Wow, I actually found .22LR on sale at local store!

I was in a Gander Mountain today, and they had an entire shelf full of 22LR for 10 cents a round. That's not a great price, and I'm sure there was a purchase limit. But that was about the first time I've seen 22 on a box-store shelf literally in years, and not only that, and they had hundreds of boxes.

Dicks is selling the Federal 325 round boxes for $19.99. It seems to be in stock regularly now.

I've had pretty good luck finding .22lr at Academy the past three months or so, but its still limit one for the bulk packs so its hardly worth a trip there for only .22lr ammo.

At last weeks gun show there was tons of $0.10/round ammo and no buyers. I found some CCI Bazer bricks for $30/500 and I could buy all I could carry, which was only three because of recent back issues and a 15 minute hike back to the car

Nothing at Walmart---Cabela's had a pretty decent selection and quantity the last time I was in there.

On the note of semi-autos. I was able to buy 500 rounds of the CCI Sub-Sonic LR HP (1150 FPS), and its performance through the suppressor was fantastic. It was grouping as good as the mini-mags.

I've seen plenty of Armscor and CCI at a little gun shop in St. Charles, MO called Old Glory Guns. They're asking $49/brick, though. Probably why they have plenty.

My wife picked up a couple of boxes of the Federal AutoMatch from the new Gander Mtn in O'Fallon, IL a few weeks ago. It shoots fine in her finicky Walther P22. Haven't shot it yet in anything else we have. Seems OK, though, so far.

Today the Lawton, OK Academy store is loaded with .22 ammunition. There is a 20 foot long counter accessible only to cashiers. The counter is stacked high with numerous brands of .22 long rifle ammunition. Federal Auto Match is $17.99 for a box of 325 rounds.

Federal Auto Match is good quality stuff. At 50 yards my Ruger 10/22 rifles make < 3/4" five shot groups.

It's pretty much non-existant in my neck of the woods yet

Yeah i can get it anytime now. My LGS always has it... bout 8 cents per round. Sometimes I can find it cheaper. I do shoot the federal automatch. I really like it.

I was in a Gander Mountain today, and they had an entire shelf full of 22LR for 10 cents a round. That's not a great price.....

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Gander Mountain usually has ammo when others don't because to be drunk enough to pay their prices usually results in wrecking the car before you get there.

Fremmer said:

I went back and bought another 325 round pack of the federal.
Can't beat it at 6 cents a round.

By the way, anyone ever use Federal AutoMatch .22LR ammo? Box says 40 grain solid, 1200 fps, claims to be target grade accuracy and optimized for semi-autos. I've not seen it before today.

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Some guns do well with Federal AutoMatch, others don't. Wally World here has some so I bought two packs. Shot about half of one in my autoloaders, and had poor accuracy. Gave them to a coworker for her kids to plink with, and they burned through them.

As with any .22lr, accuracy varies considerably with various guns and ammo. I try to keep a variety of ammo on hand to test each gun and find it's preference.

The Wal-Mart near our place has it available at least 2-3 times a month. Sometimes CCI MiniMags; the Federal AutoMatch was the flavor this month @ 5.3 cents per round
I hope the folks in Bentonville stay in the game with ammo.

To me, .22lr sightings are like Yeti sightings... I know people who claim to have seen him, I even trust that they believe they saw what they think they saw, but until I see it for myself, it just can't be real

There was a pile of cci standard, a hand full of the higher end winchester in 0lastic sleeves and some elley last time I was in cabelas the cci was 10 cents a round and limited to two boxes of 50 so I vocaly passed seemed to make two other people who were looking at it mulling over the price do the same

You know I am glad to see it on the shelves once in a while, it is still hit and miss here in Mesa AZ. But I think my days of shooting 22 lr are over. To me it was always about the cheap fun of shooting a few hundred rounds in an outing and it costing less than 20$. I might go as high as 25$ for a box of 500, if thats all my daughter will ever shoot maybe 30$ and limit how much we plink, but I won't pay more than that. I can reload other rounds that pack more punch for nearly the same price when I cast. Sure it's more work but it's something to do, which I need since I have given up TV.
I understand supply and demand and I just don't demand it enough to pay those high prices. It's sad those days are gone.

I picked up a couple of bricks of Blazers for $29.99 / brick at our local low cost, no haggle, no gouging gun shop the other day.

Didn't really want to pay that for them, but I have only 1 brick of Blazers and would like to try them out - I left 1 brick on the shelf.

Our local shop's deliveries have been picking up over the last month or two.
He's had a lot of Federal AutoMatch for $24.99 / box, but I always pass as I have plenty of them.

Only thing I'm on the hunt for these days is CCI Standard Velocity bricks ($39.99 / brick last I bought) and the never seen in these parts Federal Suppressor 22LR. Looks like the Federal Suppressor ammo is their flavor of CCI Standard Velocity with the added benefit of a plated bullet (less gunk when cleaning silencers).

Glad to hear that the supply is catching up with demand elsewhere. In the south Georgia areas it's not on the shelves yet. Folks behind the counter still laugh at me when I ask if the have any in stock.

Hopefully the retail inventories will get back to "normal" around my area before the next ammo/gun scare. I will never call anyone a hoarder - when it comes available locally I'll be laying in a huge stockpile cheaply too, & it won't be for resale. Presidential election season is in full swing, & the scares develop from politics as far as I can tell, so there is always the possibility of another ammo shortage depending on the election results.

i don't really understand why .22 got hit so hard by panic buys, i don't recall even the most rabid regressives calling for a .22lr ban.

My daughter has an Appleseed shoot tomorrow and the ammo that she is going to use is ammo that I accumulated stopping by Walmart at 7:00 a.m.

Lord Teapot said:

i don't really understand why .22 got hit so hard by panic buys, i don't recall even the most rabid regressives calling for a .22lr ban.

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This has been covered extensively here, but, in a nutshell, .22 firearms became essentially replacements for centerfire rifles that people feared would disappear from availability after the Sandy Hook shooting. Coupled with the serious increase in new shooters over the past few years, supply simply couldn't keep up with demand. That started a panic, which just exacerbated the problem.

Although I'm not at all pleased with the "new" prices on .22LR, I am certainly glad to see it starting to return to store shelves on a wider basis.

basicblur said:

I picked up a couple of bricks of Blazers for $29.99 / brick at our local low cost, no haggle, no gouging gun shop the other day.

Didn't really want to pay that for them, but I have only 1 brick of Blazers and would like to try them out - I left 1 brick on the shelf.

Our local shop's deliveries have been picking up over the last month or two.
He's had a lot of Federal AutoMatch for $24.99 / box, but I always pass as I have plenty of them.

Only thing I'm on the hunt for these days is CCI Standard Velocity bricks ($39.99 / brick last I bought) and the never seen in these parts Federal Suppressor 22LR. Looks like the Federal Suppressor ammo is their flavor of CCI Standard Velocity with the added benefit of a plated bullet (less gunk when cleaning silencers).

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That about 6 cent per round .... Personally, I'm fine with that particularly for that stuff.

Its basically CCI Minimag but LRN instead of copper washed/plated. Good stuff if you dont mind shooting LRN.


I just got the same for about 8.5 cents 'delivered' because I still cant find stuff readily available on the shelf locally.


When you compare the raw material amounts to, for ex, 9mm, the current prices are in line.

Lord Teapot said:

i don't really understand why .22 got hit so hard by panic buys, i don't recall even the most rabid regressives calling for a .22lr ban.

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Because it was the cheapest ammunition available at the time and when 500 rounds cost $20 and everyone knew that prices were going to spike after Newtown, people went to Walmart, Dick's, and other lgs and sporting goods stores, they bought bricks of .22 by the shopping cart.

And that's part of the reason you're never going to see .22 sell for $20/brick anymore is because people woof it up. At $40/brick, people are less likely to buy the store out of it because of the cost.

And here's another reason why I think the .22 LR shortage days are over: we're going into a recession. Wages and hours are going to be going down and people won't be able to pay $40/500 rounds and likely won't be able to pay $20/300 rounds. So, the demand is going to be going down very quickly at a time where .22 LR production has never been higher. The market is going to be FLOODED with the generic CCI Mini Mags, CCI Standard Velocity, and Federal/Winchester/Remington bulk packs of .22.

In complete contradiction to what I said in my last post, prices may actually go back down to $20/brick, but that will not last long because when the economic slump ends, the manufacturers will have already scaled back production and will wait, months probably,for the orders to come in and then it'll take them a month or so to get caught back up to the equilibrium point.

Sooner or later, and it might take years, people will quit stockpiling and prices will level off. It will take time, but I would say $20 a brick is not unrealistic. Pre-panic, I wouldn't pay $20 for a brick.

Because it was the cheapest ammunition available at the time and when 500 rounds cost $20 and everyone knew that prices were going to spike after Newtown, people went to Walmart, Dick's, and other lgs and sporting goods stores, they bought bricks of .22 by the shopping cart.

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I think that was the 2nd reason on my list of why 22 disappeared.
The first reason (in this perfect storm) is folks like me that didn't own a 22 or had only single shot 22's.

I had no interest in 22 until the glut of nice 22 clones of my bigger guns - AR15's, 1911's, etc. I went from buying / shooting no 22 to shooting a LOT with my various 22 semi-autos.

Just cruise over to YouTube and see how many folks are shooting the various semi-auto 22's that have come out over the last few years - there's apparently a LOT of folks like myself. I know I have a number of friends in the same boat as I, and I've seen how many of those M&P 15-22's have gone out the shop doors over the last few years.

I feel the increase in the amount of 22 being shot has gone way up over the last few years. Couple that with ammo makers not wanting to expand (some finally have), the panic buying, and the shortage bringing out the flippers and you have the makings of a perfect storm AFA 22 shortages.

BTW - I heard quite a while ago Tom Gresham said it took a while, but some 22 ammo companies finally decided when the buying tapers off, the new normal will be much higher than it was in the past, hence their decision to finally expand production.

If the shortage was only caused by panic buying, etc., their would probably not be a "new normal". The vast increase of folks buying / shooting much more ammo due to all those new semi-auto 22's is no doubt what has caused the new normal to be quite a bit higher than in the past.