Any end in sight to the .22 ammo shortage?
 

New member here. Ive recently begun my adventure into the world of firearms, and I am really fired up about it. Ive taken the whole 2nd amendment thing in full force and I now label myself a gun and self defense enthusiast. Just wondering from some of you who may be more experienced, do you see any end in sight to the shortage of .22 ammo? My small collection right now primarily consists of .22lr rifles and handguns, and I always have to go to Armslist to buy ammo or buy it from the range. Are things ever going to settle down? I remember a few years ago you could a brick for 15 bucks. Now its 50 bucks. Cheaper than other ammo, but still too much for rimfire.

You need to keep a close eye on the e-tailers and catch it when you can.

There are a few links to bots that collect price data and dealers, I'll see if I can find them.

What are do you live in? Some walmarts will occasionally have it too.

Edit: bots
http://www.gunbot.net/
http://ammoseek.com/

Good luck!

I live in LA city limits, so no local wal marts or sporting goods places carry ammo. For the places in the suburbs, what are the prices like on a brick? Im currently buying at $50 a brick off armslist.. are these guys buying cheap and making a profit?

Don't know much about arms list, but it could be those who bought stuff in bulk before the panic and are selling at a profit. If you look, you can find some decent deals. Not like before, but occasionally in the .07 per round range, but you have to be diligent and quick. .10 per round seems to be pretty much the minimum these days.

I thought shipping ammo to LA city was a no no.

I dont know if it is or not, but I dont ship anything. I do face to face meetups with local guys.

:eek:

I've seen some in stock at the local sporting goods stores (not WalMart) and they were nowhere near that price. It pays to shop around...

That's a good question, probably someone else can answer. I know most shops will NOT ship.

Ooooh that's gotta hurt. I was going to say join us up in the rimfire ammo finds thread but your location they might not ship. Bricks I've seen rarely seen on store shelves were either Remington Thunderbolts or Winchester bulk packs at $30+. Big 5 and Turners the priciest in the high 30's. But you have to compete with the others on shipment day to get them.

Welcome to the Rimfire Club. You will enjoy it. As far as ammo goes, you can get it by shopping around. For me it has been hand to mouth but has not stopped me from shooting. In the past few months I have scored in the range of $.06/round at the low end to $.13/round high end. All run of the mill ammo, no high end target stuff. If I had to SWAG an estimate of when supplies will be better, I would guess at least another year from limited reseach on the subject. Manufactures are going full tilt and claim they can not produce any more. So no help on the supply side. On the demand side everybody is buying and storing away. I can't blame them for that. Before all of this I treated 22 ammo like jelly beans, there is a endless supply, no worries. Well, now we know better. If I could score 5K rounds at a reasonable price, heck I do to.
At some point eveybodys stores will be full and things will calm down. At the range, I really don't see any more people shooting the stuff.
What the new norm will be, who knows. I guess the days of $04/round will be history. Look on the bright side, guys shooting 5.56 are paying up to $.80/round. A mag full for us, is one trigger pull for them.

Don't know what part of the state you are in.

Here in Southern CA, lots of ammo has showed up on the shelves in the last 2 weeks. Walmart has also gotten ammo in every day. My wife came home with 3 boxes of mini- mags while doing a grocery run. Local range had bricks of many brands, picked up a out 2200 rounds last weekend for normal prices.

Just shop around and don't get gouged. I have had much more luck locally than online.

Anybody have any luck buying ammo from fellow Calgunners on here? I see a marketplace section... im wondering if maybe people on here would be willing to part with a brick or two without the rape prices.

^^^you are at best going to get their cost plus shipping they paid. So a 35.00 brick of ammo could be $50 by the time someone had to pay shipping. $40/500 is about the best price you are going to find from someone else, or even online after shipping costs. If you can stand the place, I hear Walmart has been getting ammo lately.

No prediction here on when things will get back to somewhat normal, maybe a year. For us in CA SB53 may be driving a lot of the buying. If SB53 does not become law that may ease things quite a bit. One predicition I will make is that when .22lr ammo returns to normal or near normal prices, shortly afterwards I expect to see a fair amount of it in the market place from folks who overbought and wish to unload some of it.

I don't think this is the right time to build a stash, buying as one needs it may be the most prudent until the demand side eases up and supply catches up. At some point there may be a glut of .22lr in the stores but right now many variables are driving this shortage and it will take some time for a new balance to arrive between supply and demand.

No shortage of it at my place. I stocked up recently at the best prices I could find. The way I see it things could get worse, specially in Ca. Who knows what crap they will attempt next. A few cases soon & I'll be good for awhile... Not sure anyone's gonna "dump" ammo so you can get a deal. Going rate (as listed above) is about 45-58$ shipped. Plenty of vendors now touch us up for extra fees, shipping has gone up as well...IMO, at least get a decent stash right now. Personally I like to shoot & not just sit on ammo.

You are a very wise man.

Ammo prices will drop when Chris Christie becomes president.

SB 53 failed to pass.

It's starting to come back. I've scored 900 rds in the past month at local stores.

Yea im hearing tidbits here and there that its starting to bounce back a little bit. I just hate the fact that to get some ammo you have to be outside a store at 6 AM. I bought a brick and made the mistake of going to the range with it and shooting half of it..:facepalm: I should have used their ammo instead. Im trying to keep at least 1k rounds for a SHTF scenario. Im no hoarder, I just want to be able to hunt for food and defend myself in a survival situation. If we got into a nuclear war tomoro I only have about 250 rds.. not good at all.

WM is getting ammo , and some LGS , when collectors get 5000- or more each they will not by as much.

Why would anyone stop buying if they only have 5,000 rounds of .22lr? That's like saying someone isn't going to buy more TP because they only have 2 rolls left at home.

Not saying how much I have but, I'm having a hard time finding a place to store all my personal ammo. Owning ten different calibers complicates matters.

I'm almost at 10k rounds, I should be good for like 10 years

What's you location?

LA city.

Oh, Ill have to see what I have but am usually up north rather than down south.

From an historical perspective, we still have a ways to go before this is over.

The shortage of 2000 lasted almost 2 years.
The shortage of 2008 lasted 14-16 months depending where you lived.

This shortage started in December of 2012, right after Sandy Hook,
which happened December 14, 2012, according to many people.

However, there were many retailers reporting that surge buying started in August
of 2012, after the July 20, 2012 Aurora shooting.

Thankfully, SB-53 failed, otherwise we would have been in for a long haul.

With the traffic in LA on any given day, in a SHTF situation where everyone is fleeing you'll die in your car on the highway from starvation long before you come across any critters to shoot. :rolleyes:

edit: On a more serious note, you should be worrying about stocking up on daily essentials like food and water before you worry about ammo, if SHTF is really your concern. If I lived in Los Angeles proper, I'd be focusing on having at least two weeks worth of supplies to live on without having to leave my house, and a solid weapon in an actual defense round. You aren't going to find yourself in the woods taking down squirrels any time soon if something actually went down in LA.

You'd be surprised what a deterrent that little .22 round has when actually being shot at. I do agree about stocking up on food and water though.

Keep looking and don't over pay for ammunition. I've seen bricks of 22LR go for $130 where I still to this day can find it for $15. But I get it from my local gun club. They are there to support the members, not turn a profit. I see some people taking advantage of the situation and that happens... Just try to hang in there and whenever you see some, pick it up if it's a fair price. I saw talk of food... That's next on my list of things I need. I want 1-2 weeks worth of food to keep my family fed in case of a disaster of sorts.

Anyone who thinks they will last long enough to use 500 rounds in a firefight in a metrpolitan area is deluding themselves. Especially if you are alone.

What's the population of LA? I'd say that's how many rounds at a minimum you'd need.

You realize that the politicians who write the laws in California read these forums, right?

LA will be vaporized if there's a nuclear war. So will your rifles and ammo.

Plinker, that you?

I agree, with SB-53 failing, the demand for ammo will drop a little and the supply will catch up. I'm expecting to see semi-normal availability to start in the next 6 months or so.

The recall election results in Colorado will have national consequences in that the Dims will not dare vote for any gun control laws for the remainder of this current session. Between Sandy Hook and the Colorado election, nationally, gun control may be dead for another 20 y ears, like it was after 1994.

However, gun control in Kalifornia is another story. I suspect these same clowns will attempt the restrictions again next year.

I plan to buy, when prices stabilize and supplies normalize, at a rate of $100-$200 a month for as long as I can get supplies. When they make me get a permit in KA, I will buy in AZ or NV to prevent Jerry and the rest of the spending beats from getting anymore of my money.

I encourage all to minimize purchases in CA and buy as much as possible online (not just gun stuff) to starve the tax beast.

Only if you like campfires. :cool:

I'm talking about if there's a zombie apocalypse.

In a strange way, I always have zombie apocalypse in the back of my mind lol. But umm im a semi experienced woodsman. In a SHTF scenario my first thing would be to get out of the city, not on any main roads and freeways of course. As far as defense, I plan on getting more larger calibers in the near future. Im going to start using the wanted forum here on the site. I plan on getting a mosin, a glock 19, and I want to start building my own AR. Fortunately, none of the .22 guns that I own actually look like .22, so that could be to my advantage. Unless u physically inspect and hold my weapons, they look full caliber.

I haven't been that interested in rimfire until this year, which has been a bummer since I am buying at current prices when I find it. In the past few months I have only been able to find CCI standard for $6 per box of 50 and CCI mini-mags for $12.50 per hundred. I also found CCI MM at Antioch Armory for $25 per hundred but I didn't feel like getting screwed that hard so I didn't buy any LOL.

Last month I bought a tricked out 10-22 and the seller threw in a brick of Wolf Match. I blew through the brick in no time so now I'm trying to find some more. I located some for $58 per brick. Is that a decent price?