Posted on 01/12/2014 9:39:52 PM PST by servo1969
Let me tell you why you can't find any .22 ammo.
Yes, people are buying it and selling it online. Yes, people are hoarding it. But these alone are not enough to make the supply at gun stores as low as they've been. The manufacturers are cranking out .22 as fast they can. 24/7. Wide open. Some are still backlogged for over a year. Where is it going? Why isn't it reaching the smaller stores like it used to? Here's the secret: IT IS.
You see, when your local gun dealer tells you he only got a few boxes of .22, there's a chance he's lying right to your face. He didn't get just a few boxes of .22; He got a whole case. He even might be getting a case a week depending on his back-orders. But he knows he can't charge you 300-500% retail for ammo and have any customers left. So, he only puts maybe 25% of what he received on the shelf. (If it's high quality .22 like, say, CCI Mini-Mags he doesn't put any of it out! It's too hot a commodity to waste on you.) The rest he posts for sale under a fake name on GunBroker. He makes 10 - 30 cents a round from the suckers buying .22 there. And why are they buying it? Because they need .22 ammo and their local shops just can't seem to get any. Isn't that weird?
Now that's capitalism and that's how things work. If he can get that much and he doesn't care about anything but his bottom line then so be it. But capitalism works both ways. If people stopped buying .22 ammo at auction sites there would be no incentive for local FFLs to put their shipments online. They would start putting their .22 back on the shelves and tell their store customers 'Man, it sure is nice that the .22 is finally coming back in, huh?'
So this will go on until people stop buying .22 on auction sites. Let the people on these sites sit on their .22 ammo long enough and they will put it back out on the shelf to move it and make some money. That's the main thing that needs to happen.
If you're buying .22 from GunBroker or some other auction site try to stop. Tells everyone you know not to buy from these places either. Stores like W-mart and Academy are getting .22 regularly but you have to get there early to get any. There are limits to how much you can buy at one time but they are still selling it at the regular price. I haven't seen them price gouging.
Just my 2 cents.
Not today not yesterday and not tomorrow;-{)
I buy it online all the time with no problem.
It is all falling in to the bottom of lakes with all the guns out there. There are lot of unseaworthy gun owners out there
I get the notifications, they work.
The Wal-Mart in Lexington, VA had an empty shelf where the 22 normally sits. The price tag, however, indicated that the quantity of bullets in the box was 40 not 50. So like ice cream and coffee, manufacturers and retailers just sell us less stuff than we’re used to. No half gallon containers of ice cream and no one pound cans of coffee.
Delusional.
This is happening everywhere?
Is there not a single honest man in the land.
Oh, right...they are ALL conspiring against YOU.
You might want to look up paranoia.
Ever go out and shoot just to have fun? I do all the time. I have purchased several 22 LR guns in the past couple of years. I already had three or four but I bought these just because I wanted them. That is why I shoot a lot of 22, because I have fun doing it and I have fun collecting them. There is no other reason.
I also purchased a large quantity of 22 LR back in 2008 and 2009 when they went on sale at Cabela's and another store. I know the prices are high now but I do not have to worry about 22 LR ammo for many more years.
Blue Bell Rum Raisin comes in half gallon containers!
YUM! :)
I get so much crap e-mail from Midway virtually daily that I trash it all. I wouldn’t want to encourage them by asking for notifications, if you catch my drift. I’ll look elsewhere for my ammo.
My last order for .22 w/ Cabela’s was made in Dec 2012, and hasn’t been filled yet. I get a new backorder notice each month.
It's possible that they're using it all up on a weekly basis but frankly, I doubt it.
That's the way that technology works. Auction sites have been spreading like wildfire lately; it was only a matter of time before someone made one for guns and ammo.
And Sandy Hook is why we have the ammo shortage. But it it only indirectly tied to Sandy Hook. The direct link is to 0bama and the left-wing conspiracy against the Second Amendment. Every time 0bama talks about a gun ban, the guns start flying off the shelves at every gun store in the country. And at the same time, people start stocking up on ammo in every caliber they may use. That's why you can never find standard pistol calibers on the shelves at Walmart. That's also why you can only rarely find common rifle calibers on the shelves at Walmart. But there are enough of each that occasionally the supply will meet that day's demand. But not everyone has a 9mm, or a .45, or a .223, or a .308. Practically everyone and their mom has at least 1 .22LR (even if it's just for the kids).
IMO, in the very near future ANY ammunition containing LEAD will be banned and outlawed. The cost of a “replacement” component (other than lead) will make ammo too expensive to even sell.
You will NOT be able to posses or use ANY lead containing ammo, PERIOD. We can all blame the California liberals and wacko environmentalist who started this. They are, at this very minute working as hard as possible to eventually be rid of ammunition in general. No ammo? No guns!
This ammunition lead ban needs to be defeated.
People don’t seem to appreciate a key tipping point in the supply and demand curve. So long as a stable product is available on demand, demand itself tends to remain low relatively. The moment the demand for that product exceeds supply, demand tends to spike. This is most dramatically seen in gas shortages: nobody worries about getting gas, then just fills up whenever they need it, but the moment there’s any hint of gas being not available, everybody races out and buys up as much as they can topping off whatever containers they can. Likewise, ammunition supply behaves the same. People do not buy all that much ammo a time usually, but when there’s any hint of a shortage everybody wants to buy up as much ammunition as they can - so the demand triples quadruples or more overnight. The supply-chain empties out and suddenly we have a real shortage just because there was a very slight shortage briefly. Of course done this inspires lots of conspiracy theorists to claim all kinds of absurd schemes going on by evildoers in the background.
Preppers!
Of course, you can’t store something like gasoline for very long, so buying a whole bunch extra wouldn’t do much good. Ammunition will last a very very long time when stored properly, and probably won’t be getting cheaper anytime soon.
What's occurring here is very similar to what happened to Argentina. Prepare accordingly.
I’ve got several hundred rounds of Federal .22. Unfortunately my auto firearms choke on Federal and I can’t find good Winchester .22 hi-speed anywhere.
Federal makes my auto firearms go pop! pop! pip(jam) pop, POW! pop, pop, pip(jam).
Good only in bolt action rifles and revolvers.
There are a number of things happening to generate the shortage:
1. There are more shooters. About a quarter of the record gun sales of the last 5 years are noobies generating higher demand for ammo.
2. There have been large numbers of non shooters buying ammo for investment purposes. Their ammo is stored right next to their Beanie Babies.
3. The idea that 22lr is the legal tender of the future is common and those who feel that this is correct are converting dollars to this new currency.
4. It is quite possible that the new normal for the industry will settle in at 10 to 12 billion rounds as demand seems to be holding steady but supply is increasing.
5. Building new ammo plants is high risk as no one knows if the demand will continue in the next twenty years.
6. I no longer shoot rounds which I cannot reload.
The number of NICS checks during the current administration is roughly 86 million including about 20 million noobies.
That is the reason for the shortage.
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