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Shortage of .22 ammo

O

oneshot

Member
I dont know about where you live but around here it is impossible to find any .22 shells at any price. I am not buying to hord or stockpile I just want to replace the ones I or the grand kids shot up.

I think this problem could be solved real quick if they would only sell to those bringing back the empty 22 shells. Bring back 50, buy 50. By doing that you could eliminate the hordes and the resellers and we all would have some ammo to use. I can use the 22 to get rid of some pesty crows while on my JD tractor.
 
Last weekend Cabelas had about 30 boxes on the shelf. 2 box per customer limit so I bought 2 and the wife bought 2 and the checkout girl put them on the same ticket. 2.99 a box.
 
Not just .22, but many other calibers as well. I was on Midway's site the other day. Most every calibers I have any interest in were out. Many were "no backorder." Many bullets (projectiles only) for reloading were in short supply as well. I've heard the .22 manufacturers are building them as ast as they can. Dono where they all going.
 
After 6 months of looking I finally found a local bulk pack (222 rds) of HVHP for $16.99. Seemed to be able to get plenty of std vel round nose but HVHP was what I wanted. Most of the places that have 22 available have it because the price is over 10 cents a round.
 
You can find .22 ammo around here but you have to look for it. Every time I go by a gun shop or place that sells ammo I stop in but I don't go out of my way looking for ammo. The hard ammo to find around here is .25 cal. and 380 cal. hard ball but can find 20 round boxs of hollow points.
 
Midway just sent me an email offering it. They also have a deal where you can get a package of .22 and .223 combined. I have plenty of .22, but not because I want or hord it. Friends over in Illinois that couldn't get it at any price asked me to pick it up and they'd pay me back, so I did. I've had about 1,000 rounds of .22 lead at 4 cents per round, and FMJ at 5 cents per round forever because I don't use it much. So, I picked up boxes for them that cost me 9 - 10 cents per round for lead, 11 - 12 cents per round for FMJ. That's pretty expensive, but they asked for it and I bought it for them and when I handed them the receipts, not asking a penny more, just give me what it cost me, they all balked at it. Now have over 3,000 more rounds than I used to, AFTER giving a .22 and 1,000 rounds to my brother-in-law to teach my nieces.

Good luck.

Mark
 
Do not know where you are but I can buy 22LR all day long for around $5 a box of 50. Not 22mag well I only have around 90 rounds and can not find any any place so far.
 
Difficult to impossible to find here in SE AZ. I know one guy that is trying to make a living by buying all he can find and selling it for $70.00 a brick. That is all he does all week, drive from store to store looking for 22. Sells it on the side of the road. People still buy it. Foolish. I haven't bought any in a couple of years. Always too late.
 
When ever I find any and don't need it for my own use I have friends that work all week long and don't have time to look for it so I sell it to them at what ever I pay for it.
 
Local WalMart has a sign on the sports counter that if they receive a shipment that .22 shells will be available at 8:00 a.m. People start lining up at 7:00, in hope that a shipment came in during the night.
 
We probably have close to 5000 rounds of 22. My wife is a handgun instructor, and uses her 22s for the ladies. There are lots of 22 available around here, and for the most part it is back down to under $5 for a box of 50. I bought 4 boxes of 22 mags the other day. They had been on order for over a month, and are pricey to shoot. I think my 223 is cheaper to shoot, but a person needs a rifle in each piece of rolling stock, don't they?
 
(quoted from post at 17:13:51 04/08/15) Not just .22, but many other calibers as well. I was on Midway's site the other day. Most every calibers I have any interest in were out. Many were "no backorder." Many bullets (projectiles only) for reloading were in short supply as well. I've heard the .22 manufacturers are building them as ast as they can. Dono where they all going.
Click to expand...

Yes. That is the same thing I am finding out. Empty brass and powder are also in short supply. I don't think anyone is hoarding it. It is just that the demand outgrew the supply with very little warning.
 
How much are you looking for. We have it around here. They just built a cabelas right down the street. They have plenty but you only buy 1 box. You can buy 1 box of 50,or 1 box of 100 or 1 brick
 
Ventura Munitions almost always has them and advertises them regularly. I have ordered from them online several times. Easy to do biz with and prompt shipping.
 
(quoted from post at 02:14:19 04/09/15) You can find .22 ammo around here but you have to look for it. Every time I go by a gun shop or place that sells ammo I stop in but I don't go out of my way looking for ammo. The hard ammo to find around here is .25 cal. and 380 cal. hard ball but can find 20 round boxs of hollow points.
Click to expand...

I've seen lots of .25 on-line but don't want to pay the price they want, plus shipping, cheapest has been 50 cents a shell up to almost a buck. That's too much for something that small, at least to me. FIL gave me a little .25 auto but he didn't have any ammo for it, I still don't have any for it.
 
To me the .25 cal. ammo has always been expensive for its size. The cheapest that I have found flipping through online is $20.00 for 50 round. I bought my wife a .25 to carry. It was made by one of the major firearms companies . The first time at the range my wife put three magazines through it ok and on the fourth one it had a major malfunction. Dealer sent it back to manufacture and they repaired no charge but we never used it after that and traded for 380 which we still have and has had no problems with it.
 
The main problem with only selling to former owners is that it eliminates new owners.

Many gun stores have .22 "in back" so that they have some to sell with each new gun.

The .22 supply is starting to catch up and prices are better sometimes. I was at a Cabellas last week and you could buy two boxes of 50 for 6 cents per round. With demand and inflation of materials, I doubt that it will be found much cheaper very often.

So while you may not find any locally at any price, you can buy lots of it for a certain price online, and time and gas are also money when it comes to driving to all random stores looking for some.....
poke, buy, plink
 
You really don't have to waste gas if you know all the places in your area that sells ammo. For example if your going to the auto parts store and your going to drive past two stores that handle ammo just stop in and check. I have found all my ammo that way and I never drive out of the way to find ammo.
 
I'm glad that you have found some that way. It seems that some parts of the USA have more on the shelves more often than other parts.

I have looked at every store that I have walked into for a couple of years (just for fun) and not one round for sale until the last six months. It has also been 15 cents per round, making it cheaper to shoot .17 HMR if you found it on sale.

To make it farmer related, none of us want to sell $3 corn if someone else is offering $7 for it!
 
I actually cannot recall the last time I was able to purchase .22 LR ammunition off the shelf locally. December 2012 was when all the chaos started with this,and I had sufficient stock then, and have used same sparingly since. Did get 3 boxes of short rifle, last summer though. Its always rumored to be in and out so fast, you never have a chance at it anyway. Rumor had it that on sunday evenings at the Walmart here, they get a shipment in and that local law enforcement shows up and gets all of it. So I sat in the parking lot to see and sure enough 2 patrol cars park at the entrance and they come and go with it. Saw it again last week, 2 sheriff deputies parked at that main entrance. Sales clerk confirmed it too. They get preference or what I do not know.

NYS banned us from ordering it ourselves, so now its a real hassle if you want to order through whatever their definition is of an approved seller or dealer is. Given the fact that its rarely or never on the shelf, and there are those who had or obtained stock of this ammunition that were advertising locally with extreme mark ups on price, literally ripping people off legally for profit.

So in a sense you just can't find it on the surface and its hard to figure a work around, unless you know someone involved in some manner or another, personally, I do not and its hassle to drive all over the place checking to see if they have any.

Prior to that, you and everyone else just bought it as needed, to resupply, be it for plinking, target practice or for killing varmints if they are pests. We were desensitized to think this kind of scenario would never become reality, it is and I'd like to think that little man in state office with a chip on his shoulder had every intent of causing this problem, we were not able to vote him out and we had a lot of rallies to garner votes against him, it was not enough, so now its either complain or try again in 4 years.

The sad thing is that anyone needing it for vermin that are getting into a garden, farm buildings or fields, may not be able to. When was there ever a shortage of .22 ammunition prior to the recent times?

This past weekend was a family get together at another's farm and we always did some plinking after dinner, just can't do that anymore.

We get taxed heavily and this is the thanks we get. Might be time to find a place in VT, at least they can order off the web.
 
The WalMart nearest to me has had a sign posted on the ammo shelves..."We DO NOT have .22 LR ammunition."

A lot of others on here have posted on here about how their local WalMart has .22LR often.

I wonder if the store managers and clerks are getting those off the pallets and buying them before they ever hit the shelves? Then, they sell them on other sites. Just a thought...
 
I can tell you from personal experience that firearms dealers work on criminally low markups. You have to sell outrageous volumes of about anything you market to make anything at all. Farming and logging are a piece of cake compared to the firearms business. If you don't believe me, I suggest you get a FFL and try it for a few years. You will be in for one heck of a shock.


The above is not intended to be smart aleckey but simply FYI.
 
I have read about-- hard to find .22 ammo. Every week a local 'on-line' auction (biddegy) has 12 to 15 listings of .22 for sale, some 50 lot, some bigger. box of 50 usually goes for $8.
 

A friend and a long time resident of the town, has been a firearms/ammo dealer-ffl holder for quite some time. He had some involvement at the springfield armory towards the end in the 60's. He used to deal in very large quantities of ammunition, some of which I have seen, much of it was elsewhere in off site storage locations. He also sold overseas. His shop is where he lives, but a separate building of course. I recall he kept a detailed ledger, was subject to random audit as I understood it + all the other red tape. This was long before the way it is now. Myself and many others bought quite a bit through him over the years. Definitely not an easy business.

Some of the ads, for both firearms and ammunition, such as .22 LR sure spiked upwards in price. Many of these ads were just hard to believe given what they were asking.
 
(quoted from post at 21:08:08 04/09/15) Can't order online in the Pipple's Republik of NY. God, I hate NY City and everything and everyone in it!
Click to expand...


You gotta go further north than that Don, try about 20 miles north of the Albany line. We need to split the state in half.
 
(quoted from post at 18:13:51 04/08/15) Not just .22, but many other calibers as well. I was on Midway's site the other day. Most every calibers I have any interest in were out. Many were "no backorder." Many bullets (projectiles only) for reloading were in short supply as well. I've heard the .22 manufacturers are building them as ast as they can. Dono where they all going.
Click to expand...

I've heard that pretty much ALL government departments have been instructed to buy as much ammo as possible (even if they are not supposed to be tasked with security or law-enforcement). Kinda didn't believe that BUT then a few weeks ago a one-time only news blurb stated that the government was disposing of 'surplus' stocks of ammunition (15 million dollars worth) :shock: There was an accompanying video of a pretty big bonfire in a barren landscape where, it appeared, there was little to burn ....... so, it's one of those 'mysteries' of politics, I reckon :roll:
 
(quoted from post at 08:54:43 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 18:13:51 04/08/15) Not just .22, but many other calibers as well. I was on Midway's site the other day. Most every calibers I have any interest in were out. Many were "no backorder." Many bullets (projectiles only) for reloading were in short supply as well. I've heard the .22 manufacturers are building them as ast as they can. Dono where they all going.
Click to expand...

I've heard that pretty much ALL government departments have been instructed to buy as much ammo as possible (even if they are not supposed to be tasked with security or law-enforcement). Kinda didn't believe that BUT then a few weeks ago a one-time only news blurb stated that the government was disposing of 'surplus' stocks of ammunition (15 million dollars worth) :shock: There was an accompanying video of a pretty big bonfire in a barren landscape where, it appeared, there was little to burn ....... so, it's one of those 'mysteries' of politics, I reckon :roll:
Click to expand...

A bonfire might render the ammo unuseable, but I doubt if it would be rendered totally inert.
 
I am retired Air Force and me and the wife were in the Base Exchange yesterday and I was talking with the guy at the gun counter about 22 ammo. He said they can't keep it on the shelf. Guys around here are buying it up from them as well as Walmart and selling it at gun shows for triple the price. He said the stupid thing is people are buying it. Crazy, kind of like selling snow balls on Craigslist, just make no sense what people will buy these days. I have been to auctions and watch people give double for used stuff they could still get in the store. To each his own. Think I'll go in the ammo business.
 
(quoted from post at 16:43:10 04/08/15) They can be ordered thru the
Cabelas web site pretty much all the time.
Click to expand...

Just looked on Cabellas web site. They have one kind, CCI. $4.99 for a box of 50. And a limit of 1.

Not what I would actually classify as an ammunition windfall.

Gene
 

I've been doing a little on-line shopping. Several websites have .22 long rifle, but it is either the higher priced "match grade" stuff, or it is the cheap, "subsonic" stuff. Subsonic has a very weak powder charge, or maybe no powder at all. Just the primer. Don't know what you would use it for.
 
(quoted from post at 12:39:46 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 08:54:43 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 18:13:51 04/08/15)
Click to expand...

I've heard that pretty much ALL government departments have been instructed to buy as much ammo as possible (even if they are not supposed to be tasked with security or law-enforcement). Kinda didn't believe that BUT then a few weeks ago a one-time only news blurb stated that the government was disposing of 'surplus' stocks of ammunition (15 million dollars worth) :shock: There was an accompanying video of a pretty big bonfire in a barren landscape where, it appeared, there was little to burn ....... so, it's one of those 'mysteries' of politics, I reckon :roll:
Click to expand...

A bonfire might render the ammo unuseable, but I doubt if it would be rendered totally inert.
Click to expand...

Soooo..... what's your point? :?
 
(quoted from post at 01:40:33 04/19/15)
(quoted from post at 12:39:46 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 08:54:43 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 18:13:51 04/08/15)
Click to expand...

I've heard that pretty much ALL government departments have been instructed to buy as much ammo as possible (even if they are not supposed to be tasked with security or law-enforcement). Kinda didn't believe that BUT then a few weeks ago a one-time only news blurb stated that the government was disposing of 'surplus' stocks of ammunition (15 million dollars worth) :shock: There was an accompanying video of a pretty big bonfire in a barren landscape where, it appeared, there was little to burn ....... so, it's one of those 'mysteries' of politics, I reckon :roll:
Click to expand...

A bonfire might render the ammo unuseable, but I doubt if it would be rendered totally inert.
Click to expand...

Soooo..... what's your point? :?
Click to expand...

A bonfire, assuming one where the ammo was all exposed to the heat, is going to cause the primers to pop, powder to burn and case to burst. That's about as inert as you can get.
 
(quoted from post at 23:40:33 04/18/15)
(quoted from post at 12:39:46 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 08:54:43 04/11/15)
(quoted from post at 18:13:51 04/08/15)
Click to expand...

I've heard that pretty much ALL government departments have been instructed to buy as much ammo as possible (even if they are not supposed to be tasked with security or law-enforcement). Kinda didn't believe that BUT then a few weeks ago a one-time only news blurb stated that the government was disposing of 'surplus' stocks of ammunition (15 million dollars worth) :shock: There was an accompanying video of a pretty big bonfire in a barren landscape where, it appeared, there was little to burn ....... so, it's one of those 'mysteries' of politics, I reckon :roll:
Click to expand...

A bonfire might render the ammo unuseable, but I doubt if it would be rendered totally inert.
Click to expand...

Soooo..... what's your point? :?
Click to expand...

Isnt it obvious? Burning is unreliable and as such, the goverment does not dispose of surplus ammunition in "bonfires". The goverment disassembles it then sells(recycles) the raw components. Thats why you only saw one news report, because the single news report was so drastically wrong the other stations didnt want to look like fools as well.

Sorry you got duped but it happens. If you want to buy some of the components, you can buy them many places. Here is one. http://www.gibrass.com/
 
(quoted from post at 10:48:30 04/19/15)
I've seen ammo that went through a housefire. It was dis-colored and nasty looking, but fully intact.
Click to expand...

Then it wasn't exposed to enough heat, simple as that. Like the other post said, bonfires are unreliable.
 
You may want to read this Thanks external_link
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/16881-epa-closure-of-last-lead-smelting-plant-to-impact-ammunition-production
 
You may want to read this
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/16881-epa-closure-of-last-lead-smelting-plant-to-impact-ammunition-production
 
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