Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires The Walmart "bunch of old guys" myth

Yes they are. My 7yo 'burnt' up quite a few last year. These new break action jobbies are the same as the ones we had as kids and shot at each other with.

whelennut,

Yeah, air rifle pellets are easily available, and cost a hell of lot less than most .22 LR now. I picked up a "brick" of .22 pellets for my Gamo recently for $10. Of course the price varies depending on quality, but for plinking not many of us need to shoot target-grade pellets.

Our local Walmart gets ammo every night at 6 to 7 pm

They issue deli style waiting numbers every night to the ones who gather and wait to see what type of ammo came in on the truck

3 box's per cutomer so a case of 22 last 3.333 people then they are out

For the last two years I've been checking to see if I could pick-up
some .22 mag ammo from a fleetfarm store here in Minnesota, they been known to have the best prices around, but i never seen any on the shelfs, so this time I asked what was going on? and the sales
clerk said every monday morning theirs a handful of guys waiting
at the door and not only purchasing the ten 50 pack limit but they then grab more and then call some of there partners on their
cell phones and walk round the store and give the ammo to them when they get there, they even got it on the store video system.

Every Walmart worker that I have ever talked to, told me that corporate sent them what they wanted them to have. They had no say-so except for special orders. miles

I have to wonder what they're doing with all the ammo. It's been years since I went to a gun show. Do people really buy enough at inflated prices to make all the effort and expense worthwhile?

The notion of a bunch of geezers in shabby clothes shuffling down the aisle or maybe riding one of those electric buggies, racing to the sporting goods counter to pick up their three boxes of .22s is kind of pathetic. What a life.

I used to see some folks around here picking up aluminum cans on the side of the road. This seems like pretty much the same thing.

I only check the local Walmart for rimfire ammo (and other stuff, since they occasionally have good deals on loading components) when I'm there for some other reason, which isn't often.

Have almost never seen any useful rimfire ammo actually out on the ammo shelves, which have locked glass doors. Usually if there's any it's snake-shot, but a year or so ago there were about a dozen boxes of .22 Magnum with the 30-grain TNT hollow-point, which my 9422M loves. So I found a clerk and told him I needed some.

He sighed a little, then walked over to the shelves and as he unlocked the glass said, "I suppose you want your usual limit."

I hadn't bought any rimfire there before, so told him so, but also said whatever the limit was would be fine. He looked at me carefully and asked, "You sure?" I nodded, but apparently I look like one of the regular rimfire "shoppers."

So yeah, it's not a myth.

Never seen an empty beer can that brought a $30 profit.



Travis

Shall we take this as an admission that you're now part of the "bunch of old guys" then, even if not one of those that plague Walmarts?



I mosey back to the ammo cabinet almost every time I go to Walmart. Don't think I've ever seen a horde of my fellow geezers back there wanting 22 ammo?

The mgr. of our local WM belongs to my gun club and favors us with partial/damaged packages of ammo from time to time. We mostly use it for youth shooting programs or NRA training classes. Since the public cannot access the locked ammo cabinet, seems to be a case of employee pilfering if we get part of a box of ammo?

According to him, they get whatever the distribution system sends them, regardless of what they really want in the way of ammo.

PS: When ya gonna post some pics of that new-2-u M64?

i needed a pellet gun recently that actually worked, unlike the ones that i had. So i bought a ruger branded .177 and some alloy pellets with a little platic tip kind of like nosler ballistic tip. The ruger i think is made by umerex, which i think is code perhaps for rws, big in europe.
it's rated for 1000fps, but with the alloy 1200fps.
The scope that came with it is useless, but the rifle itself shoots just right fine. And those little pellets do a number on various things. They sure do go through a can, and bury into the plywood behind the can.
it ain't the daisy bb gun i had as a kid for sure.

dubePA,

Yeah, I'm apparenty gray-bearded enough now to fit in right with the rimfire-grabbing geezer crowd--but I was all alone that day. Apparently they usually hit it earlier, and many of 'em pass on .22 Magnum and .17 HMR (or Eley!), either because they can't afford it or there's not enough profit margin. They go for the cheap stuff instead.

Sorry, I don't post photos on the Campfire, mostly because then I'd spend too much time posting photos on the Campfire! Just did post one on the Deep Creek Press Facebook page, though, along with a couple of my other Winchesters.

You shoulda put that money toward a rimfire suppressor.



Travis

Yeah, but the overhead is really low.

Went and looked. Beautiful example of a M64.

As noted in another thread, I also added a "period correct" all-steel Lyman to my M64, not long after I stumbled onto my rifle locally. That stroke of luck thanks to a member here that didn't want the Lyman that came on the M64 he'd acquired, about the same time I found mine.

Lusted after one of those rifles most of my adult life, finally found a very nice one for a good price.

Glad I never tumbled for one of the lesser examples found at shows and for ridiculous amounts of money.

Yep, I have seen a bunch of those too.

One of the reasons it didn't take long to make up my mind on this one was it already had the Lyman attached!

I have a couple of old S&W 77As that I use to shoot rabbits in the backyard. Both are scoped and, considering that they are pump guns, produce pretty consistent velocity. I think that it is kinda funny, but they have been mistaken for a Ruger #1 more than once. The only "bad" .22 pellets that I've found were some really cheap Chinese no-name bulk packs. They were probably worth what little I paid for them, but I prefer to shoot better grade pellets.

Although the rifles are physically, as far as I can tell, the same, one of them shoots its best with Beeman Kodiak Extra Heavy pellets and the other with PDG wade cutters.

Of course old guys are buying 22LR. Everyone is buying it, which is causing the shortage.......

The "bunch of old guys myth" is just an easy way to blame the shortage on something you can talk about. Supply and Demand makes for boring conversation, a "bunch of old guys" or "welfare recipients" turning an evil profit makes for better conversation. Even better conversation is that the evil corporations or the government are causing the shortage.

I have never had more than 500 rounds of 22LR before. Now, I am sitting on 3000-4000 rounds. If you multiply that by every owner of a 22LR you have an extreme shortage.

In a few years there will be such a surplus of the stuff that they will be giving it away.

Yeah, when Grandpa passes on and the relations start pawing through his crap during the wake and find 200,000 rounds of Thunderbolts in the garage, someone will either slip it into their car while the rest of the family is eating potato salad over Gramps, or panic and call the Bomb Squad to come in and remove the "explosives". Might make the evening news.

Well, at least SOMEONE has actually put eyes on CCI LRHPs post the 2008 election.....
Sheesh.

I have not seen a round, box, sleeve or anything else in 22lr at the local Chinamarts in 3 years. I have found it at local business and chain sporting stores like Dunham's, Cabela's etc on occasion and still do, but that has climbed up to about 10 cents a round now. I buy what they have, and give it to the local youth organizations or some of those old gezzers from shooting clubs (apparently these one's don't spend much time at Wally's) who want to go shooting with their grandkids and can't find anything.

I still have backlog from buying cases of the stuff I like to shoot, long ago, but I tend to buy bulk items for savings and always have. Always can sell or trade it, and it always did seem to appreciate, now a whole lot. I think some of the high powered stuff went up 1000% a round at one time.