About once a week this correspondent visits a local Wal-Mart to monitor ammunition prices. This time, there was a significant change. Wal-Mart rolled back the price of some bulk-packed .22 LR ammunition. The product was Federal Automatch, 40 grain, in a 325 bulk pack. The price was $18.97 or 5.8 cents per cartridge. The price had been $21.16, or 6.5 cents per cartridge. It is about a 10% reduction in the price.
Most days this correspondent will look at ammunition prices online. They are not quite as good an indicator, because shipping costs have to be included. Virtually everyone online now charges state sales tax, so that no longer makes much of a difference. Online prices were even lower, with the lowest costs for the cheapest ammunition at exactly 5 cents per cartridge for Armscor .22 LR 36 grain hollowpoint, bolt action only. From the indicated supplier, shipping costs were included in the price. A purchaser had to buy a full 5,000 round case to obtain the 5 cent per round price.
Screenshot from an Ammoseek search.
In my experience, the Federal Automatch is a bit more reliable ammunition than the Armscor 36 grain. Other people's experience may vary.
Since the ammunition bubble starting in 2012, Ammunition prices have gone up and down in response to overwhelming, then muted, demand. The demand seems linked to political threats to impose significant infringements on rights protected by the Second Amendment.
The ammunition companies have increased .22 Long Rifle production by about 40% since 2012, from about 5 billion rounds of .22 LR per year to 7 Billion rounds per year at present. Both Aguila Ammunition and Vista Outdoors (Federal and CCI) have increased production substantially.
Much specialty .22 ammunition is still difficult to obtain, but shelves are being stocked with more and more ammunition. The Federal Automatch bulk packs have been available at the local Wal-Mart, as far as this correspondent has been able to determine, continuously, for over a year.
How low will .22 prices go? It is impossible to know, especially with rampant monetary inflation confounding the picture. In constant dollars, 5.8 cents per round in 2023 is equivalent to 3.77 cents in 2005. The lowest constant dollar prices for .22 LR ammunition occurred from 1993 to 2006, at about 7 cents per round for suggested retail prices of Remington Hi-Velocity LR ammunition in 2023 dollars.
The Federal Automatch ammunition appears to be a pretty good deal.
If looking to stock up on .22 ammunition, watch for sales, and purchase what you wish when the price is down. The time to buy is when most people are not buying. Another source of excellent deals are estate sales. It does not matter if the ammunition is new in never opened boxes. Guns stores will almost never take ammunition in for sale that has been in customers hands, off store. Perhaps they are worried about liability. This author has purchased ammunition from estates, and at gun "buy backs" and had excellent luck with it. Of course, it is up to the buyer to be wary of what they are purchasing.
A purchaser does not have to worry about purchasing .22 reloads, as the number of people who reload .22 rimfire is extremely small. But for centerfire cartridges, caution is suggested. When this correspondent has purchased reloaded ammunition, he had personal knowledge of the person doing the reloading, and had confidence in their methods.
©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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3 comments:
Great. Now if I could only get the 174 grain Sierra Matchking bullets in .311" I have had on order for a year and a half. I have a homebuilt rifle that uses fire formed brass and those bullets in a precision loading recipe to achieve the accuracy I desire.
The Pentagon is realizing that they need a whole crap ton more amount if we ever get into a shooting war
I explained availability will decline over the Summer.
I read an article on MSN about how ammo prices were expected to go up at least 15% so I thought I had better stock up as I teach marksmanship. So Expecting Walmart to have the best price I stocked up I bought most of the Federal ammo they had on the shelf I could not believe how expensive it was. Then I went to Yuma and found 350 count boxes of .22lr at half the price So I called the Walmart corporate office and complained 18 and change per box is still almost double what I paid in Yuma at Sprague's. I calculated it up the Walmart Price was 2.8 times the cost I paid in cash at Parker for what I could have paid in Yuma. 40gr. or 36 gr. the finger on the trigger and the weapon are what makes the difference. Federal had the best stats for no misfires. Sprague's has the 350 round bulk packs. I think my call lowered the price at Walmart. But it is still way to high.
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