In March, I stocked up on Remington 36 grain .22 Long Rifle ammunition, and while I was at it, I compared the cost and service of several on-line ammunition dealers.  When it came to cost, this is what I found:

After the buying frenzy that has been going on since just before the election, and with the reports of steep increases in prices I’ve heard in the past week, I thought I’d revisit that comparison.  I didn’t buy any more ammunition this time due to budgetary constraints, but here are the advertised prices for the same 525 round box of bullets:

Please note that I recycled the values for shipping and fees from last time, which means I made the assumption that the cost of shipping hasn’t increased since then.

As you can see, with the exception of AmmunitionToGo, there hasn’t been a sharp increase in the price of this ammunition.  Midway USA actually dropped their price.  Lucky Gunner doesn’t have that particular flavor of .22 LR in stock, and in keeping with their business practice, they don’t list the product unless it’s in their warehouse.

The 33% increase at AmmunitionToGo was a surprise, since they were middle of the road last time.  It’s quite possible that they’ve increased prices to try to keep some in stock.

What struck me most, though, was the fact that only AmmunitionToGo had any in stock.  Everyone else is out and hoping to get more in a few weeks.  Last time, only Bass Pro was on back order.  To me this says “If you need it and can find it, buy it, because it’s going to be in short supply for a while.”  Let’s face it, .22 LR is pretty much a bulk commodity, and if the big retailers are running out of it, then they must have been selling tons of it over the past few days.

How does this jibe with what y’all are seeing at brick and mortars?  I’ve cruised by the ammunition display at Walmart a couple of times, and it looks like they’ve been picked over pretty thoroughly.