I visited the local Cabelas on Fri(6/6)morning and NOT a
single box of 22cal. in the store.It’s been like that for
almost 2 years. ?????? When in America has it taken that long for supply to catch up with demand? There has to be other reasons at play!!!
No, no other reason than an unusually persistent demand for them. Cabela’s most likely pushes the bulk of their 22LR and 22MRF sales through their online operation because I see them there more than in stores. I also see them come into WalMart, but you just have to be there when they get put out on the shelf.
The demand is there because nearly everyone now has it in their mind that their “stash reserve” has to be at least 3000-5000 rounds. So they buy until they get that, then start shooting the overage. The problem, though, with everybody doing that, production still can’t meet demand.
I bought a box of .22LR three days ago at the local Sportsman’s Warehouse in North Denver pretty cheap. And, they had a large quantity of it there.
For all other ammo I use, I go to Freedom Munitions.
No actually there doesn’t
There are other reasons. Here's the big one.
The price of 5.56,9mm,45acp etc. has caused GUN manufacturers to produce a large array of new .22 versions of their larger caliber firearms. They did this to fill the demand for firearms that are affordable for training and recreational shooting. Now suddenly the number of shooters wanting .22 ammo to feed these new guns had risen dramatically. So the reality is .22 ammo is wiped out everywhere because of the price of larger caliber ammunition.
“I visited the local Cabelas on Fri(6/6)morning and NOT a
single box of 22cal. in the store.It’s been like that for
almost 2 years. ?????? When in America has it taken that long for supply to catch up with demand? There has to be other reasons at play!!!”
Supply does not catch up with demand effortlessly, by magic.
Ammunition manufacture is complex, dangerous, and requires machinery so specialized it cannot be used to make anything else; as capital equipment, it is frighteningly costly, made by an ever-shrinking number of factory equipment suppliers who face their own problems in obtaining raw materials, creating a labor force, building factories, and (not least) their own regulatory agencies.
Ammunition profit margins are lower than for any other gun-related product. And all of it applies with even greater force to rimfire ammunition.
oldbugleboy is mistaken in assuming that two years is an unacceptable delay in catching supply up with demand: it has never happened so speedily, not even in wartime.
Anybody who’s attained the slightest familiarity with Allied logistics during WWII will know that the Brits were never able to expand small arms ammunition production beyond a tiny number of highly specialized plants. They fretted constantly that the Luftwaffe would locate these facilities, target them, and put them out of action by air strikes, but it was avoided. Fortunately.
American ammunition production did not improve at a better rate either despite great advantages in slack industrial capacity, assembly-line know-how, raw material stocks, labor force flexibility, and freedom from attack.
Barriers to expansion of ammunition production (and to entry of new producers) in the United States have long been economic and technical, but are becoming increasingly regulatory, legalistic, and bureaucratic. OSHA puts ever tighter workplace rules onto manufacturing firms; EPA conjures up more restrictive regulations week by week.
Mining and smelting of lead, zinc, and copper are highly regulated (to the point where the nation’s last lead smelter recently stopped operating); use, cleanup, and waste disposal are at least as regulated in the workplace (where it all dovetails conveniently with OSHA regulations). Used-lead recovery from shooting ranges is subject to its own burdensome regulatory tangle.
Primer making is very touchy, dealing as it does with primary explosives, the composition of which not only blows up easily, but can be poisonous.
Nitro propellants are less dangerous in and of themselves, but production requires a large number of volatile and corrosive chemicals: nitric acid, sulfuric acid, ether, hydroxides, various solvents. Unpleasant enough that one must avoid breathing fumes and vapors; the safety rules and regulatory compliance paperwork are even worse.
And the legal liability climate has changed radically over the past few generations - more paperwork, more time and effort that must be diverted from production. And insurance costs continue to rise: more and more business-insurance firms are leaving the field of gun and ammunition manufacturing, in preference to facing ever-mounting liability payouts and public condemnation (their own bureaucratic regulatory overlords aren’t too friendly either).
And as if all that wasn’t enough, gun and ammunition makers must operate under the thumb of their own regulatory agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Manufacturers large and small, and every level of the industry down to retailers large and small, must comply with every decree BATFE publishes. No gainsaying, no real appeal. Mounting a legal challenge to any particular ruling is possible in theory, but in practice can become so costly and time-consuming that few complainants care to pursue ... ones that do so think long and hard before going forward. And it’s evident to everyone, that a hostile, flippant, unaccountable legal profession (entirely too comfy with the regulatory bureaucracy and elected officials) can negate any success on a whim.
Keeping these real concrete reasons in mind, the gun industry might be less than interested in ramping up production of a commodity enjoying only the thinnest of profit margins, where demand from a fickle, whimsical public might collapse at any moment. And the same reasons have likely given pause to any entrepreneurial hopefuls who might be thinking about setting up in business.
oldbugleboy is free to bring to light any other reasons, if these are not enough.