Sure you can find it in gun stores locally at an inflated price. But the prices for the raw materials have dropped a lot. Copper, Tin to make brass and even Lead prices have fallen from recent levels. Yet the prices of ammo have not fallen. I would have to ask myself though, if Wal Mart had lots of stock of 550 round brick for $25 on the shelves, would I buy some? Yeah, I think I would. I don't need it, yet I would buy it. Some posters here have reported good supply's at good prices. I haven't seen it. Maybe people locally here are more into hoarding/prepping. I don't know. If we have a progun president take office on January 20th 2017, maybe things will change. I just don't know. The article says the ammo companies are not expanding their production, because they don't think the demand will justify the costs of opening another plant. OK. But guys it has been 3 years. You could have built the dang plant by now and have the production. Or is it just best to keep prices high?

The problem is nobody knew and still doesn't know now how long this will last. Difficult to spend millions on a new facility and hire a bunch of people when all this could go away tomorrow. The problem I feel right now are all the hoarders. Stores are trying to limit qty's per person, but these same people keep going back in or send their wives, or friends in to buy.

 

[300UGUY]

I think the corporations involved in ammo production, can well afford the expertise to predict the best point between production and investing in new production. A plant running 3 shifts is very efficient, and with a market that will take all that it can produce, very profitable. Investing in a new plant may not be as profitable. If you double production, and increase cost, you probably will not be very profitable.

The bottom line, these folks are in it to make money. Nobody owes you cheap ammo.

There is no such thing as a normal price. There is a market price. You either buy or not.

 

[om21braz]

I think the corporations involved in ammo production, can well afford the expertise to predict the best point between production and investing in new production. A plant running 3 shifts is very efficient, and with a market that will take all that it can produce, very profitable. Investing in a new plant may not be as profitable. If you double production, and increase cost, you probably will not be very profitable.

The bottom line, these folks are in it to make money. Nobody owes you cheap ammo.

There is no such thing as a normal price. There is a market price. You either buy or not.

I know as little as 3 years ago Remington was still using the same machinery to make 1100/11-87/11-48 receivers as used in 1950's. Actually quite unique equipment mfg'd by Hoagland, I think. It uses a turret to move a large steel bar stock to each of 6 stations - each operation utilizes a cam to machine the profile in X & Y axis.

 

[k0ua]

I think the corporations involved in ammo production, can well afford the expertise to predict the best point between production and investing in new production. A plant running 3 shifts is very efficient, and with a market that will take all that it can produce, very profitable. Investing in a new plant may not be as profitable. If you double production, and increase cost, you probably will not be very profitable.

The bottom line, these folks are in it to make money. Nobody owes you cheap ammo.

There is no such thing as a normal price. There is a market price. You either buy or not.

True, BUT, there is more to the story. There always is. Wal-Mart is still selling .22 ammo not much above the original prices in 2012. Only problem is people wait in line and clean them out and resell the product. Send in the wife, send in the kids. send in the grandma, whatever it takes to buy up the product for resale. It is price gouging by everyone else. I don't know for sure what the ammunition companies are charging the wholesalers, and the wholesalers the distributors, but I suspect the price doesn't get raised all that much until the final sale.

 

[300UGUY]

I know as little as 3 years ago Remington was still using the same machinery to make 1100/11-87/11-48 receivers as used in 1950's. Actually quite unique equipment mfg'd by Hoagland, I think. It uses a turret to move a large steel bar stock to each of 6 stations - each operation utilizes a cam to machine the profile in X & Y axis.

That machinery was paid for decades ago. Probably little labor involved, so no savings in going to a newer system. Tooling cost might be cheap also. Makes money every time they turn it on!

The .22 rim fire plants have to love this. Their machines have a extremely high utilization factor. A steady stream of money.

 

[rtimgray]

I really don't think that there is an overarching conspiracy, but as others have said: it's just supply and demand. I work in a food manufacturing plant, and it takes around 1-2 years to install a new production line; and I think our equipment is cheap relative to ammunition manufacturing equipment, and we still spend between 20-30 million dollars. And you have to do that with the "guarantee" that the business to support the investment will be there in the end.

The reason that we do it is because we are trying to get business away from competitors, because there is a limited amount of demand, so to speak. When it comes to .22 ammo no, the demand is basically unlimited. So in that respect, in my opinion, unlimited demand has almost the opposite effect: If all manufacturers can sell all they make (and I doubt that it is a terribly profitable item), then why invest more money into it? You're not necessarily going to get business away from competitors, and the risk-to-reward ratio may not be that attractive, just in case the demand does suddenly go down.

In my area, .22 ammo is no longer hard to find, but the price has settled at about $5 for a box of 50, or a variable thereof. While market price is always variable, I use this as my personal benchmark for the "New Normal". One local store has thousands of rounds in stock of all different varieties, priced at this level and slightly above. Another local store's supply varies week to week, and occasionally they have some for sale at $4 for a box of 50 (limit of 2 to 5 per person, depending on how much stock they have).

I've been ordering off of Academy Sports website lately. I check it periodically and just this week I was able to order two bulk boxes of Federal (325 in the box) for $17.99 each (about 5.5 cents per round). They do free shipping for orders over $25, so I just wait for the Fedex truck to drop it off. They were also selling Monarch .308 (which I think is Russian, but I'm not sure) for $7.99 per box, so I picked up some of that too.

I honestly don't know how much ammo I have. For most of my old milsurp rifles, I have somewhere around 100 to 500 round each, just depending on caliber (and some of it is old, old ammo, but it goes bang when I shoot it). For the modern calibers, I probably have a few thousand of each, but I don't keep track of it. I will go for a long time without shooting anything, then some friends will come over and we will blow through a thousand rounds in an afternoon....

Good luck and take care.

 

[kenmac]

I can find as much 22 as I need...example ::. $30.00 for 555 rounds of winchester (there are also other brands available as well) this is at field and stream.. wal mart here has very little ammo for any gun

Someone mention that materials for ammo has dropped in price..I had a few old batteries laying around, that I decided to take to scrap..I only got $1.50 each for those batteries.. I remember when any old battery was bringing 5-6 bucks each