.22LR Ammo…

Stopped in at Cabela’s Rogers last night to pick up a couple of things. Quickly I made the loop around the store starting in the fishing section and finished at the gun section. To my surprise I found 22 ammo. Boxes of 50 for $5, OUCH. They also had plastic containers of 650 rounds for $40 which equates to $3.08 per box of 50.

I have been dangerously low on this ammo and stared at the container of 650 for a while hemming and hawing whether I should grab a box. After 5 minutes of agonizing to buy or pass, I did finally grab the box. I brought it home and asked the better half to wrap it and put it under the tree for me.

When you run across .22LR, how much is it being sold for?

It seems the days of .99 for a box of 50 are long gone and $3.08 didn’t seem too bad with today’s climate.

I actually have to applaud what Cabela’s and other retailers seem to be doing to break the run on .22 ammo caused by hoarders and slimy resellers. By raising the price, they have actually done every a huge favor by taking the margin out of it for these slimy resellers who have been gobbling up all the .22 ammo for the past 2 years and reselling it in pawn shops and online.

This will also make the hoarders think twice about adding to their basement stockpile of 100k rounds.

I also noticed Cabelas had it on the shelf for the first time in almost 3 years. I did a double take at the price, but in my opinion that’s actually helping the long-term goal of getting supplies built up and breaking the back of the hoarders and resellers who have caused this shortage in the first place.

Grouse

I haven’t seen any on shelves in…I can’t remember the last time. I’d have bought some at that price. It’s on the high side, but I haven’t shot my .22 in over a year because I don’t want to burn up the little bit of ammo I have! I even pillaged every drawer at our cabin to find whatever I could.

I’m seeing it more and more frequent as I stop in at various dealers. Most of it has been the lighter target stuff. I haven’t looked too closely at the price

Gander still cant or wont keep it on the shelves.

There was not a whole lot at Cabela’s and I was told that it would most likely be gone by this time today.

I just got lucky.

All you can do is keep checking. I found some at Scheels not too long ago. It was under $5 but could only buy 3 50 Rd boxes. My grandkids can burn that up in less than 15 minutes.

Cabelas in Mitchell SD had some when we stopped on our way out Pheasant hunting the last week in Oct. there was a one box limit at the time. Nice to see some back on the shelf again.

I saw some in 4 seasons for $5 for 50.

I’ve held off buying a .22 for the kid because for three years straight I haven’t seen any ammo to run through it. Seems pointless to own a gun I can’t shoot.
Visited the in-laws over Thanksgiving; he sent me home with an old .22 Stevens and even better, a full box of 100! Price tag on the box was $18.99(OUCH!). I thanked him for the gun and tried paying him for the shells, but he wouldn’t let me. I lucked out in my choice of in-laws by the way, they’re awesome!
I ran a whopping 2 shells through the gun to see how straight it shot then put it away. I’m still hunting for shells though…
I remember as a teenager hunting rabbits with a .22; between rabbits and old cans and whatnot lying around, it was nothing to plink away 100 shells in an afternoon. Guess those days are gone.

My buddy who is getting up in years, gave me a brick of 500 a while back. He said he was paring down his inventory.

reverend wrote:

I ran a whopping 2 shells through the gun to see how straight it shot then put it away. I’m still hunting for shells though…
I remember as a teenager hunting rabbits with a .22; between rabbits and old cans and whatnot lying around, it was nothing to plink away 100 shells in an afternoon. Guess those days are gone.

As hard as this lack of .22 rimfire has been, I don’t think it will be like this forever.

The main causes were hoarders and resellers. The conditions that fuel the fire of these two groups have largely passed. There are only so many hoarders and they can only hoard so much and the product has to be available (and priced) to facilitate hoarding. You can’t hoard what you can’t buy or can’t afford. Resellers can only sell what they can get their hands on and only if there is demand willing to pay a premium.

If the recovery pace continues, there will enough of a supply by the middle of 2015 that everyone will have the opportunity to at least get some. Hopefully by this time in 2015, there will be regular availability on most store shelves AND the ammo makers will have increased capacity so that this kind of a bottom-out doesn’t happen again.

Grouse

I cant believe there a single person on this website that cannot find ammo online if they really want it. I’m flush with .22LR because I rarely shoot it anymore even though I have 3 .22’s. If anyone needs an emergency 1-500 rounds and cannot locate I would be happy to help them find some online.

Boom! Here’s one. Need a friend or two to go in on it with you. 5000 rounds.

http://shop.katactical.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=rem22lr500thunder40case&Click=36

Bam! Here’s another one. Both may be gone by the time most read this.

http://palmettostatearmory.com/index.php/ammunition/rimfire-ammunition/american-eagle-22lr-38gr-copper-plated-hp.html

Those 5000 rounds work out to be over 11 cents a round plus shipping. The online prices are a bit high in my opinion. When you find them locally they are more like 5-6 cents around. Those are the ones people are looking for, at least that is what I am looking for

Hi guys,
Thought I would weigh in on this. Every day in our store someone tells me that bricks of .22lr should be $10 and 50 count boxes should be $.99 and then they proceed to accuse of price gouging. I will tell you that unless you are looking at the absolute bottom of the barrel .22lr there are no $10 bricks any longer. Cost from the manufacture is considerably higher than that. Are the prices a little high still? yes. But there are several contributing factors to that including: cost of shipping, cost of lead, cost of brass etc. Everything is against the market. For some reason people also consider all .22lr ammo the same. I have ammo that runs .09 cents per round and some that runs 4 times that. Like other ammo there are different qualities. Winchester white box and cci blazer should be .07 or so cents per round. Cci mini mag is approaching .13 – .15.

Not to sound to old here but how many things in life are you still paying the same price you were 3, 5, or 10 years ago? How many of you thought you would pay $30k, 40k, 50 or 70k for a boat? How about a single ice jig for $2.99 or an ice reel for $50 – $100, that’s a lot more than your jiggle stick use to cost.

In closing. There is some gouging going on out there but I do not believe it is being done by most of the brick and mortar retail stores. Mainly it is being done by private citizens and internet auction sites. The cost has gone up and I promise you I make way better margin on a scoop of Fathead minnows than I do on a box of .22lr. If I sold it at cost there would be complaints that it is still to high.

Ok, that’s enough. We do have .22lr in stock if anyone needs a few rounds.

I did the same as Suzuki. I’m tired of spending gas money hoping to run into some .22LR. Because I drive truck and get around some, I’ve got family members that are down to their last 100 rounds asking me to help them find some. Well, I did. I bought 5000 rounds at $45/brick. Private sellers are meeting or exceeding $100/brick with no one buying but I found a retailer on the east coast worth supporting. That’s .09 cents/shot……. which is far more expensive than I’ve ever paid but it’ll be a LONG time before we run out again and no more “making the loop” at the stores. What I bought was Federals, 38gr. copper plated HP, 1260FPS. Compared to most online offerings, I did very well and if the shelves stock up again and my family can get it cheaper…… so be it. If it ever runs dry again, I’ll have a stash they can pull from.