This may be heard in
entirely the wrong way, but that's not something I'll get bent outta shape over.
Last thing in the world I want to do (
truly!) is to support some of the prices we have seen by actually paying that kind of money for rimfire. I had a few boxes set aside and my master plan through this ridiculous drought & corresponding erratic market is to shoot
far less .22LR than I typically do. Used to be that I'd be on the range twice a month and burn roughly 1-2 bulks packs of rimfire per month in addition to my centerfire ammo. I've cut that down to about 25% of what I used to do, and now I'll have some trips where I don't do any rimfire at all.
So what I
don't want you to hear is that we should "accept the way it is now..." because I don't believe that.
HOWEVER... if you can force yourself to quit comparing the old price for rimfire up against the new price... and instead compare the NEW price of rimfire up against center fire, you'll find that there's still good reason, FINANCIAL reason, to choose to shoot rimfire.
A brick is 500 rounds. Bulk pack is same thing, 525 perhaps.
The
cheapest center fire ammo on the planet (not including chi-com surplus crap dug up from a dirt hole and manufactured in the 1950s...) is 9mm FMJ range ammo. Typically, 9mm FMJ ammo from a reputable brand is running like $13-$14 a box before tax.
So a brick of .22LR is the same number of shots as -ten- boxes of 9mm, and would cost $130 - $150 for the same shots fired. Sure, it's not the same thing, but depending on what you are asking the ammo to do, it's not a bad comparison.
Gun shows around me are selling the bulk packs or bricks of rimfire at $50-$60 and some sell, some don't. None of them priced at $65 or $70 sell at any show I've visited. So the rimfire is absolutely ridiculous when we have to pay twice or three times what we always have paid, but you're still talking about
HALF the price, shot by shot, as the cheapest center fire caliber out there.
The bottom line with my argument is that trying to replace .22LR because the market just plain SUCKS isn't going to be done in any tidy method if your plan is to replace it with
any other caliber.
If it's about being indignant and taking a stand against horrendous pricing, then
brother, I stand with you 100%. But if it is simply about the math and the money, replacing your shooting with .410... .9mm....38 Special... or even .22WMR, it's a losing proposition.
.22LR is nowhere near the cheap deal it used to be. But that's the secret. Until this market, most didn't really recognize what an outrageous
STEAL .22LR ammo has been for all of our lives.
And here's something else...
I was buying .22LR when I was in HS, that was 25 years ago. I paid $10 for a brick, but only when it was on sale. It was $16 a brick when it wasn't. And before the first Barackolypse (and for short bit before Sandy Hook, IIRC), I was getting Federal 525 bulk packs for
$15.99.
I can't think of another thing on this planet that held the same price at retail over the last quarter century. Maybe table salt... but I don't recall buying a lot of that.