Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

I did get a moderate order in today for some .22LR Winchester Super-X 40 grain High Velocity Ammo - Hollow Point Power-Point, 1280fps. Not exactly what I was looking for but it'll have to do until I'm able to get the Fed. 510B again.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Crap I feel like a total tool, I was at my local sporting good store a week or two ago and there was a pile of Winchester 333rd bulk packs. I thought about buying all of it and hooking up you guys that are in need, not to worry it won't happen again. They will have some more in, when they get it I'll stock up and let you all know.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Don't know if this is always true or not regarding the Midway notifications but I got one today for an item I was looking for and went to the web site and it showed out of stock when I got to the page. However, I noticed the URL they had sent in the email was different than the URL being displayed on the web site even though it was for the same item number.

When I then clicked on the URL included in the email, the page displayed showed the item in stock and I was able to purchase it. Going back to the location I had navigated to using the web site and reloading it, continued to show the item as out stock when re-displayed.

Like I said, not sure if it works this way all the time... just something to try and be aware of.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Midway is where I found the Winchester ammo, and that was just luck. Last time I checked Midway they had nothing, not even the Fed. 510B they notified me of having.

One of the sites I was looking for .22 ammo on had expected availabilty dates listed and some was listed for, June, September, and October...

I've seen/heard of the Appleseeders program. I expect if one was to combine them, the Camp Perry matches, and NRA matches, along with any other matches that large quanities of .22 ammo is required,,, there is
I'm sure a large portion of this ammo in demand and allocated to these programs.

Still, the number of .22LR users that do not go to these programs or matches, I would certainly think out number them all by quite a bit?

I guess we have no choice but to ride this shortage out and keep an eye out for .22 ammo when it is available even if we have to make concessions and switch to another brand of ammo because it's available,,, something I personally hate to do, but what can you do if you want to shoot?

 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Distributers.

Manufacturers don't ship much of their production to retailers, most of it goes to the distributers. If there's anything fishy going on, like withholding shipments to create artificial shortages, that's my best guess about where it's taking place.

Greg
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Where is the free market?
Why isn't someone taking advantage of the supply - demand disconnect?
Makes me start to wonder about conspiracies...
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tigerbikes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Makes me start to wonder about conspiracies...</div></div>

Me too
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

I don't have any hard facts,just rumors that investors are buying up what they can and putting it in warehouses driving the price up. Do I beleive this? I think it could be possible. Remenber back some years with coffee, and then sugar? I find it hard to beleive that ammo makers are running 24/7 and have been for some time and the store shelf's just collect more dust every day. Last week I was laughing at the prices on gunbroker for primers and thinking who would pay that. This week I am thinking I may have to before they are all gone because they are getting their asking price. We have a mess on our hands folks.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: oldgrayone</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I don't have any hard facts,just rumors that investors are buying up what they can and putting it in warehouses driving the price up. Do I beleive this? I think it could be possible. Remenber back some years with coffee, and then sugar? I find it hard to beleive that ammo makers are running 24/7 and have been for some time and the store shelf's just collect more dust every day. Last week I was laughing at the prices on gunbroker for primers and thinking who would pay that. This week I am thinking I may have to before they are all gone because they are getting their asking price. We have a mess on our hands folks. </div></div>

"We have a mess on our hands folks."

I certainly think you are on to something here. Remember that it wasn't that long ago that CCI/Speer called back something like 80 workers who had been laid off? Well, maybe manufactures are running 24/7,,, only with about a 25% crew??? The last I heard there was over 5 million folks unemployed. I wonder how many are firearm industry related - such as ammo manufacturing???

What I keep hearing from our suppliers is that all this ammo is allocated... All the ammo both handgun and rifle... Allocated to who is what I'd like to know?

Unless I missed it, why hasn't the NRA addressed this shortage?




 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

The manufacturing community is a large contributer to NRA coffers. I seriously doubt the NRA would be pointing accusatory fingers at some of their largest benefactors.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Greg Langelius *</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The manufacturing community is a large contributer to NRA coffers. I seriously doubt the NRA would be pointing accusatory fingers at some of their largest benefactors. </div></div>

Good point, Greg!

A slight nudge might be nice however...
smile.gif
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

I have been hitting WALMART in each town I go thru to stock up on cci stingers, have 5K of wolf mt
only problem is at all walmarts here in the midwest they will only allow you to buy 6 boxes max each purchase or 300 rounds.
so in 5 stores 1500 rounds total .
Have to play the stock up game

Rifles are great to have but no good is you cannot feed them
Bill
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

The .22LR is gone because the demand is exceeding the supply. People are buying 4-10 bricks instead of 1-2 because of all the sheeple panic buying going on. The same with .380 ACP, one sheep screamed the sky was falling and all of a sudden .380 ACP is the most popular round and flys off the shelves because "it was all gone" when they came in the last time. So now we are having to limit ammo purchases because people are too damn stupid to do it on their own.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

I guessing that in 3-6 months things will settle down, as long as the current admin doesn't do anything to further the current panic. The manufacturers all went through this in the '90's and know that it won't last - thus they have every incentive to churn out as much product as possible while they can sell it for higher than normal prices. This is especially true now that metals prices (lead and copper) have dropped back down. This will be helped by the fact that even the sheeple currently buying will finally wake up and realize that they have more than they will regularly shoot in 10 years.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Of course that's what people said in Oct....3-6 months it would all be back to normal and guys would be dumping the stuff they horded for cheap....yet here we are, worse than Nov. for ammo and components and no one is dumping anything for cheap.

It's not going to get better in 3 months when ammo suppliers are quoting 6+ months for current major orders to dealers, with the shooting season pretty well in full swing now nation wide the shortages are only going to increase demand through the summer. The shortage itself creates more demand and more people that if they do find ammo are going to buy all they can get. 10 months ago the only people buying up huge amounts of stuff were those that could see the writing on the wall and wanted to get what they could for good prices before the insanity. Now EVERYONE is hording, from the guy that bought 10 boxes of deer rifle shells, to the guys buying bricks of .22 shells when they find them to the average shooter who has figured out that nine times out of ten when they walk in the gun store they don't have any ammo so when they do have it, they buy it in bulk. It won't stop until the supply can keep up, and evidently the manufacturers cannot or will not increase production to those levels. Maybe it's to keep prices high, maybe they can't get components, the real reason does not matter. The bottom line is, demand is going to go up through the shooting season, and probably even into hunting season. If that time passes and there has been no further talk of a ban/etc. and supply can catch up....maybe a few more months after that it might settle down.

It's a viscous cycle and it's only going to get better by the supply increasing significantly and there's no sign of that anytime soon. That and if the admin even breathes a new thought about gun control etc. it will get even worse.

It may shift around a bit.....for example in January you couldn't find an AR or Pmag hardly, now they are both fairly available but prices are still high, and demand is still way up but at least they are available. In 6 months you might find ammo but it might shift to something else that's impossible to get.

There was no major ammo shortage in the 90's nothing even remotely close to what we are seeing right now, not even in the same ballpark. I'd be willing to bet we have not seen an ammo shortage on this scale since WWII. I know dealers that have been in the business for 40+ years they've never had this kind of issue getting ammo, period.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

Good thoughts ToddM.

I'm setting here thinking that with this .22 ammo shortage, I wonder why the importers haven't picked up on this and flooded the market with affordable .22LR?

The market is here. You'd think some manufacturer somewhere would pick up on this and increase production.

Just throwing out some thoughts...
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

If you look, I believe you can see evidence that supply of some of the in-demand items is either catching up or the market is actually starting to get saturated. I no longer see stripped AR15 receivers instantaneously disappearing when priced at $250-300. If you look, people are actually having to drop their prices, sometimes below $150, to sell them. AR lower parts kits and BCG's are showing similar if slower drops in market prices.

It's just a matter of time - the question is how much time.
 
Re: Where Has All The .22LR Ammo Gone?

That is true, prices have fallen from their peak in the AR market for somethings, and they are out there, but for the most part prices are still higher than pre-Nov. AR's are still selling higher than they were and availability is not very good, bolt groups, lower parts kits, pmags while getting more available are still hard to find depending on what you want. Try finding a AR 308 bolt or bolt carrier group, or DPMS 308 mags right now for anywhere near retail. So it does eb and flow and respond to the market. The difference is that not everyone wants or needs an AR, that rush is over, but every shooter out there needs ammo, or reloading components if they want to shoot.

The huge AR buying mass is over for now, but one word about a ban from the admin and it would be right back in full swing. Right now I think what we are seeing is a combination of a few things.

First you have the guys that bought massive guns in the Nov to say March range, gun sales were through the roof. Those people are now switching to stockpiling ammo for those guns.

Second you have the guys that already had guns that want to stock up on ammo instead. Those guys for the most part are probably done buying ammo cause they started early when most were buying up guns, prices were good, and supply was good.

Third you have the general shooters, converted to horders because they can't find ammo anywhere local so they have turned to searching hard for it and buying a lot more than normal when they find it. I'd guess this is probably the biggest group buying ammo right now along with those that have bought a ton of guns in the last few months. Demand from this group is huge because they are so vast in numbers and as the summer goes on and ammo stays short in supply, it's going to get a lot worse.

Fourth you have gun shops that have been stockpiling ammo waiting for prices to go up. This is probably a minor fraction but it has happened. The same happened with AR's and such when the rush first started lots of shops stuck stuff in the back room hoping to make more $ on it later when supply was gone.

Fifth speculators....guys that are buying huge quantities of ammo in hopes that prices and demand stay high to make a quick buck on it. I've talked to a couple guys in walmart over the past few months that bought literally tens of thousands of dollars of ammo and components and are reselling it on places like gunbroker etc.

Sixth, add in all the multiple conspiracy theories here.

Barring something big from admin, things will return to normal and supply will catch back up as demand falls off. The big question to this is when. I'd be willing to bet it will not even come close to happening until most of the country is outside their typical shooting season and hunting season is over, that puts it at least another 6 months before it starts to improve, and probably another 3-6 months after that to recover to most ammo being back in supply. That's only if no further word on gun control is heard. The instant a news article comes up about a AWB or gun control issue, or any of that sort of stuff demand will skyrocket again.