I am reorganizing and I have a ..... “fair bit” of .22 and I got to thinking that there must be several hundreds of millions, if not a billion, Rounds or .22 out there in personal hands. I mean I realize in the United States there is a ton of ammo out there but I got to thinking about .22 and the numbers must be mind boggling.

Just a mental exercise that makes me smile.

Chris.

With an estimated US population currently at 329,064,917, a billion rounds total would require each person to have only about three rounds each. Obviously, of course, the vast majority of Americans don’t have any 22 LR ammunition at all, but if one in 10 does, that would require an average of only 30 rounds. If one in 100 Americans did, that would mean an average of 300 rounds each.

Interesting question, though, and especially if extended to cover cartridges like 9mm and 223/5.56. Whatever the answer I know many people who would meet the necessary averages if only one in 1000 of us possessed ammunition.

I'm not a rich man. I buy a little bit of centerfire ammo here, a little bit there. But each time I do, I click to the .22LR and insta-buy 500 rounds. It doesn't make sense not to add at least 500.
I can't imagine how much .22LR those on a bigger budget have. Well, I have an idea.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
if only one in 1000 of us possessed ammunition.

That only covers 1/2 a case of 22.

I'd bet we are talking in the trillions at least.

quote:

Originally posted by Blume9mm:
I'd bet we are talking in the trillions at least.

Well, I know I don't have a trillion rounds, and I don't even have a million or a hundred thousand. We need to stop putting these threads up because they make me feel poor. I know I once had 26,000. But most of those are gone now. Oh, I'm only counting the stuff from WalMart.

Once, long ago, we went to a gun show. The guys taking a road trip. We all belong to a jeep club and they were having some kind of party for the kids. So it was kind of on the way home so we stopped. There was beer. Always beer.

And another friend asked us what we'd been doing. I very stupidly said we'd gone to a gun show to buy ammo. He very bravely said he's got a bunch of ammo. If you count 22s, he's probably got 4-500 rounds. I didn't know what to say. It still worries me and that's got to have been 25 or 30 years ago.

I worry too much and for too long.

I read somewhere that annual production is 2.5 billion rounds.

50K in 22LR takes up only a small portion of a closet.

Guaranteed that there are TRILLIONS of .22LR stockpiled across America.

If only one percent of the US population had two bricks (1000 rounds total) of .22LR that would be over 3 Billion rounds right there. Annual production has also been increased substantially in recent years so would estimate somewhere in the 10+ billion range of annual production if you counted every available source of .22LR.

Yeah...it's easily in the TRILLIONS.

I have a box or two laying around, uh huh.

It has been said that the only way you can have too much ammunition is if you are on fire, fully fueled and 200 miles from the carrier.

quote:

Originally posted by Rinehart:
It has been said that the only way you can have too much ammunition is if you are on fire,.

What about if you've got to hump it uphill or if you've got to swim with it?

I think we all should have at least 10 bricks.

I once maintained a six brick minimum. Damn boat accident.

H&K-Guy

Whatever that number is, it went up tenfolds from 2014 to 2016.

Fall 2017 I was doing some cleaning in my gun / ammunition closet. Found a cardboard box I didn't recognize until I opened it - inside was a case of CCI Blazer 22LR that I must have purchases days before the 2016 election

I could not even begin to guess. There are regular shooters that keep a few cases (15 thousand rounds) on hand regularly, then the occasional plinkers with a brick or two, then think about all those people who have an old family .22 dusty in a closet with a box of fifty in a desk drawer. It must be a massive amount. I know of lots of not fun people that still had an old plinker .22 at the beach house or country cabin for the grand kids to shoot.

I don’t have a lot but I can surprise myself with a brick still. You know - move a hat, find a brick. Open drawer, find three more. None of them are where they are supposed to be.

Yeah I was just musing and I just thought that there must be a MIND BOGGLING amount of ammo out there. Especially considering the cost and small footprint.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:

quote:

Originally posted by Rinehart:
It has been said that the only way you can have too much ammunition is if you are on fire,.

What about if you've got to hump it uphill or if you've got to swim with it?

(You are likely correct about the swimming aspect)...

I did have a few civilian experiences where for the want of ammo... one in particular still haunts me.

So back in the 60's my late dad and all of us would go bird hunting pretty regularly. We had family farms and sometimes you might walk 5-6 miles during rabbit and bird hunts over a day.

I recalled that on the previous hunt I had been tired and felt afterwards that I carried too many shotgun shells.
So on that particular trip I decided I would go with exactly what my vest had loops for. (I based this on my usual shooting and the amount of birds I encountered).

However, as soon as we got about a mile or two out and began walking, there were freakin birds everywhere. My Uncle said he had never seen that many in years, and I quickly discovered that I wasn't exactly shooting my best.
I did bag some birds, but after about an hour... guess what. I got no more 20 gauge shells and everyone else was shooting 12.

So I made the best of it and toted birds for my dad and grandfather.

This an article from 2016. You do the math.

For the last three years, store shelves have been empty of .22 ammo more often than not. The lack of rimfire ammo and the high price of the ammo that’s available has negatively impacted recreational shooting. Looking for an update on the Great .22 Ammo Shortage, I spoke to Dan Compton [above] at SHOT. Dan’s Senior Product Line Specialist for Vista Outdoors, which includes CCI and Federal ammunition brands. Here’s what I learned . . .

Over the last year, Vista moved to increase .22 rimfire production to meet the increased demand. Good news, but it will take about a year to implement that decision. Vista gave the green light to the .22 investment based on the belief that the astounding demand for .22  isn’t based on hoarding. The overall market has expanded to include more new shooters, young shooters, women and urban shooters. Dan told me that the style of shooting has changed as well:

“We call it the ‘Call of Duty’ style. Lots of rounds downrange increases demand. The rounds expended per session has gone up. Where people might have shot a 50 round box before, now they shoot a 525 round box, and they don’t stop until it is empty.”

That’s not to say hoarding hasn’t been a major factor in the drought. Vista says there are about 50 to 80 million .22 owners in the U.S. When a few million owners decided they want to keep a few bricks of .22 on hand, the resulting demand increased well beyond what production could handle.

Dan was a little vague about actual numbers for the company’s planned production. Industry sources assured me that both Federal and CCI were looking to increase production by about 20 percent this coming year. One source said that CCI needed to put up a new building for the production facility.

I also heard that CCI is currently maxed out, producing about four million rounds per day. Federal is also running at peak capacity, cranking out about eight million rounds a day. That said, daily production varies depending on what sort of rounds are being produced.

Managers set up the production schedule about two months in advance based on orders. For example, .22 Stingers might be run for two eight-hour shifts, followed by a single eight-hour shift of .22 quiet rounds. The machines keep running 24 hours a day, stopping for 15 minute intervals at lunch breaks and between shifts, for maintenance.

CCI and Federal dominate the U.S. market. A 20% increase in production will have an impact. Well, should have a major impact. Much of the .22 bubble is political in nature. The ongoing increase in new shooters and changes in shooting style will keep the machines producing .22 ammunition busy for a long time. We shall see what happens in the stores.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.


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