Ok,, I'll clarify my knowledge about them still being built.
Just yesterday,, we spent the day in the NC State Grant Fund committee workshop for the annual FoNRA grants. We had 102 grant requests. The way it works is an applicant goes to the Foundation website,, fills out a grant application,, and asks for items to use in their educational shooting sports programs. The Foundation has an agreement with manufacturers about the products made available to the applicants. The Foundation supplies the products,, and they get them from the manufacturers.
One of the common requests we saw were for the Ruger American .22 RF compact for different camps & such. We granted some for different applicants. Since the Foundations warehouse isn't a huge place to pre-order & store a lot of product,, it relies upon manufacturers ability to supply it's needs.
So,, if Ruger wasn't going to supply them,, they would not have been available.
Local shops may not CURRENTLY have any but it doesn't mean they won't ever get them again. That's more likely a case of them not in the current production schedule. And the distributors are currently out of stock until more are made.
But I'll ask the folks at Ruger Tuesday while I'm at SHOT to be sure.