I received a Davidson’s Ammo Blast through the mail yesterday. (Don’t worry, no one was hurt.) As you can see they’re offering 50 rounds of Aguila .22LR Target ammo for 12.22 per round. And . . . that’s it for the once all-conquering caliber (at least for plinking).

Are you seeing any relief from The Great Twenty-Two Drought? How’s the supply and price of .22 ammo in your neck of the woods? Have you given up on shooting .22 caliber firearms in favor of guns that shoot enormously plentiful .223 or 9mm pills? BTW: CapArms doesn’t make .22.

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68 COMMENTS

  2. I gave up 22. Most of what I have now is 9mm, 5.56, and 7.62×39. The scalpers ruined it for me.

  3. I can find .22 at every gun store in the area. The prices are back down from Firearmageddon, but they are still a little bit above where they were. I rarely shoot my .22s though. If anyone it shooting a .22 it’s my wife as the M&P 22 is the only pistol she can rack the slide on.

      • Nah, I’ve got about 18 Rugers ahead of that on my wish list. Probably a Mark IV Hunter would be at the top of the .22 list, but I can’t really see dropping $600 on one.

        • Have the Mk III Hunter and can pick off empty 12 gauge shells from 25 yards. These things offer nearly rifle like accuracy. Now I want to scope it to see what it will really do. You won’t be disappointed with this gun. Hell, we are never disappointed a Ruger.

        • They should be near rifle-like accuracy since there is no reciprocating slide. I’m wanting a scoped handgun, although I’ve been leaning toward either a Super Blackhawk Hunter or Super Redhawk (probably .44 mag) so I can ring the 8″ gong at the 200 yard mark at my local range. The Mark IV might make a for a less expensive alternative though. Is there a decent way to put a scope on those?

          • My Mk III Hunter came with a rail & mounting screws to mount to the predrilled receiver, so no problem. The Mk IV is also predrilled, but now the rail is an option. Wondering if the spacing on the Mk III & IV are the same, I would hope so. Next Ruger is a 22/45 Lite in one of the new colors that comes with a rail already mounted.

    • Snarling, the southpawed marksman grabbed the Ruger representative by his shirt collar and twisted his fists into the fabric.
      “I. Want. A. Port-sided. American. Rimfire. In .22. Long. Rifle!” he bellowed into the poor man’s face, throttling him violently with every syllable.

      • I’ve heard it’s harder these days to be left handed in America than trans-gender.

        • At first, I laughed at this. Then I thought about it, in some ways by George you’re right!

          My step son shoots lefty and hates hot brass flying by his face. I want to buy him a left handed AR-15 but they’re very expensive because the entire upper is made of custom parts!

      • Look at the Ruger magazine, it’s design kind of precludes there EVER being a left handed model that uses it. Better off bothering savage.

  5. My local hardware store has 525 round bricks for $35. Though strangely, the nearby Walmart hasn’t had anything larger than 20 round boxes for a couple of years.

  6. in reno all the big box stores have .22lr, prices seem to be around 8-10 cents a round.

  7. Use a lot of .22 LR and keep a sizable amount on hand. Even when people had no .22’s to shoot I had plenty. At any given time I can go pick up a few thousand at once for reasonable to somewhat cheap prices; I find no problem finding plenty. I also let people who have never shot a gun use my .22’s, after a complete safety and operational program, at zero cost. Just did in the last week and I have more people who want to come. I have my own range. And no, I am not well off, but if you live simple you don’t need as much. If someone needs .22’s I will sell them some either at cost or no more that 10% uptick from what I paid for it. So what if I make a huge $4 on a brick. People who don’t know guns or who are afraid of them need encouragement to shoot. Some of the ones trying to get over are a woman and her grand daughter; she said it was time to learn about guns and stop being afraid of them. So no, I don’t find it hard to find .22’s.

  8. Plenty around here. And it stays on the shelf.
    A bit higher in price than normal inflation would suggest.
    But I’ve got plenty in my personal supply.

  9. Gobs and gobs around here pretty much since January. Prices are still a little high, but coming down.

  10. My local Walmart has had plenty of 22 for the last month or so. I just bought a 1,000 round box of Winchester for $50.86 plus tax. They have 100 round boxes for around 7 cents per round. The 325 round boxes of whatever is $17 and change.

    • My central Florida Wal-Mart had the 1400 round Bucket of Bullets on the shelf for $75 about 2 weeks ago, first time since 2012…

  11. i stocked up when i could get 550 rounds of Fed. value boxes at Wallyworld for $18 bucks a box. i wont buy until its at that price or better…so make my day…unless you want to buy some from me at twice the price cause i have plenty..morons, the world is full of morons….

    LOL

    • I hope you never need more 22lr. You will never see that price again. Likely it will not go below 5 cents a round.

      • If I remember correctly, 22 ammo in the mid sixties was 1 to 1 1/2 cents per round, making it 7 to 10.5 cents in today’s money, basically what we are paying today. So when we were paying around 3.5 cents a round a few years ago 22 ammo was about half the price 40 years earlier. Everything is relative.

  12. Standard velocity CCI is around 10 cents per round in my area and I finally started buying larger quantities again to replace what was used up when it was twice that. Truth is, I won’t be buying any more 22 guns, and because of my experience with 22, I keep far more of my standard center fire rounds on hand.

  13. It seems a bit silly to give up on .22 because you can’t buy it over the counter locally. Most of my stock was bought online. The local Walmart works OK for common calibers except .22.

    • I may have been living under a rock for a while, but when did they start making 40 rd boxes?
      Looks like a decent price till you notice that your missing 10 rounds.

      • Been happening with groceries for a long time; keep price nearly the same, reduce content. I noticed this right off with AE, kind of pissed me off. I have lots of the 50’s on hand.

  15. I havent given up on 22Lr. But Im shooting a heck of alot more 9mm then 22Lr.
    The difference in price doesnt make up for the difference in bang and blast for the buck.
    If 22 comes back to more realistic pre shortage price????? I might make more use of them again.
    But at a 2-3 $ price difference per 50 rounds. My 22s will sit.

    • Either you paid too much for .22’s or got 9mm really cheap. On average, my 9mm, which I bought smart, are $8 a box more than my .22’s.

  16. In SE MA, twenty-twos are available but not abundant and prices are moderate but not cheap.

    I rebuilt my supply from just a couple of bricks left in my stash to around 7,500 rounds, so I’m back to shooting them again.

  17. I’ll be stocking up, especially now that I’ve got my suppressor and new Ruger 22/45 Lite Mark IV.

  18. I haven’t shot .22 in so long I don’t remember the last time. Been thinking of trading in my last .22 pistol on something I would shoot.

  19. The LGS I stopped in yesterday had a moderate supply at reasonable prices including CCI, and my favorite mail order supplier had CCI Mini Mags at $50 for 500, and Aguila Super Extra for $30 a brick so I’ll buy when funds are available since I am down to MY last full brick

  20. All the stores in the areas I haunt (Catskill Mountains and Nassau County, NY) now have 22 in stock always, including the local Walmarts. The Walmart in Valley Stream NY has 50 round boxes of Federal Champion for $2.39 a box most of the time. The various big box chains like Dicks or Gander Mountain almost always have the bulk boxes in stock. The 325 round boxes of Federal Automatch can frequently be had for about $16. I can almost always get Eley Target for about $6-7 for 50 at Dicks. I see a wide variety of brands and loads in almost all the stores. It seems that $0.05/rd is the usual going rate in Southern NY.

  22. Since I shoot with a Ladies Shooting league I shoot whatever I have the most of. But since have a Golden Retriever Rescue dog who has a cataract that needs to be removed at a cost of $2000 to $3000, that is the priority right now. Used to use Pet Sitting income but have retired from that last year. Due to low debt we are able to put a anything between $1000.00 to $2000.00 a month.
    We are blessed

  23. My local walmart has had one or two deliveries a week. This week was winchester super x .22wmr. Week or so before was winchester 555 brick for 23 bucks and federal 325 match for 17 bucks.

  25. Yes, I’ve got tons of the stuff. Please stop asking about it, it’s starting to get weird.

  26. ’bout .07 around chicago, but you have to leave cook to avoid the penny tax.
    i pick some up every time i leave the county for beer. and i drink five pabstshmeers a day.

  27. I just picked up 3250 rounds of Federal Auto Match and 500 rounds of Sellier and Bellot HVHP for .05/round.

    I have been able to reliably get .22lr for the last two years but usually ended up paying .09->.10/round. Only recently have I seen prices routinely dipping below the 9/10 cents mark.

  28. I gave up on it. The current drought it subsiding, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to suddenly dissapere on a whim again. Sure, there was a shortage of other calibers too, but they bounced back rather quick, abs prices returned to normal a couple months later. It’s been 5 years. .22 still hasn’t recovered. I’ll stick with guns and ammo I can actually shoot. By the way, these next four years are the time to stock up people. Not the last week of the next election or big anti gun push. I rode out the last two panics without buying a damn thing.

  29. Have been shooting a lot of 22 lately, and have been buying at almost normal prices. For me it’s easier to buy than dig out of the back of my closet from my stored stash.

    Gouged are gone here in Houston. Academy, gander and Sally world have all been in stock near me. Even found some shorts.

  30. Around here you can find it sitting on the shelf about half the time at a reasonable cost. I stocked up once online prices started to stabilize.
    And I’m still buying .22s. Of the 4 (maybe 5) guns I currently plan to buy, two are .22s. After that hopefully the HPA has passed and I can start stocking up on surpressors.

  31. Five or six cents a round is a good price in the OKC area. Academy Sports has a good .22 supply, Bass Pro and Cabelas in OKC are closer to nine or ten cents if they have .22 in stock. The local Wally Worlds are almost always out of stock. The last .22s I bought were on the weekend after election day – 800 rounds of Browning labeled Winchester at Bass Pro in Dallas for five and a half cents a round. I’m sitting on about 18K rounds of .22 and plan to get the supply up to 25K before the next presidential election. I bought myself a Browning 1911 22 as a late Christmas present just because I could and I’m shooting it and a couple of other rimfires for fun every so often. At my age my ammunition supply will probably outlive me so I’ll leave something for the people listed in my will to fight over.

  32. In Galveston County Texas we’re back to normal. Remington golden bullet is down to 5 or 6 cents a pop.

  33. I really like the looks of that Target Model. Have a threaded barrel on my SS 10/22 TD with fiber optics, laser & IR scope. Modified mounts let me leave scope on gun and put it in the backpack.

  34. Guys, go to Ammoseek.com. You can pretty much always find .22LR for 5 cents a round or less and usually free shipping if you order in bulk. Bought mine six or seven weeks ago when Cabela’s had an online sale of Federal.

  35. Supply is improving here in WI. I am now paying ~ 7 cents per round, but I don’t need to buy a whole bunch. I keep a nice inventory on hand at all times, just like the rest of my ammo; you never know when the next SHTF incident will occur and your favorite ammo is out. Best be prepared ahead of time.

  36. .22lr not so much, but I have plenty of shorts in all varieties, and can get more cheaper & easier than long. Seems not many people around where I live still have firearms which’ll cycle shorts. My Winchester 1906 isn’t picky though.

  37. 5-6 cents a round. They had a lot more at that price than I could justify buying.

    I got a .22 not too long before the shortage. I fortunately got enough to last me through the shortage. It was getting close at the end there.

  38. I haven’t seen .22 at a Walmart in South East Tennessee since the panic started. Every where else has it, including the locals and the Dunhams, etc. It isn’t cheap though. The cheapest around is CCI blazer at $4 a box. Dunhams usually has something on sale at $5 a box, usually some type of Federal. CCI standard vel is $6 a box. Most ammo is running $5-7 a box here. Bricks are harder to come by. The last brick of CCI standard I saw was $60, a bucket of Rem Golden bullets was $85. All other ammo is pretty much normal in price. For example, aluminum case Federal 9mm is just under $10 a box at walmart, about twenty cents cheaper than Walmart’s 9mm Tulammo actually! It does not apply to me though. I bought 3k round of .22 from Cabelas online, other than that I have been shooting my 9mm reloads at $5.80 a box. I decided to shoot 9mm since I can shoot it for the same or less than .22.

  39. I have an American 180 subgun that fires .22LR at about 1375 rpm. As a result I go through a lot of CCI Blazer ammo. I have found several retailers on line that sell 5000 round cases for $325 to $329 delivered. That’s about 6.5cents per round. Get together with a few buddies and split a case.

    • Here in Southeast WI I still have not seen a single round on a Wal-Mart shelf past 8 am since this all started. Over the past month or so it’s finally starting to trickle into local hardware stores, Farm & Fleet, etc., but prices are still high. Just paid $40 for a 525 brick of Rem Golden HPs – that’s 7.6 cents a round, compared to $20-23 a brick prior to Jan. 2012 – but still the cheapest .22LR I’ve seen on a store shelf for the past 5 years.

      I have a pistol & 2 rifles to feed, but I haven’t been shooting them much as I watched my pitiful stock dwindling… think I was down to about 4-600 rounds at the beginning of this year! I was caught unaware after Sandy Hook with only a couple thousand rounds, but I was not about to pay those high prices until they got under a dime a round for common ammo…

  41. .22 shows up here in Minnesota in variable lots and brands, not cheap. I’ll believe the drought is over when the scalpers are no longer standing in line at WalMart at 4 AM.

  42. 22 has been getting cheaper around the Denver metro area. Cabelas had some good sales recently.

    I don’t look at the super cheap stuff (the federal bulk) because it doesn’t cycle well in my PPQ 22. But the Federal American Eagle was recently $2.49/box of 50; CCI blazer $27.99/brick of 500 (pretty limited supply there, though); CCI “standard velocity 40 grain was $3.99/box of 50, it’s usually $4.99/50.

    I don’t check Walmart often, they are picked clean most of the time.

    The 9mm has been dropping, too. The cheap federal (champion?) 115 grain was $9.99/box of 50, and Blazer 115 grain also dropped that low.

  43. Sold my .22 to a friend who needed a rifle to get his girlfriend into shooting. I can shoot cast .45 for about the same price per round, so rimfire has generally lost its appeal.

  45. Minnesota is still spotty in the rural areas .22 ammo is still double the artificial industry made drought prices. thanks to no load (Obama)!
    Shoot longer range today as I an i can roll my own although not as many!

  46. I can get it online using one of the multiple online aggregator search engines for $0.04/round. I can get it locally for $0.06 for subsonic (which won’t reliably cycle my 1958 Browning SA-22 Takedown) or $0.08 for hyper velocity.

  47. I have only very recently gotten back into shooting 22. I think I shot a 22 once during the entire Obama presidency, a little Taurus Pt22. Almost didnt get it because there was zero ammo to be found anywhere (this was in 2013 I believe), but the staff at the Gander Mt I bought it at had a Remington bucket of bullets set aside for 22 firearm purchasers, it was the last one they had. The local wal mart near me still has not had any 22 on their shelves since 2012. Plenty to be had at Cabelas and Academy though, I got a brick of Blazer for <$30 last week. I recently purchases a pristine Ruger Mk2 and a Mk3 22/45 and have been shooting them a lot, and have relearned just how much fun it can be to shoot 22. The Mk3 in particular has been my "most fun" gun, I've added a Sig Romeo 3 red dot to it and I have a Silencerco Spectre 2 on it. I also have a Savage Mk2 that is crazy quiet with my Spectre and subs!

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