The issues behind lack of .22 Long Rifle ammunition on the shelves of your local retailer are complex and not easily explainable. Demand currently exceeds supply. Beyond the laws of simple economics, there are side effects due to lack of said supply and high demand. The two most obvious are speculation and hoarding. If you can hit the local big box store because you have the time to wait for the ammo truck to arrive and resell $20 worth of .22 for $60 through the Valley Trader or at the next gun show, you are an opportunistic speculator. There are some other words I might use, but I will restrain myself. And if you are a guy that typically buys .22 Long Rifle 250 rounds at a time who just bought 10,000 because you could not find 250 when you wanted them, then you are a hoarder. It does not make you evil, it simply means your buying habits changed due to market or external conditions. And your changed behavior likely led others to change theirs as well.
When demand exceeds supply, feeding more product into distribution is the obvious answer. It’s just good business. But what if you can’t? That’s where we are with .22 Long Rifle.
We have been resoundingly criticized for reporting manufacturers all say they are running full out in .22 Long Rifle production (some of the kinder messages had more explatives than a Quentin Tarantino movie). The ammo makers are not making that up. It is not a conspiracy. I have been in two of the major rimfire plants in the United States since this “crisis” hit, and they are, indeed, running three shifts, full out. But there are not that many rimfire plants in the United States. There are foreign makers, too, with Mexico’s Aquila, Italy’s Fiocchi and Sweden’s Norma in particular stepping up to meet demand. Also making .22 LR are England’s Eley, Germany’s RWS and SK and Armscorp in the Philippines.
For domestic rimfire plants, ATK/Federal has one in Minnesota, there is the ATK/CCI plant is in Idaho, Remington has one in Arkansas, and Winchester has one in Oxford, Miss. The latter used to be in East Alton, Ill., but in order to remain profitable and competitive, Olin Corp. moved the plant about a decade ago. Notice those two words, “profitable” and “competitive.” One of the reasons we shoot so much .22 is that it is cheap. At least compared to center-fire ammunition. Granted, material costs (i.e., lead and copper) have increased but at around 5 to 10 cents a round in normal conditions, .22 Long Rifle is remarkably reliable and inexpensive. But it is not terribly profitable. Much like the promotional dove loads that hit every big box store in the country this time of year (remind me to pick up a case), they are designed for mass production and have low profit margins. Pricing, at least from the manufacturer, is extremely sensitive and competitive. They sell huge amounts of rimfire and dove loads, but no company’s bottom line financial success is made by these products. Loss leaders or thin margins, they may not be pork bellies, but sure seem like commodities.
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