In the run up to the 2016 election, the price of .22 ammunition has been fluctuating up and down around 6 cents a cartridge for baseline bulk ammunition. The reasons are clear. Production of .22 ammunition is up by about two billion rounds a year, responding to over the top demand for the last four years.
Part of the demand is structural. Many new gun owners and shooters have been created. Many of the younger members were raised on first person shooter games like Doom, Golden Eye, Battlefield, and Call of Duty.
People in the industry have reported that the new generation of shooters is more likely to go through 500 rounds of .22 in a shooting session, instead of 50. Moreover, decent .22 rifles and pistols have become relatively cheap. A Marlin model 60 today can be had, brand new, for $150. A Savage model 64 can be had for $116, and the Mossberg semi-auto for $109.
The Model 60 cost about $40 in 1960. A constant dollar calculator shows that would be $322 in 2016. So the price has dropped in half in constant dollars. Another way to look at this is the minimum wage in 1960 was a dollar an hour. It would take a full week of 40 hours to buy the rifle.
Today, the minimum wage (federal) is $7.25. It would take a person about half a week (21 hours) to buy a model 60 today. That correlates pretty well with the constant dollar calculator.
There are a 100 million or more .22 rifles and pistols in the United States. They are incredibly popular, and with very little care they last for many decades.
Some of the increased 2 billion rounds a year will go to feeding the increased structural demand.
But a considerable amount of the demand has been a bubble created by concern over gun control. It is one of the few areas where President Barack Obama was stymied by the American people and Congress. Hillary Clinton fed the fear with her campaign rhetoric and potential Supreme Court justices.
With the election of Donald Trump, that fear will be subsiding. Many .22 owners have built up a stockpile of a few thousand rounds of ammunition. That ammunition has not been shot, and it will be around for a while.
I expect the demand for .22 ammunition to drop when the reality of a Trump administration hits home. The current protests and riots are not helping. Nor are the conspiracy theories about a Trump assassination.
After President Trump is safely inaugurated, and starts to move his legislative agenda, demand will drop and prices will fall.
I expect bulk .22 ammunition to be available for 4 cents a round by October of 2017.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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7 comments:
I sure hope the price comes down soon My 8k inventory needs some new shells. I no longer feel the rush to get 300 pounds of bullets cast for my other calibers. I have spent the last two weeks cleaning up enough to put 110 one pound ingots in my inventory. getting the temperature just right makes a big difference. I usually start by filling the ten pound post and casting a few ingots to warm up the mounds. then I cast a few bullets to warm up the casting moulds they look really good . some of my neighbors thought I was casting silver. they look really good when the temperature is right.
Unfortunately, here in the People's republic of Commifornia proposition 63 just passed,(too many damn libs here) so folks'll be on an ammo binge before next year!
Walmarts in South Carolina no longer stock .22LR.
I have not seen any in over 3 years at any of the stores I've shopped at.
Not even a space on the shelf for it.
Which is why I gave up on it, sold my Savage 64F 2 years ago.
I bought a box of Federal Auto Match (as pictured above) at Bass Pro last year Black Friday, only because I still have my Stevens Westpoint Model 121 single shot my Father bought for me in 1967. I still have over 250 rounds of it.
I *may* buy another box from BPS this Black Friday. $16, limit 2 boxes.
I hope that you are correct.
The reason that 22 rifles are priced low is demand has dropped. It's being almost a decade when 22 was allway in stock. Why buy a new 22 if ammo is always a scavenger hunt?.
You know the 7.62 military ammo cans? I think the measurements are like 6x12x8 inches? I have two of those packed full of .22 ammo. with every weapon fully loaded and all of the cartridge belts and extra ammo packs filled. I bought four more empty ammo cans at the Yuma gun show. working on filling them up. each caliber gets its own can. 18 cans and growing.
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