DeepSouth
Random Guy
I haven't seen 22lr on a shelf for sale in several years.
Easy answer on production. Companies are running at full capacity. Startup costs for a new rimfire line are well into 8 figures and only a few ammo companies in the world can afford that. Labor costs are high and margins are really thin. Also there is far more ammo being stockpiled than ammo being shot. It's too risky to raise that much capital for a demand spike that could be over in a couple years.Yeah, but does anyone know why? Was it in fear of the Obama administration doing something? And what's driving the continuing problem, greed? Is production down? Will a Republican in the White House change things or is this going to keep feeding on itself?
Why don't some of these companies increase production or outside companies begin production? Clearly there's a market for rimfire ammo. The prices of centerfire ammo are up, but at least you can get it. I'd hate to see this continue, as I suspect the people making most of the profit are the middle men who are jacking up prices. I've always felt that if more people could be persuaded to use .22WMR, that the prices of that ammo would drop and we'd end up with a better round to shoot. Things are so bad now that I'm buying WMR ammo for my Ruger Single-Six.
Meh - just check Walmart whenever you go in and you'll score some here and there.
I visit a Walmart maybe once every other week (I do my grocery shopping elsewhere), but I check the ammo counter every single time. In the last 2 years or so I've found .22 in stock about 7 or 8 times - about 3 of those times I found large bricks. Actually found some in there at midday last week.
check every day, i've seen .22 start to come back on the shelves sporadically, particularly cci.I don't bother with Walmart anymore. At least when it comes to hunting for .22 ammo. Still diddly-squat on the shelves around here.
There's a decent supply of other calibers however.