So why are there these stacks of .22s sitting around all of a sudden? Even when all shipments were being swept up by speculators the minute they hit the floor, there weren't stacks to be swept up.
Because of the new Cabelas!
For the past few years,
this Gander Mountain store has stocked its .22LR on a
two-foot length of a single shelf. The rest of the shelving was stocked with other types of ammo. Most of the time, that little section of shelf was bare. Sometimes, a few boxes of CCI std. velocity at $5 per 50. (These are rows of chest-high shelves near the middle of the store.)
Call me a cynic, but I believe it was no accident - indeed, no coincidence - that on the first weekend of the new Cabela's, this Gander store stocked about
five four-foot lengths of shelves completely
full, front to back, of decent quality .22LR (not a single box of Thunderbolt) and no limit.
It was about 10:30-11:00 on the Saturday morning, and it was all just sitting there, like a freaking mirage. I should have taken a cell phone pic. I actually went in there to buy a box of factory center-fire rifle cartridges, and didn't expect to see any LR at all.
