Price of .22 Ammunition to Drop

Gun Watch ^ | 15 November, 2016 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

In the run up to the 2016 election, the price of .22 ammunition has been fluctuating up and down around 6 cents a cartridge for baseline bulk ammunition.  The reasons are clear.  Production of .22 ammunition is up by about two billion rounds a year, responding to over the top demand for the last four years.

Part of the demand is structural.  Many new gun owners and shooters have been created.  Many of the younger members were raised on first person shooter games like Doom, Golden Eye, Battlefield, and Call of Duty.

People in the industry have reported that the new generation of shooters is more likely to go through 500 rounds of .22 in a shooting session, instead of 50.  Moreover, decent .22 rifles and pistols have become relatively cheap.  A Marlin model 60 today can be had, brand new, for $150.   A Savage model 64 can be had for $116, and the Mossberg semi-auto for $109.

The Model 60 cost about $40 in 1960.  A constant dollar calculator shows that would be $322 in 2016.  So the price has dropped in half in constant dollars. Another way to look at this is the minimum wage in 1960 was a dollar an hour.  It would take a full week of 40 hours to buy the rifle.

Today, the minimum wage (federal) is $7.25.  It would take a person about half a week (21 hours) to buy a model 60 today.  That correlates pretty well with the constant dollar calculator.

There are a 100 million or more .22 rifles and pistols in the United States.  They are incredibly popular, and with very little care they last for many decades.


Some of the increased 2 billion rounds a year will go to feeding the increased structural demand.

But a considerable amount of the demand has been a bubble created by concern over gun control.  It is one of the few areas where President Barack Obama was stymied by the American people and Congress.  Hillary Clinton fed the fear with her campaign rhetoric and potential Supreme Court justices.

With the election of Donald Trump, that fear will be subsiding.  Many .22 owners have built up a stockpile of a few thousand rounds of ammunition.  That ammunition has not been shot, and it will be around for a while.

I expect the demand for .22 ammunition to drop when the reality of a Trump administration hits home.  The current protests and riots are not helping.  Nor are the conspiracy theories about a Trump assassination.

After President Trump is safely inaugurated, and starts to move his legislative agenda, demand will drop and prices will fall.

I expect bulk .22 ammunition to be available for 4 cents a round by October of 2017.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

Link to Gun Watch

[Drumbo]

*ping*

[Steely Tom]

Price of gold has been trending downward too.

Recent peak gold was in July of this year. Today’s gold is at 1209/oz, down a bit more than 11% since then.

Perhaps a coincidence, but DJT won the GOP nomination on July 19.

[trebb]

Bought a good amount in the 60’s-70’s and was paying 3/4 cent to 1-1/4 cent per round during that 25 year period.

[.45 Long Colt]

I hope .22 WMR becomes widely available again. It’s not a round I’ll shoot often, but I’d like to get a few boxes.

[super7man]

Well, it looks like I may have just made it too. I decided I was going to hold out with what I have until the price got down to 6 cents/round. I will now take my Ruger MARK I (which I bought in 1971 for $49) out and poke some holds in some paper. ;o)

[umgud]

I wonder what CA’s prop for background 4 ammo will do. Goes into effect 1/1/17. I will add to my stocks before then.

[niteowl77]

We liked the S&W M&P 22 (the full sized one made, IIRC, by UMAREX), but the magazines allowed the rounds to rattle a bit and even get "turned endover" if you weren't paying attention; while we expected to like the "compact" version a lot more due to size, etc, we didn't. Maybe if we had smaller hands - or expectations - we'd feel differently.

The SIG (a rebadged GSG?) 1911-22 was the biggest pleasant surprise, as it proved accurate enough for fun with match ammo, and worked flawlessly. This is a fairly large, heavy "replica" type offering, and I sort of laughed at it until I realized how small a group I was making with it. If the takedown procedure didn't stink, I'd get one.

Those were the standouts this week, and all were more "tactical" than "target." I mention this specifically because these seem to be the type of .22 LR pistols that people under 40 or so are particularly interested in. They aren't my cup of tea, but I have to admit that for plinking, firearms familiarization and even (non-bullseye style) training, they are worth considering. We know a lady who bought a Ruger SR22 as her "go-to" pistol and she thinks the world of the little thing*... it certainly seems like that is the direction things are moving.

We went through a bunch of dirty .22 LR rental guns, using indifferent ammunition, and just how did the reliability situation go? No malfunctions. None. We should have bought a bunch of lottery tickets, because we were on a streak.

Mr. niteowl77

*I was one of the early U.S. owners of the Walther P22. To this day, I can say with all seriousness, "If I don't have a good thing to say about a handgun, then I'm talking about the Walther P22." To refer to my particular example as a "lemon" is an insult to citrus fruit... and besides, there is no lemon sour enough or large enough to merit comparison. When I first saw the Ruger SR22, I thought it was a "Rugered-up" P22. Thankfully, that was not the case.

[wgmalabama]

My Walter P22 performs flawlesley. Accuracy is ok but a fun reliable gun.

I have a cheap Jennings 22. Bought it as a tackle box gun ( long story behind that) but that cheap peice of crap finally broke. When it worked it was amazingly accurate.

[Afterguard]

Our local gun shop has the S&W M&P-15 Sport for $600. Been that way for over a year.

[MHGinTN]

The CCI Tactical .22lr is so reliable that it begs to be employed as home defense ammo. With a tuned BX25 mag or three the 1022 is a good option for lots of 40 grain high speed pills dumped into intruders in quick succession.

In .22lr pistols (like the Bersa thunder or Ruger SR22 or 22/45 or GSG 1911 with rail) the Aguila 60 grain bullet is very effective and amazingly reliable ... I've been testing them in a CMMG conversion for an AR pistol in 7 inch barrel. Runs like a sewing machine and hits hard on water filled milk jugs. You only get one shot per jug cause the exploding jug loses all the water immediately. Imagine the hydraulics in the chest of a perp!

[MHGinTN]

Would like to find a reliable 22WMR semi rifle for tacticooling. I’m kind of surprised CMMG hasn’t come up with something for AR platforms with barrel change.

[Lurker]

I stand corrected. Thank you.

L

[niteowl77]

My Walter P22 performs flawlesley. Accuracy is ok but a fun reliable gun.

They may have worked the bugs out, or reduced the size of the bugs, or something. I got tired of the factory and online "fixes" not fixing my P22. I remember telling my wife that I would rather have one particularly tired old H&R 922 back rather than have this P22… I can't remember verbatim all the naughty words I used when I was saying this, but I was always lavish with them whenever that P22 was mentioned.

Funny you should mention the Jennings, as I had a J-22 in the early 1990's, and it was surprisingly competent for what it was… until the zinc castings began to give up the ghost, at which point it became little more than a paperweight. Eventually, I ended up scrapping it unceremoniously.

Mr. niteowl77

[.45 Long Colt]

I’d like to have one of those Kel-Tec PMR-30’s paired with the CMR-30 rifle version. I don’t need them and I’m not sure how reliable they are, but I love the idea of a magazine filled with 30 rounds of .22 WMR.

[surfer]

From what I understand is that the “Soros” controlled 22 ammo manufacturers have been stock-piling their inventories to create the initial market distortion.

Unfortunately the tooling and setup to produce 22 is quite expensive.

[marktwain]

Bought a good amount in the 60’s-70’s and was paying 3/4 cent to 1-1/4 cent per round during that 25 year period.

---

Corrected for inflation, that would be about 6 cents a round today.

[marktwain]

Manufacturers have tooled up to produce a billion more .22 rounds a year.

It has been extraordinary demand that has caused the shortage. Distributors, retailers, and quick buck entrepreneurs are the ones that raised prices. I hoped that manufacturers would do so, but their price increases were modest and slow in coming.

http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2016/01/ccifederal-to-increase-22-production-by.html

[surfer]

Like he said in the blog post

Much of the .22 bubble is political in nature.

The distortion has been created for political reasons not end-consumer demand.

Vista and Olin have been either selling the majority to Government agencies and/or stock-piling inventory to be later sold only to non-consumer channels.

Agreed it is extraordinary demand but the consumer demand is not being even close to being met and that is because of the distortion.

If the political distortion wasn’t occurring we could go to any wal-mart, bass pro and a variety of other locations and buy as much 22 as you wanted. Just like it was pre-2008.

[marktwain]

The demand is not being met because demand has exceeded supply. Supply does not magically increase instantaneously.

The political distortion is because people have been afraid of gun bans, and ammunition bans, and have wanted to stock up on .22. When demand suddenly doubles or triples, it takes time to satisfy it. No conspiracy is necessary to explain the .22 shortage.

[Organic Panic]

I only occasionally see 50 packs in my neck of the woods. They are selling for the same price as 45acp. I haven’t seen the old 550 bricks since McCain lost.