The idea of panic/paranoia buying doesn’t hold up logically. There have been no reports of the fed buying .22LR. They don’t use it. Why would there be an 18 month run on the one round we all know the gov’t has no use for? It doesn’t make any sense.
The manufacturers are still making it, yet only scraps are showing up in the retail stores. It’s going somewhere. If anyone has a better, less sinister, guess as to where, I’m all ears.
It is fundamentally a problem of allocating brass. Fedzilla has placed such huge orders for asap delivery that the brass is allocated to 9mm and 40 cal production lines, not 22lr. When the price stabilizes at around $40 to $50 per 333 rounds the supply of 22lr will magically appear again.
I kinda found out what the deal on 22 was at a gun show when I heard one of the ammo dealers taking.
Ever since the beginning of the last run, these guys have been putting steady backorders into wholesalers and sites like Midway.
Order a block of a couple thousand and they have to wait six months for the back order to come in. The problem is that they are keeping the backorders flowing, basically cornering the market so they can keep gouging.
Of course the wholesalers work the big orders first-that’s business, but it allows these scum to continue to gouge us by keeping the market wrapped up.
I say it's with all the socks that mysteriously disappear in the laundry cycle. You find those unmatched socks, you'll find multiple lifetimes of .22LR ammunition. I'm sure of it.