.22 reload

Yes all that is great and will work fine until components run out. A mold, a stash of lead and an air rifle can feed you. Not to mention the stash of lead can be rather small and last for a very long time. I have an old Benjamin that I've had since I was a young buck, and it still works to this day. Heck most good air rifles today rival 22LR ballistics no sweat. I don't know what velocity my old Benjamin shoots at but it has no problem dusting small game. With that said, I have all the firearms supplies, but an Air rifle and a mold is a good idea for any rainy day stash.
 
I have a Handi-rifle in .223 and several hundred .223 cases. I can get around 900 loads out of a pound of powder and over 150 bullets out of a pound of lead. (I have 8 lbs. of the powder and 1,000 lbs of lead and mebbe 3K small primers). To say I'm gonna run out of supplies and should buy an air gun is silly...
 
The only point I'm trying to make is an Air rifle is a good addition to a "stash" no matter how many components you may have. Having a plan "B" is always a good idea. I'm not one to put all the eggs in one basket so to speak. I brought up the air gun because I see it as a better way than the .22lr kit.
 
Mike, you are obviously one of the guys would can't own too much ammo, yet you don't want to get an extra gun and a few more thousand rounds for it? You disappointed me, dude.
 
Personally, I can't get enough guns (I recently picked up an AK 74 with 1K rounds of ammo for free! I prolly would have bought an AR at some time in the future, but what would I want with an AK? Got it anyway and is it cool! Now I have a plan "D"!).

But I was addressing the lack of availability for 22 rimfire ammo. Rather than go with a whole different system and have to buy a mold anyway, I have several calibers that would "stand in" perfectly for 22 lr. But for me it would be a moot point, as I have about 10 bricks of .22 and maybe 50 loose boxes in my stash (not panic buying, I bought a bit here and there over a few years, usually a brick of 22s or primers whenever I visited my friendly firearms/ammo pusher...:p).
 
In a pinch, an airgun will definitely keep ya' in enough snakes, birds, chubby chipmunks and small yappy dogs to stay well fed.
And just plain ole' enough shooting to not even miss .22 rimfires.
 
I have recently started doing some tests with a .22 power load (nail gun blank) loaded behind a 55gr cast bullet using the Lee .225 Bator mold. I can get the power loads for a lot cheaper than .22LR ammo these days and in fact, I can get them for even cheaper than just *primers* for centerfire reloads. The #1 (gray) loads seem to be about the equivalent of standard velocity .22LR. The #2 (brown) loads seem to be about like the hyper velocity .22LR, maybe a bit more. This works better with a break-action (or even bolt-action) than it does with a semi-auto. Pure lead bullets will resize as you push them into the rifling without too much difficulty, but bullets case from pure clip-on wheelweights or even 50:50 WW:Pb are often difficult to fully chamber.
 
(I have 8 lbs. of the powder and 1,000 lbs of lead and mebbe 3K small primers). To say I'm gonna run out of supplies and should buy an air gun is silly...
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No it isn't... You have enough lead to last a good while, enough powder for 7200 loads, and enough primers for 3k. I don't even shoot very often, but I will burn through at least 3k rounds in a year between the kids and I. That's a very light year, its probably closer to 5k a year normally. So you have a couple a years worth of supply with powder. A year being stingy with the primers. Maybe 5 years worth of lead if you stretch it out. This is just my shooting habit. I know there are people here who shoot way more.

I've long wanted a PCP air rifle, probably a Sam Yang in .357. My brothers FIL had one, and he and I can pick off 20oz bottle tops at 25 yards with it using a patched OO buckshot ball. Energy is around 160 ft-lbs. Alas, to get set up you can drop 1k at a minimum.
 
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