When I was growing up, I didn't live near any big stores. All we had were small general stores of the Mom & Pop variety. All of them carried .22 ammo, and usually a few boxes of shotshells which they sold by the shell - like a dime each as I remember. Usually only Federal. At that time, Federal's major market was in rural and small town general stores, gas stations, etc. I lived in Western Maryland in the late 1960s, and I bought a great many bricks of .22 LR (usually Federal or Peters) at a hardware store there at $5 per.