.22 shortage mystery solved! (supposedly)

[dc7rr1]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/31/the-22-ammo-shortage-mystery-solved.aspx

[teg33]

Dupe

[G21Shooter]

Well the fact that SB53 failed should help .22 lr availability, less need for people to panic buy ammo now here.

[tmh1]

I'm not certain there was ever a mystery regarding 22 lr shortage. The facts are that panic buying was rampant. All calibers were gobbled up. Manufacturers make more money manufacturing and selling centerfire ammo, which was also sold out. They concentrated on making what would make them the most profit. Now that centerfire ammo levels are significantly better in the distribution chain, they can put more resources on 22 lr production.

No real mystery

[biglou]

[Fishslayer]

I'm not certain there was ever a mystery regarding 22 lr shortage. The facts are that panic buying was rampant. All calibers were gobbled up. Manufacturers make more money manufacturing and selling centerfire ammo, which was also sold out. They concentrated on making what would make them the most profit. Now that centerfire ammo levels are significantly better in the distribution chain, they can put more resources on 22 lr production.

No real mystery

As I understand it the machines used for rimfire production aren't used for centerfire production and everything I've seen indicates that the manufacturers are balls to the wall. The answer for them is to run more shifts on existing machines.

Say they invest in more machines for rimfire and the panic goes away...

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

Say they invest in more machines for rimfire and the panic goes away...

...and when supplies of rimfire become more available and the price drops, "they" find themselves overextended on manufacturing equipment and go under. Unfortunate part of manufacturing - ammo manufacturers would probably like to make more and get more of that ammo money out there, but the supply is mostly what it is.

[TacticalSpork]

http://sierrabullets.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/why-cant-i-find-22-lr-ammunition/

I read this a couple days ago. Found it interesting

[CRTguns]

I was told by a friend that rep'd for ATK that the federal, and CCI production lines HAD NOT been augmented for increased capacity (back in 2008 when SHTF). The suits had expected the "spike" in demand to fizzle out... go back to normal. Now that it has not gone back, but has continued on, those same suits believe that it cannot last much longer... so... still no increase in production capacity. There is a worry that an investment now would not see the payoff in the end, now that the end of the craze is presumably closer. The figure of 25 million per day is combined from all .22 mfgs. As I understand, centerfire rounds are much faster to load than rimfire. A machine can only make somewhere around 50,000 over a 24 hour period- about 2 seconds per loaded cartridge.

Best way to fix this thing... STOP paying anybody who is not a licensed retailer for ammo. Let the stupid idiot gougers be stuck with their ammo. eventually, they will stop making the effort if there's no payoff for it.

[IntoForever]

As I understand it the machines used for rimfire production aren't used for centerfire production and everything I've seen indicates that the manufacturers are balls to the wall. The answer for them is to run more shifts on existing machines.

Say they invest in more machines for rimfire and the panic goes away...

Someone posted a video on here recently showing how rimfire ammo was made and part of the process was done by hand. I think that if they publicly announced that they were cranking up and tripling the .22 LR output the gougers and hoarders would stop and rimfire ammo would be more available... well, one could dream.

[Caseless]

ATK has announced they will create a separate sporting company for civilian market. Not much details but hopefully they add more capacity for popular non-military calibers.

[Bobby Ricigliano]

The .22lr shortage is waning. I bought 1300 rounds of Federal Automatch for less than $100 shipped within the last week and I am going to shoot every last round of it. And like it.

[MongooseV8]

I get a laugh still from everyone blaming the evil flippers. Its simple supply and demand.

[Jimi Jah]

Too many 10/22's sold.

[200Apples]

From tactical spork's link...

Makes sense.