Nearly a riot at the local Wal Mart,,,

There are some gun owners who were prepared and had a fair stock of .22LR on hand. Sooner or later, those will have used up their stock and will start replenishing, which will probably drag the shortage out futher
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Not as long as there are black powder and airsoft guns or bows here at the house.

The day I pay $50 or even $40 for a 500rd brick of .22's...look out your window cause there will be pigs roosting in your trees. ;)

I can shoot bp, airsoft and bows a long time for that kind of money. Not to mention reloading ammo I'd rather shoot anyways for less than 10 cents a rd.
 
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I bought 5250 rds. of CCI Blazer for $199.00 OR .038 cents a rd.

Doing simple math,
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Look more like Verizon Math to me :)

I am amazed at the inability of manufacturers to increase output of 22LR. I know the rimfires are manufactured on separate lines from the centerfires, but the contrasting availability of the two is perplexing. Not only are there domestic 22LR manufacturers but I am quite certain it is also a very widely produced round internationally. I guess the start-up costs for a small line is prohibitive to entry ad the expansion of a large line is very risky.
Still, I am amazed.

I am in the situation described above with a stockpile running low. I had enough to last a year with ease and now that year is over. I think I will just not shoot until spring. If I see a box at $22 or less locally I will almost certainly be picking it up.
 
If you want to bring up people selling ammo for a profit and being a snitch and telling the law then how about reporting gas station owners for price gouging. You used to make 5 cents a gallon profit on gas and now they are making up to .60 cents a gallon. While your at it throw in a charge for selling a 20 ounce coke for .10 cents less than a 2 liter coke sells for. It's supply in demand and America is greedy. If you buy a pack of baseball cards for $2 and pull out an autographed card and sell it on ebay for $25 I guess you would be breaking the law too since that's turning a profit aka business transaction. I could come up with scenarios all night.....
 
scalping

Around here, every unemployed, retired or non working slacker who has the time or has a relative at Wal Mart gets a call or text and they line up for the truck. They buy all they can and turn around and double there money at flea markets and yard sales. Gander Mountain is not much better. Its a racket.

I'll have none of it. The last time we went through this I bought ahead, just a brick when I was in town for something else. Got enough without being a jerk to get me through this I reckon.
 
I'm glad I'm not hurting for ammo. But then again I don't shoot near as much as some. Most ammo has been making its way back to local shelves but still not much .22. The last I bought was at a gun show. I got 3 boxes of Wolf MT and a box of Velocitors, all $8 each from the same guy. Oddly enough that was at the height of the shortage.
 
If the behavior mentioned by the OP isn't sobering, imagine when it's rice or corn being handed out to a starving population.

Shudder.

I have my fair share of ballistic wampum, built up over the past 20 years, simply by having a discipline of promptly buying 1.5 or 2 rounds for every 1 I shoot.

Haven't bought .22lr in well over a year, but I have enough should I start shooting it again, because of two decades of that applied principle.

Jeff Cooper's long-ago predictions about 22 lr being the hard currency of the future is looking a bit more realistic every day, though.
 
Something else about this I don't get: Unless you're shooting 1000 rounds a month, or storing your gold..er.. .22LR in hermetically sealed vapor proof bags, the stuff's got a shelf life. A rather short one from my experience. I've had a couple 500 round boxes of WWB that wasn't more than three years old go bad, just sitting in my closet. Every other shot was either a weak charge or FTF.

Maybe just my experience here... but sitting on 10k rounds of .22 sounds pretty stupid and wasteful. I just wanna buy a 500 round box without going through the hoarding motions, thus looking acting like all the other hoarders/scalpers. I probably only shoot 1000 rounds a year.
 
When people stop paying inflated prices
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That is not inflated pricing - it is market price - just like your restaurant has on the fresh lobster; it merely reflects what folks are willing to pay. If no on is willing to pay his ASKING price, then he will drop it until someone does; this is the same when you see a sale, then they add another discount, and then a clearance - they are trying to find the price level where folks consider it to be worth the exchange of their cash for the goods proferred for sale. As long as SOMEONE is WILLING to pay his asking price, then he has his goods priced correctly for the demand.
 
That is not inflated pricing - it is market price
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Good point; you got me there. I do agree that the prices will continue as long as the perception of demand is there.

Articles like this one keep warning about how guns and ammo will be a hedge against impending financial/societal collapse (which has been any day now for about six years running). As long as people are skittish and irrational, the hoarding continues. As long as the hoarding continues, so will scarcity.

I just figured folks would have calmed down by now. Just how much .22 LR does Joe Bob have in his basement, anyhow?
 
Tom Servo said:
Just how much .22 LR does Joe Bob have in his basement, anyhow?
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I'm amazed at how many people I have talked to that have 10-20,000 rounds on hand. Several have 50k or so. Some of them might need that much on hand if their family does a lot of rimfire shooting, but a majority have simply gotten caught up in the craze. Personally, I have about 1500 rounds laying around, and I've had that for years. At my present rate of consumption, it will last me around 30 years. If I shoot a box of 50 in year I'm doing good (.22 just isn't my cup of tea, I prefer shooting centerfire).

I think pretty soon the hoarders are going to run out of steam. Either the queen bee is going to get tired of $50-100 per week of the income being spent on ammo, or storage will become a factor, or they will simply become tired of buying because they feel they have enough. Perhaps some combination of those. If that does not happen soon, I think eventually ammo companies will ramp up production to meet demand. Up to now, they have exercised caution, since ammo demands generally drop within a few months and adding production capacity is expensive. We are now in unprecedented territory, demand-wise, so some with capital on hand may be able to justify plowing profits back into expanding plant production. Only time will tell.
 
OP, Thanks for the story and a good chuckle :D

Its retarded folks like that is the reason why we still have the ammo shortage.
They don't really need it, but it seems they have a childish desire to buy it or hoard it.
 
Nearly a riot at the local Wal Mart,,,
Okay, maybe riot is too strong of a word,,,
But people were pushing and shoving like in a movie.

All for 20 boxes of CCI Blazer.

I'm serious my friends,,,
I went to Wal Mart to buy a ham,,,
As I walked by the ammo case there it was,,,
Twenty 50 round boxes of CCI Blazer lead round nose.

The lone cashier was at the register ringing up someone,,,
So I left the case and got in line at the register,,,
In most cases people at the register go first.

I get there and tell the guy I want to buy 3 boxes of .22 LR,,,
He starts to go to the case and was literally mobbed,,,
I was reminded of hyenas going after a warthog.

People were shoving each other out of their way,,,
The poor guy almost didn't get the door of the case closed.

He got my three boxes and headed back to the register,,,
Then the hyena pack started crowding behind me,,,
He got on his radio and called for back-up.

He rang up my purchase at $2.47 per box,,,
But wouldn't ring up anyone else until a manager came.

So I stuck around just to see what would happen.

The manager talked to the cashier for a minute,,,
Then told everyone to make a line and he would ring them up.

One man bought his three rationed boxes,,,
Then got rather irate when the manager wouldn't let his wife buy three more.

In one sense it was a sad thing to watch,,,
But the perverse side of me was laughing inside.

I haven't seen this scenario since a Black Friday sale at Toys-R-Us,,,
People were getting in fistfights over the Tickle Me Elmo dolls.

As I turned to leave a gentleman offered me $5.00 each for the 3 boxes I had bought,,,
I turned him down as the boxes I obtained will be Christmas presents,,,
I have a friend with three boys and very little ammunition,,,
These 3 boxes will make me a hero in their eyes.
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doesn't surprise me one bit. makes you wonder if these individuals have disposable incomes and can afford to splurge on ammo every day of the week, or if they have no money and spend their rent to buy ammo.
 
Tom Servo said:
I just figured folks would have calmed down by now. Just how much .22 LR does Joe Bob have in his basement, anyhow?
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More than that.. I figured, by now, Joe Bob & ilk would have run out of money. Just how much of his monthly budget is available for ammo stockpiling, anyways?
 
If you can't find .22lr at a decent price here is my suggestion. Buy a Gamo air rifle. You can get them for under $200 and up depending on how fancy you want, pellets can be bought for less than $4 for a tin of 250. The rifles can be bought in .177 or .22 and the pellets come out at 1200 plus feet per second.

Yeah, I know it isn't a .22lr rifle, but shoting the pellet rifle is fun and it will take small game and pests. Plus, it saves your limited amounts of .22lr.
 
There are two Wal Marts in my town,,,

There are two Wal Marts in my town,,,
Both managers have started putting out the ammo at random times.

I was told by one employee that they were swamped by complaints,,,
About the people waiting at 5:00 AM to buy all they could get.

I missed out on buying Federal Bulk Packs by about 10 minutes,,,
That bummed me out because it's what I'm lowest on,,,
And it's what 4 of my best pistols love to eat.

The Evil Pawn Shop Guy said,,,
He has been assured by his distributor,,,
That by the end of March there will be plenty of rimfire.

Who knows if this is true or not,,,
But I have my fingers crossed in hope.

Until then I've oiled and cleaned most of my semi's,,,
From now on out it's revolvers and single-shot rifles for me.

BTW,,,
The three boxes of CCI that I bought,,,
They became good Stocking Stuffers from Santa Claus for my friends kids.

Aarond

.
 
I'm amazed at how many people I have talked to that have 10-20,000 rounds on hand.
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Same here, but I must admit that most of them are long time avid shooters. One of them is firearms coordinator at my agency. He's had his stockpile since pre-2008. He didn't really predict this mess, but he said that it was entirely possible and he wanted insurance. Looks like he was a smart man. I don't blame him for having a huge stockpile, he looked ahead and hasn't added to the craze.

Others (co-workers too), OTOH, had the timing down to the minute on which Walmart resupplied at what time of what day. I remember every Wednesday morning a group would take the bi-weekly trip to Gander Mountain together. They shot alot, but they sold alot of stuff on armslist as well. I profited on a rifle during the scare. I an AR that I had never shot because I had buyers remorse over it... soon as I saw the price on Gunbroker double what I paid for it it had to go. That's different though, or at least I feel like it is.

What really ticks me off about .22lr is the fact that my oldest little girl is learning to shoot. While I haven't been in danger of running out per se, we've had to ration our shooting to about half of what we otherwise would have. That ticks me off, especially when I see the guys that I know are buying it only to resell. My original buddy with 20k rounds won't let me run out, though. He will always sell me a box at decent prices (Wal Mart prices) if I want to take Amanda to the range.
 
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