The $28 price seemed a little high but the suprising thing was that I was there at noon and there was still ammo on the shelves. The clerk I talked to said they had stocked the shelves before opening and he was equally suprised there was still 22 ammo on the shelves 4 hours latter. Maybe things are returning to normal.

I had a similar experience at a Wal-Mart last Sunday.
I asked the sporting goods clerk when I was checking out "when was the last time you saw .22 ammo?"
He walked over to the case looked at it turned around and said about five seconds ago.
I was a little surprised and bought my three boxes of 100.
There was a good bit more still there.

Still no .22LR ammo locally!

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

At $28.00. That's double the normal. Maybe the boxes are showing up, but the price isn't dropping.

You are very fortunate. The other day I found a 100 rd. box of CCI Mini-Mags in a pawn shop. The price... $10/box. It was the first .22 LR ammunition I'd seen for sale anywhere at all in four to five months. The owner said they had that one single box. The operative word is "had" as now they no longer have it.

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<><

No offense intended but I think your definition of "normal" is obsolete. We might start seeing sale prices below $25 a brick but that will be it.

After a "shortage", be it toilet paper, coffee, sugar, primers, etc. the price will come down some, but never to pre shortage levels.

A lot of this ammo has gone to people who are hoarding it,but only shooting some of it.At some point they will stop buying and supply will catch up to demand.Prices will drop then and if the manufacturers over supply,prices will drop a lot.Ive stopped buying 22s.If I shoot it up like a newbie,it'll be gone in a few years.If I shoot it up at the rate I have over the last 30 years,I'll have to put it in my will :-D

The current price at my WalMart is $23 for a 550 bulk brick. They come in maybe 3x a week and are gone by 8:15 AM.

Sunday's gun show had one guy selling these current boxes for $60 (he had a lot of them) and another guy selling CCIs for $120 for 500. Funny thing was that the CCIs were in tattered boxes and looked to be many years old.
.

You got that right!

After the 2009 shortage when prices finally settled down bricks of .22 ammo went from $9.99 to $19.99. Now this shortage was much deeper and longer but I feared the price would double again and a brick would be $40. Thank goodness there are reports of below $30/brick but like said above, prices never drop to pre-shortage levels.

We have all the crazies who were willing to pay $100 and more for a brick to thank for that. They let the manufacturers and retailers know how much some shooters were willing to pay!

$9.99/brick and $7.99/brick on sale was around for a very long time but we will never see those prices again and we have no one but ourselves to thank. I hated $19.99/brick in 2009 and now I pray for that price again. 2009 wasn't all that long ago and prices are now triple+ what they were then. My grandchildren well never know what cheap .22 ammo is. Very sad!

*EDIT*
I just looked on Gunbroker and it's still going on. People are bidding $85+ on 500 rounds of CCI Mini Mags and $50+ on a brick of Federal brown box ammo. Very sad!

__________________
Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

You're right, I went back in time to a calmer, reasonable, more settled time in the pricing of 22 ammo. I found some at Cabela's a few weeks ago and a guy told me his buddy bought some and doesn't even own a 22. He's going to sell it for more. Someone on Armslist was selling a torn up box of 500 for $40.00.

So let me get this straight. You "complain" about current hoarders and then tell everyone you have more than you can shoot for the rest of your life. Did you even realize what you said?

Prices will NOT be dropping, merely temporarily stabilizing. Even Walmart has significantly increased their prices in the past two months as their contracts renew. It IS true that establishments (Gander, ...) that had raised prices ABOVE the cost curve MAY come down a bit but the true market price will only stabilize/increase and the outrageously priced secondary market will be greatly diminished.

For the last decade or so every time I came home from the range I’d clean out the empties from my shooting bag onto my reloading bench. I’d usually find a few loose 22LR in the bottom of the bag and started putting them in a quart Mason jar on my bench. Back around February I noticed the jar was pretty much full and as a joke took it to my LGS and asked if he was interested in buying my “stash”. He made an offer that made me wonder if he had a different type of “stash” somewhere and I accepted before he came to his senses. Few weeks later I stop by his shop and he’s selling baggies of 100 count mixed 22LR for $10 a bag. They were behind the counter and people had to ask for the ammo. Wouldn’t say how many dime bags of 22s he’d sold but did ask if I had any more canning jars laying around.

Yeah, $10/100 for mixed 22s is insane. But he was not forcing anyone to buy and he was not getting any 22 LR ammo through his normal suppliers. His rifle prices did not go up much even when things were insane on the net. He would get shipments of S&W AR platform rifles in, price them about $75 higher than his 2012 prices, and be sold out in a few hours. In the first quarter of this year he probably could have raised the prices by a couple hundred and still sold out that day. However it has been a family owned LGS since 1968 and they look at building a long term customer base.

Picked up 3 boxes of Remington 22LR hollow points at Walmart's the other day. 225 rounds per box @ $10.57 a box... that's 4 1/2 cents a round. Not bad........

Bought 2 boxes of CCI 22lr AR Tactical ammo this morning at Gander Mtn. They had them behind the counter, not out on the shelf with all of their other ammo. One box for me and one for my son-in-law.

Not sure what makes it "Tactical." The CCI website says it is "Optimized for AR-style function and accuracy / Specifically tested for S&W M&P 15/22." With muzzle velocity at 1200fps and 40gr bullet, it looks very similar to Mini-Mags.

They were priced at $25 per 375 round box. That's 6.7¢ per round. I was happy to actually find some 22lr.

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MP40FS,MP40C,MP22
NRA,ISRA

Wow 28.00 for a brick of 22 lr, still a lot of people with more money than brains buying ammo. Anything over 3.25 cents a round for 22 lr now is a rip off........... A year ago 2.8 cents was the norm.

Eric

Last year is gone and it ain't comin' back.

One thing to think about here in New York, the new SAFE act prevents us from mail ordering any ammo after January 1st 2014. Everyone I know is maxing out their credit cards n order to beat the dead line.
Come January we will need background checks to buy ammo ,even a box of .22, also to buy primers and powder. Sad really what a few have done to us.

I remember when gas was around .35 cents a gallon and couldn't believe it spiked to 1.00. Just goes to show nothing stays the same.

Wow, Eric. I would love it if your 3.25¢ per round figure were realistic, but it sure sounds like "unobtainium" to me. Can you please educate the uninformed folks like myself who think that twice that figure is a good deal in the current market, and advise where the 3.25¢ rounds can be found?

I notice we both live in Illinois. As a fellow resident of the Land of Lincoln, I'll make you an offer: If you can tell me where I can get 5 bricks of CCI Mini-Mags for 3.25¢ per round either at a local (Joliet area) or mail-order retailer, I will GIVE you one of the 5 bricks as a token of my appreciation.

I should probably put a time limit on this offer ... say one week from now.

Disclaimer: Of course this offer assumes that you have a valid FOID card and may legally possess ammo in Illinois.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

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MP40FS,MP40C,MP22
NRA,ISRA

One thing that high ammo prices will do is drive away the novice and the older shooter on a fixed income.

I think there will come a time when there's less interest in shooting in general because people can't afford it or won't pay it.

I hope the cheaper ammo and well stocked shelves do return soon.

We'll loose shooters on each end ( young and old ) of the spectrum if it doesn't.

GF

Well, I've gotton no reply or PM from Eric (gumpys) within the one week time limit of my offer. I guess 3.25¢ per round ammo is harder to find that he anticipated. I'm a little disappointed, it would have been a win-win situation for both of us. I would have gotten 2000 rounds for 4.1¢ per round and he would have gotten one brick FREE. Maybe we can do a deal some other time.

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MP40FS,MP40C,MP22
NRA,ISRA

Well if you look hard enough you can find it, I have. I just bought 2 cases of Federal. I am not going to disclose my source as I already have enough friends and family who buy 22lr let alone everyone on the internet. If you needed a couple bricks because you could not find any, I could help you out, but I am not going to disclose my source

Eric

I admire your ability to keep a secret. Hopefully things will settle down in the near future so that one does not have to become a crack detective to find 22lr ammo. Happy Thanksgiving.

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MP40FS,MP40C,MP22
NRA,ISRA

Maybe, but all the people on a fixed income I know had enough sense to maintain their supply. This isn't so-called hoarding, it was just common sense.

^^^^^^^^^

Well, I can't argue with your reasoning.



GF