.22 rimfire - is the drought over?

[bbbass]

I only have a treble of bricks put away. But I don't need much since my shooting buddy passed and there is no place to shoot Beldens anymore. I keep getting invited to .22 steel matches but I'm way too slow to compete with those folks. So my supply should last for awhile as long as the SHTF don't happen.

BTW I store my ammo in plastic containers now. A coupla years back I had an entire 500rd brick of Remington copper plate corrode out in the garage.

 

[bbbass]

I don't order online because the wife has a hissy fit when I use the credit card, and I won't use debit online. So I too cruise Bi-Mart... but they rarely have any. Walmart I don't even bother with. Ace Hardware had bricks during the holidays and now has 50rd boxes, quite a few, at $3.99 per.

Started shooting my .22cal pellet gun just for plinking and probably will stay with that for a bit. Might go to the .22 silhouette shoots but yikey getting out in this crud is sure off-putting to say the least.

 

[The Heretic]

Capitalism. I think the .22 rim fire outrage will end when you can go into any big box store and buy a brick of 500 of good ammo for about 10 bucks. Maybe 15 bucks. For excellent match ammo maybe 20 bucks. No more. Until then it is all about profit which is good for them but not for us. Just saying.

Not going to happen - I don't think.

Been too many years since bulk ammo was 2 cents per round, and that was on sale.

Today, with online prices and free shipping, brick and mortar stores just can't compete - unless they are Walmart or someone that size that can get huge wholesale discounts. I don't see even Walmart putting a priority on trying to compete in this arena.

 

[The Heretic]

I believe many shooters turned away from 22 because of availability and took up reloading center fire in pistol calibers.
I suspect many will not return, I haven't...yet

I started reloading back in the late 70s when I was poor and could not afford practice ammo, but I have always had a fondness for .22 RF - it is what I grew up with and I never "graduated" from it. I have more .22 RF firearms than I do any other type of firearm, by far. Just too much fun for little effort and expense.

While I have "big boy" guns, and I like them, it can get old shooting them - but it never gets old shooting a rimfire. There may come a time when I can't shoot most of my centerfires anymore, but I hope I will always be able to shoot my rimfires.

 

[Alexx1401]

.22LR has got to be theeeee most popular caliber and the planet...

The supplies may be up but .22LR is still over priced; probably not going to come down-much either.

The price you see now that I generically call the "Wally Price" is as good as it's going to get. Wal-Mart has sold it at normal mark up all through this. As price would rise I have tried to explain this. It seems the people who can't miss the price of .22 ammo are blind when they go to the grocery store. The US has been printing money to prop up the economy for a LONG time. You can't do that and not have inflation. The press has been ignoring this for the whole time Odumbo was in office to protect him. They can't hide it when you go to the store to buy something to eat. .22 ammo is never going to be $10 a brick again guys.

 

[Alexx1401]

I started reloading back in the late 70s when I was poor and could not afford practice ammo, but I have always had a fondness for .22 RF - it is what I grew up with and I never "graduated" from it. I have more .22 RF firearms than I do any other type of firearm, by far. Just too much fun for little effort and expense.

While I have "big boy" guns, and I like them, it can get old shooting them - but it never gets old shooting a rimfire. There may come a time when I can't shoot most of my centerfires anymore, but I hope I will always be able to shoot my rimfires.

I too started rolling in the 70's. At first due to buying a few little 44 specials to play with and factory ammo was all but nil. I learned to stop selling my .22's. Every time I did since I was bored with them I missed them. Would soon buy another. To me they are still just fun, too much fun. Not to mention how nice they are when someone new wants to learn to shoot. Even during the worst of the panic shortage I never saw the guns slow down on sales. My Wife bought me a 22/45 LITE for Christmas in the middle of this panic. She had to buy it on line to get one. Damn guns were selling like hot cakes even when people played hell getting ammo.

 

[PaulB47]

According to the inflation calculator (which is probably optimistic), a dollar in 1970 is worth $6.22 today. It may be that .22 ammo is about as cheap in constant dollars as it has ever been. Maybe somebody can pick the cheapest price they know, and the date for that price, and we can find out...
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

 

[Tilos]

According to the inflation calculator (which is probably optimistic), a dollar in 1970 is worth $6.22 today. It may be that .22 ammo is about as cheap in constant dollars as it has ever been. Maybe somebody can pick the cheapest price they know, and the date for that price, and we can find out...
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Go buy a sheet of 7/16 OSB after a couple of years

 

[The Heretic]

I remember buying .22 RF Blazer ammo for 2 cents a round on sale - but not exactly sure how long ago. Maybe the 80s maybe 90s, probably not after 2000?

 

[mjbskwim]

I don't know about in the gettos but over here we have it on the shelves all the time.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

I have a brick of .22 that I bought around 1970. At the time I was making around $2.00 an hour and it is priced at $7.49. At minimum wage today, lets say $10.00 an hour the equivalent price would be $37-38.00 for a brick. To me everything is relevant to how many hours you have to work for it. At the same time I could have bought a little over 6 gals of gas for one hour of work.

 

[xuout1]

I believe it's gotten far better. But...

I'm on auto pilot when I enter Bi Mart, and I head straight for the ammo counter. More times than not, they are still void of .22 rimfire ammo.

I do the same thing at Bimart. Now 50% of the time they have the 50 or 100 count box's in. Remember to take a picture of the lucky Tuesday numbers and send it to your friends.

 

[boogerhook]

I got unlimited CCI mini mags for 10 cents a round, and Velocitors for 14 cents a round. While expensive, much more available than just a few months ago. I haven't seen Velocitors on the shelves for ages.