.22 ammo. Does anyone know for real?

[mbl]

Check Bruno Shooters Supply in PHX. Eley Sport for $3.20/box. Many cases currnetly on hand (although 2 less than yesterday as they are now at my house), $320/case.

 

[Bryan]

I have reloaded a lot of R-P 223 brass and never found any with crimped primers. PMC I don't know about, federal 223 brass has crimped primers. It has been my experience that they de-prime easily, but you will crush the new primer trying to put it in.

 

[57springer]

IMHO the biggest shame is folks NOT having an ample supply of something as inexpensive as 22 LR on-hand. What were people thinking when WalMart was selling 525 round bricks for around $10 or $15? I don't go there often, but when I did, I'd grab a carton. Doing this it didn't take long to accumulate a few thousand rounds. Same with 7.62x39. For a while my Friday routine was to run by Academy on the way home from work and buy 5 boxes @ 3.99 per. Didn't take long, or much money and I had nice stash of ammo for my SKS's, not to mention plenty of components so I could handload it. Same with primers, catch 'em on sale and pick up 5000 here and there. Lead for casting bullets, powder, brass. If you see it, BUY IT! Even under "normal" circumstances, none of this stuff is going to get any cheaper.

I hate to say it fellas, but this all boils down to not planning ahead. It blows my mind that folks want to go shoot their .22's so they go to the store and buy just enough ammo for that outing.

And last of all, it isn't "gouging" by dealers. Ammo, at least at this point, is not a life-sustaining commodity like food, water and medical supplies. Folks like CTD and your local dealers have monthly expenses that are constant; utilities, wages, taxes, etc. When they have less of a product to sell, (less money coming in) but have these constant expenses (same money going out), they attempt to make up for the reduced income by raising prices. That coupled with good ol' supply and demand cause prices to go up. When people stop paying the high prices for ammunition, the prices will decrease.

All this whining about the lack of ammunition and components (both times) reminds me of a saying my former boss had on the wall of his office: "A lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on my part."

Plan ahead fellas!

could not agree more :wink:

 

[LAH]

PMC and Remington brass. LGS says crimped.
gramps

If it's PMC & Remington brass they will be boxer primed. Unless something is keeping the decapping pin from centering the flash hole they should deprime like any other case. If you are breaking pins there is something wrong besides the brass.

Is the decapping pin adjusted out enough? If you are crushing cases perhaps your expander ball is too high in the die causing the neck of the brass to be pinched between the expander ball & the neck of the die? This would certainly crush the case & fail to decap the brass.

 

[Ruber]

OK, I'm going to dissect this just to add some perspective. Not trying to get on anyone's case, I've heard this a bunch of times from a bunch of folks and wanted to share personal experience and that of friends.

IMHO the biggest shame is folks NOT having an ample supply of something as inexpensive as 22 LR on-hand. What were people thinking when WalMart was selling 525 round bricks for around $10 or $15? I don't go there often, but when I did, I'd grab a carton. Doing this it didn't take long to accumulate a few thousand rounds.

Ok, so "ample supply" is a few thousand rounds of bulk .22? This is not hunting ammo or match ammo (both of which are reasonably available), this is for plinking, casual matches, fun shoots and so on. As a father of two boys, we enjoy the monthly fun shoots, local silhouette and gallery shoots, and the casual matches at the local range. A few thousand rounds lasts about... a month. At $10 a brick, two bricks a weekend, for now a shortage of 6-7 months, we are talking about a $500 chunk of "fun time" ammo just to sit on for a rainy day. I used to hit the sales when bricks were under $5 and I've been lucky and am still living off some of that, but it's starting to thin out.

Same with 7.62x39. For a while my Friday routine was to run by Academy on the way home from work and buy 5 boxes @ 3.99 per.

For some, this still isn't "just enough ammo for that outing"

.... Same with primers, catch 'em on sale and pick up 5000 here and there. Lead for casting bullets, powder, brass. If you see it, BUY IT! Even under "normal" circumstances, none of this stuff is going to get any cheaper.

I totally agree that this stuff isn't getting cheaper, but there are still limited funds for many working folks. I wish I could afford all the Win 748 I might need for high power matches for the next 20 years, but I just ain't that rich...

I hate to say it fellas, but this all boils down to not planning ahead. It blows my mind that folks want to go shoot their .22's so they go to the store and buy just enough ammo for that outing.

I think this statement is unfair, a lot of the shortages are effecting clubs and youth groups that like to maintain several months of supply but are using increasingly limited funds and are seeing greater participation by newer shooters than in the previous several years. There are a lot of us that are doing what we can to make sure the kids get their time behind the sights. This is not about buying 'just enough for one outing'.

And last of all, it isn't "gouging" by dealers. Ammo, at least at this point, is not a life-sustaining commodity like food, water and medical supplies. Folks like CTD and your local dealers have monthly expenses that are constant; utilities, wages, taxes, etc. When they have less of a product to sell, (less money coming in) but have these constant expenses (same money going out), they attempt to make up for the reduced income by raising prices. That coupled with good ol' supply and demand cause prices to go up. When people stop paying the high prices for ammunition, the prices will decrease.

I see lots of dealers that are maintaining their prices close to what they were last year. I'm also seeing dealers that are purchasing in large amounts to then hold onto stock and sell it at much higher prices online or at gun shows. They are creating an artificially low supply by buying as much as they can to store in warehouses while selling only limited amounts at high price venues. I have no problem calling that "gouging". I've seen a couple shops locally that will not sell ammo they have on hand to walk in customers of several years just to take the ammo to the gun shows where they can get higher prices. Yes, that's capitalism, but at the same time, the regular buyers now have to go to one of the other local shops putting a greater demand on them.

All this whining about the lack of ammunition and components (both times) reminds me of a saying my former boss had on the wall of his office: "A lack of planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on my part."

Plan ahead fellas!

Noted, and it's not an emergency if the kids miss a match or two here or there. I still think it's unfortunate that youth shooting is taking a beating over this fiasco.

 

[Ruber]

I have reloaded a lot of R-P 223 brass and never found any with crimped primers. PMC I don't know about, federal 223 brass has crimped primers. It has been my experience that they de-prime easily, but you will crush the new primer trying to put it in.

That had been my experience too, but I've been seeing some interesting 223/5.56 brass come through. My new practices are to use a primer pocket swager on each piece. Nice and uniform, no crushed primers. I'll do that with all 223 brass I get, size and trim them, then keep them separate.

 

[308 Scout]

Allow me to elaborate some of my points:

Ok, so "ample supply" is a few thousand rounds of bulk .22? This is not hunting ammo or match ammo (both of which are reasonably available), this is for plinking, casual matches, fun shoots and so on. As a father of two boys, we enjoy the monthly fun shoots, local silhouette and gallery shoots, and the casual matches at the local range. A few thousand rounds lasts about... a month. At $10 a brick, two bricks a weekend, for now a shortage of 6-7 months, we are talking about a $500 chunk of "fun time" ammo just to sit on for a rainy day. I used to hit the sales when bricks were under $5 and I've been lucky and am still living off some of that, but it's starting to thin out.

So you're telling me you shoot 1000 rounds of .22 LR per WEEK??? ("...two bricks a weekend,...") If so, I cannot understand why you haven't rat-holed tens-of-thousands of rounds. It sounds as though you're justifying NOT keeping plenty of .22 LR on hand because you shoot so much, which makes no sense to me. Also, I used to help coach our 4-H Smallbore Team. We discovered through extensive testing that plain-Jane CCI Blazer bulk pack ammunition shot very, very well through most of the club's rifles and the kids personal rifles. So, we ordered the stuff by the cases, at 5000 rounds per case, for the kids to shoot. I'm still on the clubs e-mail list and thus far, they've mentioned nothing about running low on ammunition.


FYI- The 7.62x39 I accumulated is rainy day ammo. I handload what I shoot.

I totally agree that this stuff isn't getting cheaper, but there are still limited funds for many working folks.

I wish I could afford all the Win 748 I might need for high power matches for the next 20 years, but I just ain't that rich...

I shoot High Power off and on too at our local reduced course matches. You're right, it can be quite expensive. At some point I realized how silly it was to launch a 25¢ (or more) bullet at 3000+ fps just to poke a hole in a piece of paper 100 yds. away. So, I picked up a $150 milsurp and learned to cast good bullets which lowered my ammo costs dropped from $30+ per match to about $5 and I have enough components to shoot for years. And I subsequently proceeded to earn an Expert classification.

I think this is unfair, a lot of the shortages are effecting clubs and youth groups that like to maintain several months of supply but are using increasingly limited funds and are seeing greater participation by newer shooters than in the previous several years. There are a lot of us that are doing what we can to make sure the kids get their time behind the sights.

See above. Life is full of little bumps that can usually be softened by...planning.

I see lots of dealers that are maintaining their prices close to what they were last year. I'm also seeing dealers that are purchasing in large amounts to then hold onto stock and sell it at much higher prices online or at gun shows. They are creating an artificially low supply by buying as much as they can to store in warehouses while selling only limited amounts at high price venues. I have no problem calling that "gouging". I've seen a couple shops locally that will not sell ammo they have on hand to walk in customers of several years just to take the ammo to the gun shows where they can get higher prices. Yes, that's capitalism, but at the same time, the regular buyers now have to go to one of the other local shops putting a greater demand on them.

I don't quite understand. You're telling me you know of dealers who have .22 LR ammunition? And enough to store in warehouses?? I don't know how when none of the wholesalers have it. My suggestion would be to note EVER buy from them again.

Noted, and it's not an emergency if the kids miss a match or two here or there. I still think it's unfortunate that youth shooting is taking a beating over this fiasco.

It is unfortunate, but it'll pass.

I'm by no stretch of the imagination rich, but shooting is an absolute passionate addiction for me. For the last 8 or so years, I've lived in a rural area which added even more strain to my shooting budget as I shoot now almost daily, so I planned for it.

Some suggestions:
Get an additional job. I work one full and one, sometimes two, part-time jobs. Money from the part-time jobs has always funded ammunition and reloading component purchases for myself (High Power, skeet, clays, etc. and hunting leases and trips) and our four kids.

Be vigilant of deals. I recently purchased 500+ pounds of wheelweights to fuel my insatiable desire to lob 260 gr. bullets out of my Blackhawk almost daily. Cost for what will become 10,000+ cast bullets: about $150. A few years ago I ran across two 8 lb. jugs of WC-846 for $50 each. Keep one for loading AR ammunition and sell the other for $100. 8 lbs. of powder at no cost to me. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Think outside the box when looking for ammo or components.

Think, think, think. Buy way, WAY more than you need. My philosophy is if I wind up not needing it, I'll sell it to someone else and get my money back.

And last, someone once told me, "You make time (and/or money) for the things you really want to do."

 

[Mus408]

A local gun dealer,in our town, will only sell you 1 box of .22,when you purchase a .22 gun from him.
After that,unless you buy another .22 cal gun, no ammo for you!
A buddy of mine just purchased a Henry .22 rifle,and he was allowed to purchase only 1 box of 50 rounds. Now he has to stretch those fifty for a good while.
I wonder....would a .22 cal. lead air rifle pellet,inserted into the chamber,followed by a small fire cracker,do just a good a job? It would be cheap! :lol:

 

[mr surveyor]

A local gun dealer,in our town, will only sell you 1 box of .22,when you purchase a .22 gun from him.
After that,unless you buy another .22 cal gun, no ammo for you!
A buddy of mine just purchased a Henry .22 rifle,and he was allowed to purchase only 1 box of 50 rounds. Now he has to stretch those fifty for a good while.
I wonder....would a .22 cal. lead air rifle pellet,inserted into the chamber,followed by a small fire cracker,do just a good a job? It would be cheap! :lol:

 

[fido4x]

Nope.

 

[mr surveyor]

Nope.

personal experience?

 

[fido4x]

Nope.

personal experience?

:lol: I know nothing :roll: . You can read a ton of info on it around the web and I don't think anyone really knows for sure. IMO, if you are a manufacturer and can make multiple calibers, you're going to be pounding out the higher priced and likely more profitable calibers and 22 will be last on the list.

 

[Joewisc]

Had 10,000 rounds six months ago, down to 5K. A lot purchased in 2011/late 2012 before Newtown.