Rimfire Shortage-What are your buying habits?

2

22-rimfire

New member
I enjoy exploring the nature of the shortage and the psychology behind people's buying habits for promotional grade 22 ammo which is the majority of what is purchased and shot/consumed.

Summarize what you did before/do now and what you would like to do relative to "stocking up". If you could, how much 22 ammo would you purchase at the big box stores at one time now? How much did you typically buy before the Nov 2007 presidential election and the Dec 2012 Sandy Hook event? Basically what was “normal” for you? How important was/is price?

I kept a few thousand rounds on hand prior to 2007. Most of it was promotional grade ammo (mostly Remington and Federal), but I also kept a fair amount of middle grade standard velocity ammo beginning around the year 2000. I seldom bought bulk packs. After 2000, I started keeping a few bricks of better target grade ammo as well as a varied assortment of ammo for testing rifles as I acquired them. That is when I started shooting for groups just for the fun of it.

Now, I still have a healthy cache of promotional grade 22 ammo and standard velocity stuff (CCI and Federal mostly). It is my experience that overall, it is hard to go wrong with CCI SV ammo and if you have a number of 22 rifles, some will shoot it pretty well at 50 yds.

If the price was right, meaning the sub $20-$25 for bulk pack pricing, how much would you buy now? How quickly would you likely shoot it up? What is your comfort level now versus before the shortage in terms of your cache?
 
I've always bought 22LR by the case, 5M rounds. Bought two a while back, one for 149.99 and the second for 225.00. They're half gone already.
And so it goes...
 
I do the case purchases now too, but mostly for what I hope is better ammunition versus promotional grade stuff (barring a really good price of course).
 
Habits are the same now as what they've always been! I always have between 4 and 6,000 rounds on hand, and it matters not to me what the price is, as even at inflated prices, the plinking enjoyment is worth it.

"Acquired" this habit from a great uncle of mine, now dead at least 25 years. He had an underground .22 range, going out from the basement of his garage. He had far more ammo on hand than I do, and he explained it, that he enjoyed shooting. Sometimes he would only take a dozen shots, other times it was a couple of boxes (he didn't own a semi-auto).
 
I would go back to purchasing bricks of .22lr the way I did before all this shortage nonsense began. I used to buy a brick or 2 a month, unless they were on sale. Then I might buy 4 or more depending on price.

I did not have the financial resources to buy more than that, and I guess I never felt the need, or the greed, to empty the shelf into my shopping cart. To be honest I still wouldn't empty the shelf even today if it was allowed. A brick or 2 a month meant I was purchasing at least 6000-12,000 rounds a year. That may seem like a lot but when my wife, sons, and I went shooting on a weekend we could easily go through 1000 rounds.
 
I never shot before Sandy Hook so my buying habits went from Paying $86 for a 325 round brick of Federal Auto Match (sad day) to buying just about any brand I liked if it was under 10 cents a round.
 
Before this nuttiness started, I kept around 1000 rounds of “premium” target .22LR and 3000 rounds of “blasting” .22LR in supply at most all times. Right now I have slightly more than that. If the madness comes to an end, I will stock, or at least attempt to stock 5 times that, just in case. I haven’t seen a box of .22LR in my local WalMart for over a year, and I check at least twice per week.. It’s crazy.
 
Not seeing anything at Walmart and no cheap ammo anywhere. I have been finding standard velocity target ammo fairly regularly however at some bigger local stores and at Academy sports. It is $6-$8/50 rounds, but has proven to be very accurate. I've bought about 1000 rounds in the last month. Not trying to be selfish and leaving some for others, but I pick up 2-4 boxes each time I'm there.
 
Always bought the bulk pack - 500 rd - ammo when it was available and affordable. Now I buy whatever I see if it's not at a ridiculous price. And that seldom happens.
 
I buy a brick now whenever it's less than 5-6 cents per. Cabelas had some last week, 5 cents per before tax, so I got a brick. Limit was one of course
 
I haven't bought rimfire ammo since about 2010. (Unless you want to count some .22 Colibri. :rolleyes:)

I buy when the price is right, and I buy in bulk.

Since neither of those options are currently obtainable, let alone both at the same time, I'm shooting what I have on hand.

At the current rate of consumption, on-hand .22 LR will last me 5-7 years.
And there's another 10+ years worth of .22 WMR.


However....
Since my last purchases, my two of my three preferred .22 LR loads have been discontinued by their manufacturers. I would like to believe that they will be brought back to the market if demand returns to "normal", but I have to plan on finding something else to use in the future. :(


I plan to get into relaoding later in the .308, but for now can u reload a .22 LR?
Click to expand...
Not safely.
Not reliably.
Not for long. (The rims can only be smashed and exposed to high pressure a certain number of times, before they rupture.)
 
I use to keep 500 rounds of 22 on hand because I could go to the store and get it whenever. Shooting on a private range whenever didn't eat it all that fast.

But today living in the city range day is a special occasion and if I bring Melody with me I need to bring 3 times as much as I would normally shoot.

These days I keep 3000 rounds on hand. I would prefer 6,000 because I like taking new shooters to the range and 22 is a lot cheaper than 30-06 and kinder on the shoulder.

Yesterday I actually bought 1000 rounds. Went into one store selling Aquilla for $6 per 50 and they probably had 300 boxes but I didn't want those. I walked into another store and saw 4 boxes of golden bullets on the shelf so I went to buy 2 of them and then the woman behind the counter said we have more if you want. Then she went into the back and started bringing out bulk packs she hadn't got to stocking yet so I got two packs of 500 for something like $38 a piece.
 
I never had more than few hundred rounds at a time. A brick is usually good for about two outings, or I'd split one with my brother. I'd always pick one up on the way out, or finish off the one I had.

I have half a brick in my closet now, and I don't want to shoot it since it will be a pain to replace.

I was about to buy a .22 pistol, and then the shortage hit.

I'm starting to think I'd be happier shooting and stocking up on centerfire instead.
 
.22LR is not that important to me, even though I have 4 .22 pistols and one kids .22 rifle. I'll buy a box of 500 if/when I find it again at Walmart when shopping for something else. I could go decades without shooting .22LR, and I have enough for my kid to shoot.
 
My buying habit is to,,,

My buying habit is to,,,
Buy every box of .22 I can find.

There is one caveat though,,,
I won't pay more than 7-8 cents a round.

Aarond

.
 
Very similar story here,
Prior to 2007, about 2k bulk pack plinking grade stuff, enough that I did not have to worry about replacing it immediatly.

After 2007, I scrambled to get anything I could find, when supplies returned back to normal, I tested out all the ammo, I found that what I have prefered cci standard, and federal automatch. So I ended up trading off all the other brands I had, and replaced with cci and federal. About 5k total Of standard velocity stuff.

The rifles like either wolf match, or sk standard, so about 5-6 bricks of that.(not included in previous round counts) I won't go over $65 a brick for that.
This gives me enough to be able to shoot when I want, but I still find myself shooting rimfire as a treat, and semi rationing my shooting. A bulk pack for me and the missus, or about 2-3 boxes for the rifle an outing now.

At a dime a piece,for standard stuff, I find that I can load 38 special and 9 mm for that cost, so that is what I have been doing.

But it has not stopped me from shooting rimfire, just made me more selective in when I shoot and what I buy.
 
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"Good stuff" used to be CCI HV. Now it's SV and bricks usually of Eley and SK/Wolf. Times have changed for me at least with rifles. Still have the plinking stuff for the 10/22. But it was never one of my favorite rifles anyway even though it shot pretty well out of the box.

My first case that I ever purchased was some PMC Moderators that ended up shooting really well in one of my rifles around 2005. I believe it was discontinued ammo at the time as PMC was getting out of the 22 business. Ended up buying 2.5 cases of that stuff after I saw how it shot; would have bought more but it was gone. So, all of it gets saved for that one particular rifle (TC Lynx).
 
Haven't bought any rim fire in years.

The reason to shoot 22lr went away...

I shot it because it was fun cheap and easy to find..

The fun is all that is left, and it got canceled out by the absence of the other benefits.

Still have a couple of 22 rifles, just no longer shooting them

When I did buy it, I'd go to the store, grab what I thought I was going to consume that day, then went and shot it all. Repeat next time.
 
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