By Dean Weingarten
Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)-
I chanced to be at the local WalMart in Yuma today. This is the store on the frontage road off of old Highway 8, East of town. Until Friday, June 24, 2016, I had not seen any .22 Long Rifle in the store for three years.
On that date, there were 2,300 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags and 1,000 rounds of CCI Standard Velocity. The Mini-Mags were in plastic 100 round boxes at $7.47 a box. The Standard Velocity were in paper, 50 round boxes at $3.47 a box. I was told by the clerk, Yittzel, that they would be gone in a few days. I am sure that she was correct.
Just 10 days later, on the 3rd of July, I was in the same store, and there were 1900 rounds of CCI Stinger, in 50 round boxes. It is premium .22 Long Rifle ammunition, and has always been pricey. The price was $6.47 for a box of 50, or a little under 13 cents a round. They also had CCI .22 Maxi-Mag, .22 magnum rimfire cartridges, for $13.47 a box of 50, or nearly 27 cents a cartridge. It has been scarce, but not as bad as the .22 Long Rifle.
The clerk, Britanny, was very helpful. She expected the .22 to be gone by late that afternoon. Both clerks said that many people stopped in to buy .22, purchased the maximum three boxes allowed, and were suspected of reselling it for a profit at local gun shows or through the internet.
Two sightings in 10 days after three years was remarkable.
Today, the 8th of July, there were two cases of bulk pack Federal .22 Auto Match. This is only five days after the previous sighting. The boxes contained 325 cartridges. That is 6,500 .22 Long Rifle cartridges.
My friend Yittzel was just opening the cases to stock the shelves when I showed up. She said there had been a couple of bricks of .22, but they had been purchased immediately.
At $17.42 for 325 rounds of Auto Match .22, that is 5.36 cents per round. A little over two years ago, I wrote that the .22 ammunition bubble would be over when you saw .22 ammunition on sale below 4 cents a round. From the article on June 7th, 2014:
You will know that the bubble is close to the bottom when you see .22 LR on sale for below 4 cents per round. At the lowest, we might see .22 cartridges below $10 for 500.
Many dismissed my prediction. They said that we would never see .22 cartridges below 4 cents a round again. People said that I was crazy when gasoline was at $4 a gallon, and I wrote that we would see it below $2 in the future. It went below $2 a few months ago.
The .22 ammunition bubble is hanging on. The push for more Second Amendment infringements by the Obama administration keeps it inflated. But with only six months to go to the end of that adminstration, the bubble has become fragile. .22 ammunition manufacturers have increased production by 20%. That puts a lot of strain on the bubble.
We are not there yet. WalMart still has a three box limit on .22 Long Rifle sales. This was not a sale, but their regular price.
We are not there yet, but we may be seeing a hint of there from here.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
About Dean Weingarten;
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
Possibly, if there was some buyer resistance, the price picture would change. If that didn’t work, you could always pay the pirates.
Kind of late in the day to be pretending that Obama is coming after your 22 lr ammunition.
Good article. Thanks. In a year they’ll be giving 22 away. A bubble means very attractive profits, and big profits means manufacturers will ramp up production – unless there’s collusion between manufacturers.
Does AmmoLand sold Ammo? If not, why not?
I’d buy it here to support the articles, including Codrea’s.
still selling out at the TN ones but there are some good deals in other calibers.
I’m concerned about the walmart price on the Remington Thunderbolt pack. It just went from $25 to $52
@Mitchell,is that a 500rd brick ?
AmmoGrab.com will send you a notification when the price of any given ammunition gets down to the price that you are willing to pay.
Here in central Iowa getting .22LR in bricks or value packs at a reasonable price is still tough. Bass Pro has reasonable prices and usually 50/100packs available (100 rd limit) but rarely larger qty packs. Another large national chain sporting goods store has lots of product but only because of their inflated prices. (500 Thunderbolts $35/ 325 Federal Automatch $25/ 525 Golden Bullet $40). Forget about trying to get any at Walmart. The associates claim to only get any in every couple weeks and then it is a small quantity…..I suspect there is funny stuff going on.
Cabelas in Mitchell, SD Finally had no limit on .22s, and Federal Match 325s were 21.00 a box.
Same here in Mass. I got 3 x 325 two days in a row to replenish my dwindling supply. We cannot get anyone on the Internet to sell us ammo here in Mass. – our lovely attorney generals have scared them all away with threats:(
Just an odd question re your “lovely state attorneys general”.Are they elected, appointed or handed down from The mountain?
I had no problem getting (3) .22lr 100 rnd packs in the late afternoon at the Walmart in Weatherford, TX back on July 2nd at a cost of $7.47 per pack.
I think the .22 shortage thing is BULL! I wanted to buy several boxes at Walmart one time … they refused to sell them to me and promptly boxed all of them up right in front of me! BullSh*t!
Last Friday afternoon, I got shell shocked In a certain Wally World outlet in South Florida. I am there for an item in the sporting goods department, I decide to see if this particular store sells ammo, as not all do, and I was unfamiliar with this one. I see a locked glass case, as I approach, I see the sign stating the 3 box limit, yadda yadda………then besides the ammo which never sells because whatever, I see bricks and boxes of .22, I see 100 round boxes of 38 spec., Big 250’s of 9mm, I see .40, .45, .223,… Read more »
Bought a brick of Remington 525 .22lrhp today at Academy for a tad over 6 cents a round after tax. They probably had 50 boxes in stock and a one box limit per customer. The guy in front of me ask for one then told his wife to ask for one as well. I do know that our local Wally World is getting them in but there’s a little shenanigans going on over there. I was told this by an employee that has no interest in purchasing ammo for himself or anyone else.
On the way home from Fort Worth a few weeks ago I stopped at the Cabela’s on I-35 north of Fort Worth. They had mass quantities of the Federal Target bulk paks along with 50 and 100 count boxes of many other brands of 22 lr ammunition. I haven’t seen that much 22 lr ammunition in years! Yet, the four Wal Marts, the Gander Mountain, and the Academy Sports have no 22 lr and only get limited quantities when they do receive shipments. I will say that 22 ammo has gotten better in my area but only by a small… Read more »
This is one of the many, many reasons I boycott Walmart, but it’s one of the primary ones. The fact that Walmart turns a blind eye to all of the dishonest crap that happens with so many of its gun counter workers is shameful. Who cares about a brick here and there? I happily spend a bit more at reputable, 2A-friendly establishments.
My Bass Pro shop gets them on a regular basis and has had them for going on two years. There are times they don’t for a couple of weeks but they have been taking a few days longer to go lately. Guess the hoarders are full up. Prices around 6-8 cents a round.
One man’s ‘hoarding’ is another man’s ‘stocking up’. Depends upon whose ox is being gored…..
Yeah, here in Wichita Kansas we had retired guys with nothing better to do but show up when they were stocking the shelves no matter what time and would buy them out no matter how many trips they had to make in and out. They would show up on armslist all the time. Kinda sucked when you had three boys that could go through a lot of it. When a store like Dicks or Cabela would get some in I would try to pick some up but then you would see the old dudes show up whip out a phone… Read more »
I bought 3 boxes of Winchester at Wal Mart a week ago in Jax
Interesting article. I am very tired of getting ripped off by the scum balls out there in society…greed at its best my friends.
Walmart clerks tell me that 22s do come in here in Vero Beach, FL. But, unless you’re there when the store opens you never see them. I have a hunch the guys who stock the shelves before opening call their friends in the early AM
I know for a fact that here in Columbus Ohio that happens. The ammo would come in on a skid in the morning and leave on the same skid before the store opened. The guy that was doing this had no idea I was into guns and would laugh about it. Where would the stuff go, of course the internet and gun shows. When the store would open and he mob was let in the first ten guys were the only ones to get anything in .223 or 22. This happened everywhere, there was no shortage at the gun shows… Read more »
That is exactly what happens in Vegas.
If you happen to be there early enough at one of the 24hour walmarts you can see these guys setup on lawn chairs in the aisle just waiting for the clerk to roll out with the cart. I’m often in WM for various reasons early in the morning and I see these guys quite often.
I’ve had a hard time getting winchester 284 ammo. Has anyone seen any?
sportsmansguide dot com and gunbot dot net etc etc It is so much easier and cheaper to buy from the internet than Walmart (who only sells full metal jacket 9mm because the corp execs think that 9mm anything else might be used against some other person)
You need to buy a single stage reloaded. And start reloading your own ammo! By doing your own ammo you can make more Accurate ammo and spend less per round. Also you do not have to make real hot rounds but you want rounds that are consistency better. Most rounds are 5 to 10 % less than factory. Also the powder reloaded buy or use is not the same as what Big ammo manufactures make and use. But if you read and learn your 284 will shoot and group better than ever before. And you can even buy a die… Read more »
Went to the gun store last week. 50 round box of CCI Stingers cost almost $9.00. In Maryland, this is a good price.