How .22cal ammo is made

[kieefer]

http://www.outdoorhub.com/stories/video-have-you-ever-wondered-how-rimfire-ammunition-is-made/

 

I've got an itch for a M&P-22 and ran across this video during my searches and thought it was interesting.

 

Enjoy, since you can't find any on the shelves.  :lol:

[East_TN_Patriot]

Cool video. I always wondered how it was made.  Now they need to update that video to say "4 million rounds of .22 rimfire ammunition ready to be shipped to a retailer before being hoarded and resold for 3 times is MSRP on GunBroker."

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That was an interesting video. I do remember when you could actually get your hands on CCI Stingers.

Like a fool, I didn't.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Don't get cynical on us, ET. :D

 

It is distressing though, and I wonder how much of the 4million a day will have to be hoarded for it to be too

heavy to cart around at gun shows when the Gunbroker craze falls off? I can see wheelbarrow loads at deep

discount prices there.

[Kevo]

Nice video, thanks for posting.

[frankmako]

neat to see how they are made.  

[Guest Plus1Hdcp]

Thanks for the post, interesting viewing.  Too bad we can't find any!

[Links2k]

Good video.  Great ammo.

[runco]

After this video I was prowling around on CCI's website, just some FYI:

 

http://www.cci-ammunition.com/education/faqs.aspx

 

We are currently experiencing high demand for our products. We appreciate your patience and support and remain committed to serving all of our customers, from hunters and sport shooters to those who protect our country and our streets.

Q: Why is ammunition in certain calibers so hard to find?

A: The current market and environment is causing stronger than usual demand for products in our industry.

Q: Are certain contracts taking ammunition away from civilians?

A: No. We remain committed to serving all channels of our business. The majority of our product serves the commercial market.

Q: Why can't you just make more ammunition?

A: Our facilities operate 24-hours a day. We are continually making process improvements to increase our efficiency and investing in capital and personnel where we have sustained demand. We are bringing additional capacity online again this year.

Q: What is your stance on the current gun legislation?

A: We support the second amendment and responsible gun ownership. We remain fully engaged in the legislative and regulatory process to provide the most accurate and comprehensive information to decision makers. Like most major manufacturers in our industry, we are also members of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). This organization helps represent our industry and our customers before federal, state and local government entities. More information about legislation and our industry's positions can be found at www.nssf.org.

[Tncobra]

Francis needs to step it up, a bunch.

[Troutburger]

Its just hard to imagine at 4million rounds per day, that there could possibly be a shortage...

[hipower]

Its just hard to imagine at 4million rounds per day, that there could possibly be a shortage...

 

I t does boggle the mind. 4 Million rounds. That's a lot of shooting. Pre O, and Newtown, I'd hazard a guess that the average shooter, and this is based on me; probably kept a couple of bricks or 4/5 bu;k packs around. I actually had just a little more counting the 22 mag I shoot.

 

Say 2-3 thousand rounds. How many of us have at least one 22 rimfire handgun or rifle? I'd guess it at 40-50% here. And some of us have several.

 

So just using our little group as a test case. 3000 rounds a person. 15000+/- members here at 50% yields 7500 x 3000= 22,500,000 rounds! Man that's a lot. Maybe my figures are off on this.

 

But anyway, there's a lot of us shooting 22. Looking for it. And competeing with scroungers trying to resell. Even with all this, it still is curious that the 22 seems to be the most uncommon round aot there.

 

But still...I have no idea where its all gone to. My thoughts are just conjecture. If prices and availability come back to "normal," I won't be caught short again on 22.

 

And I'd think most others are planning the same

[BigK]

I guess it's too much to hope this .22 shortage ends soon and the resellers have to compete with Walmart prices to unload their hoardings.

 

Excellent video, though. I always wondered how they got the primer compound around the rim like that. Very interesting. A LOT more manual processes than I'd have expected for a 4M round/day operation.

Edited March 27, 2013 by BigK

[runco]

I still think the elephant in the room is components to make 22 ammo to begin with.  There can be only so many brass sheeting suppliers and those guys have capacity issues as well, not to mention power, and etc.  The same similiar components that are shared with pistol rounds and 5.56/223. 

 

Here is an exercise with numbers, there are 317,000,000 people in the United States, of this populous, this data source suggests that 30-34% of the U.S. population owns a gun, so roughly 100,000,000 gun owners.   If 100% of this group wanted just 1,000 rounds of 22 from CCI, it would take CCI  25,000 mfg days to provide this inventory, or 68 years assuming 24/7/365 mfg days in a year.  If CCI just quadruple production instantaneously, it would still take 16 years.  This assumes no one shoots up any inventory along the way causing more demand.

 

Now of course 317M people includes kids and the elderly.  100M gun owners do not all shoot 22.  In the scale of things, I can see that it will take some time for manufactuerors like CCI to catch up. 

[crashgordan]

I see a business opportunity here....
Perhaps a corporation?
I'm ready to invest...

[Cartel]

Great video! Being in the business of manufacturing I can appreciate this. Thank you for sharing!

Edited March 27, 2013 by Cartel

[Motasyco]

Very interesting.  Thanks!

[itchytriggerfinger]

I'm trying to figure out the math here.  Let's say 90 days since Newtown, production every day, that's 360,000,000 rounds produced.  Even using the wrong, high gun owner count of 192 million, that's 1.8 rounds per person.  That pretty much sucks.  Even at the low gun owner count of 44 million, that's 8.1 rounds per person, which also sucks.

 

"May I have some more sir?"

 

[graycrait]

I wonder who is getting this ammo?  I talked to a dude today that orders ammo for my closest WalMart and he said he can't get a .22LR rd and if someone said, "If you don't gt me some .22LR I will have to kill you."  He said his response would be, "THen go ahead and kill me because I can't get any .22LR."  

 

My question is, "Who is getting yesterday's 4 million rounds from CCI?"  I ain't seen 1 single round for sale in my local haunts for several months. 

 

 I haven't even pulled a trigger on any of my guns since before Christmas and won't on centerfire.  I will start shooting what I have left of .22 soon.  And when it is gone I just won't shoot until I can walk into a big box store and buy .22 ammo, regardless of how long it takes.  I won't even darken the doors of LGS for a year, whats the point, the only way you can get anything of note out of one is to be on a waiting list and then if it is ammo you are only going to get dribs and drabs for what the next year or two?  

 

By the time I get my shooting replacement hobbies ramped up any money I had or would have had for the firearms industry will have and is being used up.  I ain't sitting around waiting for a couple of years to have fun shooting when you can't, so might as well move on to something else - ain't going to live forever. 

[No_0ne]

In a conversation with David (dlm) in the chatroom this week, he brought up an interesting point.  Apparently Russia has recently relaxed some of their gun restrictions on private possession of firearms, making ownership of .22 rifles easier.  The Russians are buying up huge amounts of the available .22 ammunition, as it sells for much more there than here, thus offering increased profit potential for manufacturers.  If true (and David is certainly more an expert in this subject than I), the competition for available supplies will remain high for a very long period of time.

Edited March 27, 2013 by No_0ne

[Randall53]

I t does boggle the mind. 4 Million rounds. That's a lot of shooting. Pre O, and Newtown, I'd hazard a guess that the average shooter, and this is based on me; probably kept a couple of bricks or 4/5 bu;k packs around. I actually had just a little more counting the 22 mag I shoot.

 

Say 2-3 thousand rounds. How many of us have at least one 22 rimfire handgun or rifle? I'd guess it at 40-50% here. And some of us have several.

 

So just using our little group as a test case. 3000 rounds a person. 15000+/- members here at 50% yields 7500 x 3000= 22,500,000 rounds! Man that's a lot. Maybe my figures are off on this.

 

But anyway, there's a lot of us shooting 22. Looking for it. And competeing with scroungers trying to resell. Even with all this, it still is curious that the 22 seems to be the most uncommon round aot there.

 

But still...I have no idea where its all gone to. My thoughts are just conjecture. If prices and availability come back to "normal," I won't be caught short again on 22.

 

And I'd think most others are planning the same

 

You just pegged me to a tee....I have 2 - 22 rifles and 3 - 22 pistols.  Everytime I go to the range I take at least 2 of them along with whatever else I want to practice with that day....PPKS, Glock, Ruger......but ALWAYS a couple of 22's.  Especially if I plan on a couple of hours at the range. My son or my wife and I have gone through a whole brick more times than I can remember with both of us shooting pistols or pistol and rifle. But, the 380's, 45's, 32's ect...we shoot a couple of boxes or so of each and that's it. I tend to shoot the Glocks more though....at times.  I just love to shoot them.  I was caught with my pants down this time though...I had 1 and a half bricks and just ordered another one. I'll be stocking up when things loosen up though.

[graycrait]

 If true (and David is certainly more an expert in this subject than I), the competition for available supplies will remain high for a very long period of time.

 

That is heartening - not.  Glad I kept one of my long bows and all my fishing gear while I took a hiatus with lots of shooting the last decade.  Looks like shooting is going to fall to no 4 or 5 on Craigs hobby list, again.  Get ready to see some more stuff in the classifieds.

[hipower]

Yes, I'd say the shooting sports are really going to get expensive in the foreseeable future. Not that I like that any more than the rest of us here, but if any of the figures and information seen on this thread are even partially correct; shooting 22 caliber may become the most expensive round to fire outside of some of the big caliber rifles. And may be seen about as frequently as a Barret 50BMG on the local ranges.

 

Like Randall53, I have several Ruger semiautos, a conversion kit for my P220, my sentimental favorite the HighStandard Olympic, a 10/22, and a couple of rifles as well..

 

Maybe I should have sold the GSG and the M&PAR15-22 earlier.

[bucnball]

Goodness Gracious ! The Russian folks  can & do make their own 22 ammo ( I've got a few boxes of the steel-cased greasy stuff that my Romanian M 69 digests easily)...Rooster brand , as I recollect. It was not very common, but was kinda cheap in it's day..

[runco]

I think there are very many dynamics at play here that is compounding the problem, this is what Runco thinks:

 

A.) I believe there is a raw material or component shortage that is quietly impacting 22LR ammo, and most of these raw and component materials are being diverted to the government contracts of the pistol and rifle ammo.

 

B.) I believe the local gun shops have deployed many networking relationships (buddies, friends, bar stool sitters) that scour the earth (mainly Walmart) in search of ammo, and once found, buys this ammo at a retail level and resells it in their store. On the same line, Walmart sporting goods attendants and associates, they do have friends and cell phones. I think this happens more often than we think. Their friends are either hoarding, re-selling or are the mindless robots for the gun shops that are buying up this black market of ammo.

 

C.) The sheer magnitude of millions of gun owners and the need to seek out and buy 22 ammo is likely beyond most people's comprehensive. We can think about 30-50 people that makes comments on this message board, we think we understand the 100s of people that we hear about that stand in line at Gander every Friday, but the idea of the 100,000 to 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 of people looking for 22 ammo if not every day likely once a week, we just do not comprehend this level of demand. Just stand around the Walmart sporting goods desk or at a distance to observe, look at the number people who scroll by and looks in the ammo cabinet. In a period of 10 min. earlier this week, I saw roughly 20 people purposely glance at the ammo area, mainly where 22 ammo is stocked, and they moved on when they saw the empty space.

 

D.) Then there is the 22LR ammo black hole, we just do not have enough scientific studies or tin foil yet to comment on this matter.

 

E.) All of the above (mostly C though)