Rimfire 22WMR ammo - the price per round is INSANE!

[Pereira]

Actually .22mag ammo is down considerably from where it was a few months back.

Before this madness I was paying 20 to 24 cents per round. Now if you use ammo seek you can find it for 28 to 30 cents for the bullet weight and brand you prefer. Not all that bad. That 70 cents a round is what it was up to for a while in most places. Those stores likely have not sold much, so have not reordered and received fresh shipments at lower prices. And with current prices elsewhere, they are not likely to sell much.

Considering that to reload centerfire is going to cost you 15 cents a primer and more for powder, lead, brass. It does not seem as bad as it could.
But if you have not been pricing ammo, wait till you see the prices on centerfire rifle ammo! Even .30-30 ammo that was available anywhere a year ago for 50 cents a round or less is now 2 or 3 dollars per round. 50$ for a box of 20, now that to me is greed pure and simple.

I've seen Fed. 30-30 ammo recently for $24.99 a box of 20, about a month ago.
In fact I bought one box just to compare in a couple Marlins to my reloads.
They were neck and neck with my own.
I've seen some 22 mag at Academy last time or two but I didn't really check it.

RP

[kens]

22mag was never cheap. it always seems to be comparable to .38spl
to try to compare 22mag to the cost of .22lr cannot be done

[uscra112]

.22 Mag never made much sense to me. Cheaper to reload .223 to whatever power level desired in the rifles..

That's what I did, to upgrade my garden defense from plain ol' .22LR. 35 grain V-max and 6 grains of Red Dot = WMR load, but for pennies, and it shoots the same zero at 80 yards as my full-house coyote load does at 150, so I don't even touch the scope settings.

[Land Owner]

It's not the retailers. It's economics. And opportunity cost.

And 22WMR has always been relatively expensive...And shooting is an expensive hobby.

What makes 22WMR so expensive, compared to 22LR? And it isn't the state of the Economy. Through one-half century of arithmetically expanding gun and component purchase, reloading, and shooting centerfire and 22LR cartridges, I have saved so much that I can afford to ask stoopid questions.

[M-Tecs]

What makes 22WMR so expensive, compared to 22LR? And it isn't the state of the Economy. Through one-half century of arithmetically expanding gun and component purchase, reloading, and shooting centerfire and 22LR cartridges, I have saved so much that I can afford to ask stoopid questions.

Lower volume. That's why 410 is more expensive than 12 gauge.

[MrWolf]

Wow! Where did you find that good of price? None of my sources in early 2020 came close to $6.20 per 50.

I purchase by the case also but 2,000 round cases are all I've found except for Armscor and they don't have the bullets I want.

I use 30 grain V-Max or 33 grain Remington AccuTip's for prairie dogs.

I had seen an add from Cheaper even though I refused to buy from them due to their gouging. Saw the price on a case of 5,000 Armscor 40 gr jhp and couldn't resist. Figured they didn't make much on that deal or they had a misprint but jumped on it.

[Randy Bohannon]

I bought a CZ 452 Mannlicher in .22 WMR about 10 years ago when I was updating my rimfire rifles. Mounted a 2X7 Leupold rimfire scope and it shot so well I was buying nice big lots of .22WMR in all manufactures until I settled on Winchester and Federal ,the heaviest ones I can find.
Winchester did some subsonic 40 gr. that @ 200 yards 3”4” groups which I was surprised and pleased I bought several thousand. As others have said .22WMR has always been at a premium,accuracy not always but is better now than ever before.

[kerplode]

What makes 22WMR so expensive, compared to 22LR? And it isn't the state of the Economy. Through one-half century of arithmetically expanding gun and component purchase, reloading, and shooting centerfire and 22LR cartridges, I have saved so much that I can afford to ask stoopid questions.

22WMR has never been as inexpensive as 22LR and it never will be. It's a significantly lower volume round than 22LR, so there is less economics of scale in its production. Lines making 22LR need to be brought down and reconfigured to make 22WMR which takes time and money. There is also the opportunity cost of not making the 22LR they would have been making on that line while it's producing 22WMR. 22WMR also has higher component costs. More brass for the case and the bullets are generally a cup and core FMJ or some kind of a ballistic tip rather than just a waxed or plated swaged lead bullet. There are opportunity costs here as well as those raw materials could have been used for higher-volume, better margin, calibers like 22LR, 9mm, 223, etc.

Also, there are currently supply chain issues which are making raw materials harder to get and much more expensive. Labor is also more expensive. Oh, and the worst inflation in 50 years which makes everything more expensive. So yeah, the economy is involved as well. Maybe you haven't noticed, but 22LR isn't $10/brick anymore either.

But yeah, you're probably right...It likely is just the retailers screwing you.

[kerplode]

Sorry...I'm not trying to be a jerk. I get it. Things are expensive and it sucks.

But I have a bit of an immune reaction to people blaming retailers and crying gouging when that is almost never the case. So that's where the attitude is coming from.

Anyway, 22WMR is a pretty neat little cartridge and the PMR30 looks like a fun little pistol. If you get it, I think you'll enjoy it. Just know it's not going to be a blast-a-brick-on-sundays kind of proposition like you could do with a Mk-III or whatever. But a box here and there like a centerfire handgun won't bust the bank.

Oh, and wear good earpro. 22WMR fired from a pistol is LOUD.

[uscra112]

My understanding of Sillynoise law is that you'd have to have a Sillynoise FOID to buy them, which lets out any potential out-of-state buyers.

[RogerDat]

When more people wish to purchase a good than the supply available of that good prices rise. Simple as that. Several stores are selling primers of half or less of the $15 a hundred I saw at last gun show. Some retailers are charging closer to the $100 price, some are down around $65 - $75 per thousand.

My guess is that primers yield a larger profit when placed into a finished cartridge than when sold as a reloading component by the 1000 pack. I would also guess that the ammo manufacturers are the "bread and butter" market of primer sales making them a more important customer for primer manufacturers than the reloading market.

What I find annoying is those who work to snag as many as they can at all possible locations in order to mark up and sell the primers. They in effect distort the market. Lurking online and buying up primers when they come in stock in order to double the price and sell them online or at shows is no different than scalpers creating a shortage of tickets to an event by purchasing hundreds of seats in order to re-sell them at a massive markup.

It may be how capitalism and free markets work. If you can gain a supply of scarce good you can mark it up as high as the market will pay. It is the way things work but it can be pretty annoying when you see primers for $65 at retail outlets but all gone and then have the chance to buy them for $150 that weekend. Heard at Jay's a rookie clerk didn't know there was a limit of 500 cnt of two types and a buyer came in and cleaned them out in one shot. Now maybe they needed all those primers in all those sizes or.... yeah maybe not.

Best advice is always buy it cheap and stack it deep. Only thing not making .22 rim fire an issue is I stocked up enough for my needs back when, added to my Y2K stash For primers I'm a little short due to plans to load a couple of calibers that were not on my radar when I determined what was a suitable supply to keep on hand. I tend to work off of a supply on hand that gets replaced as it gets used. So use a pound out of 8 and replace it. Use a box of primers, replace that box. Amount on hand stays fairly stable.

I thought about reloading RF and decided it wasn't worth the hassle for me although it did sound interesting. I'm more with the load something else to do the job suggestion. Although the venerable .22 is a lot of fun and is missed when it is being rationed.

[mobilemail]

I was advised by a moderator that my earlier post was inappropriate. Apologies all, won't happen again.
Carry on!

[Pereira]

Went by the local Academy and they had these today.

Sent from my SM-A102U using Tapatalk

[Tripplebeards]

Do yourself a favor and pass on the PMR. I bought one going on three years ago now. It was brand new. The pistol went back to Kel-tec 4 times in 2 months for fail to feed issues. They refunded me directly. I wouldn’t take one of it were free after that. Tons of the same issues with the PMR30 I had posted all over the net. I bought a Walther WMP over a month ago. It’s about the only reliable semi auto 22WMR in existence. When I picked it up at Cabelas they had 30 grain vmax in stock for the first time in years. Cheapest I ever found it was $10.99 at Ace hardware about 3 to 4 years ago. I bought 3 boxes for $15.99 each the other day. They price matched farm and fleets Internet price. I don’t think I’ve seen 22 WMR in the last 10 years for under $10.99 per 50. Twenty five years it was $6.99 to $8.99 a box on average. It’s always been about 3 times as much as 22lr on average imo. I just make sure to sight in what ever I’m using and keep the rest of my ammo for hunting and varmints.

I found this deal at Walmart last summer…




Same boxes are currently at Cabelas for $46.99 each.

[Tripplebeards]

I had to make a grocery run to Walmart today and spotted these….









Needless to say they went home with me! Figured I’d kick myself if i didn't buy them. They took a $7 price hike. I know they got a batch in last year for $29 right after I bought mine for $22 and disappeared pretty fast. I haven’t seen any since. Figured it was still a good deal vs $46.98 at Cabelas and since I just bought a Walther WMR I needed some plinking ammo.

[Tripplebeards]

I stopped in the other local Walmart today and they had one carton of the same ammo. I figured five boxes will hold me over for awhile so I left it there for someone else.

[uscra112]

Each Big Box store runs computer algorithms that keep meticulous track of what sells, and conversely won't restock anything that doesn't. Turnover and ROI per square foot of shelf space are their mantras. A Walmart in an area with few .22 Mag shooters will be very thin on that ammo, while another one a few counties away is just the opposite.

[Digital Dan]

Had a 9422M for quite awhile and it was a good one that shot quite well. Good supply of ammo as well. Problem was that I also had a .22 Hornet, so the levermatic collected dust. It went down the road a few months back w/o hurting my wallet.

[FergusonTO35]

.22 Mag never made much sense to me. Cheaper to reload .223 to whatever power level desired in the rifles.

In a pistol, I never had the need...but can see others that want it.

.22 Magnum made sense before I started reloading and there really was nothing else to choose from between .22 LR and .223 which had readily available and reasonable cost factory ammo. Classic cartridges that once filled this gap like .32-20 and .22 Hornet actually cost more than .223 per round back then and today, and you aren't going to find either one on the shelf at Cheap Mart. I also don't have to remind anyone that rifles in these cartridges are neither cheap nor plentiful.

Now that I cast and reload, the .22 Magnum no longer serves any purpose.But for those who don't, the .22 mag might just make sense.

[almar]

whatever you do, don't throw away your rimfire brass or primers. There is a market for them now or at least there could be soon. I and others i know reload EVERYTHING.