Never was in danger of running low on rimfire ammo, but I did use the retail shortage to experiment with some brands I never tried or heard of before.

Chief among the standouts is the Armscor .22LR HVHP. This is good ammo that shoots as well as CCI of the same configuration in most of my rimfires. I do wish it came packaged like CCI but the 50 round cardboard boxes are no real problem. The Armscor stuff is available just about everywhere that I buy ammo, and the price is right in line with what I paid for the better ammo before the shortages started.

Have also had good luck with the American Eagle, but it still isn't as widely available as the Armscor, and I like the packaging even less...

Who else disc overed good stuff due to the shortage?

Hey John!
Like you, I was never in danger of running out though I did cut back on shooting .22 and shot more 9mm.
I read good things about Aguila Super Extra so I purchased a box to add to my collection of good .22 ammo for when I want to see what a rifle is capable of. I have not fired any of it, though.

I never ran out but did end up shooting a bunch of different types as it came available at decent prices and my main take-away was that Remington Golden Bullet HP has really gone downhill in the last 30+ years. I shoot Federal Bulk and CCI Subsonic HP or Subsonic Segmented HP and don't see any reason to switch now....

I had about zero rimfire when the shortage hit. So I was very pleased when I found a couple of buckets of the Golden Bullets.

I bought two and still did not have any rimfire! That stuff was junk. I used to like it too, that and Thunderbolts.

For what ever reason we never did get much CCI up here, mainly just Super X's and American Eagles.

Recently I bought a case of that Troy Landry CCI stuff....my first mini mags. I like them.

Also tried a couple bricks of the Armscor stuff and it is good too. The Browning BHP hollow points are a new one that I like as well.

The Golden Bullets had some of the most inconsistent priming I've ever seen. They said they fixed it a few years back, but I wasn't willing to risk, at current prices, checking it out. I'd have 1 out of 15 or 20 fail to go boom in several different guns. Hard hits on the rim. Eject it and put it back in. Boom. The priming must not have been getting distributed all the way around.

Yeah, with the GB's I would load ten, and if they all went off they all sounded different and landed in different spots.

I kind of wish I could peddle them, not even good enough to teach a kid to shoot with.

My experience pretty much mirrors that, as well as a full spectrum muzzle blast / report note variance,.....

Lousy ammo.

GTC

I heard that Remington had improved their rimfire ammo.
I was not willing to risk my money to find out.
I will continue to avoid Remington rimfire.
It was easier to shoot the Remongtons I had on hand during the shortage and not worry about replacing it.

I seldom shoot RF at paper, but do appreciate precision when on the hunt. Couple of boxes of trash for the grandkids when they show, they aren't yet ready for serious schoolin'. Been with CCI for some years, the LR SV and HP do yeoman work on pigs now and then, but the CBs carried the freight for some years. Ample supply before the storm hit, haven't purchased any in the last decade. What am I bid for the old cardboard box WW Power Points? 2 bricks awaiting the call from the 10/22 and they shoot very well in that gun. Do have an old yellow box of Winchester with a $1.29 sticker on it. It'll last until I run out of lead for the Sneezer.

I went into the shortage with about 97 rounds.... but who is counting? I came out of the shortage with about 90 rounds. I et a half-dozen grouse...

I probably should buy a thousand rounds or so....

I bought one of the Golden Bucket of ammo during the shortage just to have it.

I've always liked the CCI/Federal HP's.

Got to shooting the other stuff to save my good stuff, and quickly found that the Winchester bulk ammo was purely unreliable on any plane. Dud's and short stroking my semi-autos.

Broke open that Golden bucket and was really surprised at how consistent, powerful and accurate it is now. No misfires. No duds. In fact, I like it as much as my beloved CCI/Federal ammo now.

I'd have to be real hard up before buying anymore Winchester ammo in rimfire now, though.

I had about 10,000. I was ok.

I ran out of CCI CB caps when the shortage first started. I have been looking for 3 or 4 years and finally found some last week. I ordered 600.

Aguila. My pistols like it, my rifles like it- even a 10/22T with a very tight chamber that won't feed Stingers likes the
Super Maximum, and kills stuff like a WMR. I'm sorry to use ammo en espanol, but it was what I could find when the shartage began to threaten,
and it turned out to be some of the best I've had.

I had enough, but did cut back on shooting 22's. The cheap bulk ammo still isn't available here. None of the local Walmarts have had a box of 22's in a couple of years, maybe longer. But I was able to find a steady supply of some of the better ammo. Now that I've gotten used to actually hitting what I aim at I don't see me going back to the cheap stuff. CCI Mini Mags at about $10/100 rounds is the cheapest I've found that shoots well enough. I've found a steady supply of Norma TAC-22 ammo sold for about $7/50 rounds during the shortage. I can now get it at about the same price as CCI.

I mounted a scope with dials on it to one of my more accurate 22's and have figured out the settings out to 200 yards. I'm getting about the same size groups at 200 that I was getting at 50 with the bulk ammo.

I have a couple boxes of Rem Thunderbolts that I bought in desperation. They aren't nearly as accurate as the Wins or CCI's I've shot. They have a lot of fliers.

I had more than 10,000 rounds when the shortage hit so i didn't run out

Not from the shortage but just before it I discovered Federal Automatch. It's the most accurate .22 RF I've ever used in my Shaw heavy barrel 10/22 and I have tested many brands.

What part of Remington hasn't?

I had to really cut back on my rimfire shooting, but I still had a couple of thousand rounds at the end. Just bought my first brick in four years yesterday.

What I am almost out of, however, is shorts. Only have enough for about 20 more varmints.

I've had good luck with the Federal AutoMatch 325 packs. Have picked up several for under $20. Any serious shooting and the .17HMR goes - whole other ballgame than the .22lr's.

Golly, gee-whiz - I never ran low on .22 during the caused-by-ourselves shelf shortage. I might have to pound my chest and change my top signature line! As to Remington Golden .22s, I always found them to be sort of a Russian Roulette in Reverse deal as you never knew if they would fire when you pulled the trigger.

I was low when the craziness started. I bought one brick (all that was on the shelf the day before Obama was elected) and that put me at about 1,500 rounds. Who knew it would last for 8 friggin years?!!!

A generous campfire member sent me two bricks so my boys could keep shooting, and for that I'm grateful. If I saw a brick for under $35, I bought it. I never got up to over 3,000 rounds. Fired everything from old Winchester, to Thunderbolt. I found American Eagle to be decent. I also found out that my Ruger MKII will shoot anything. Talk about a reliable pistol.

some years ago i ran across a case of remington green box ammo from the 60's.
one day i had a kid shooting a .22lr revolver out on the desert with some new ammo.
i took a box of that old 60's ammo out and let him shoot it. He commented is that magnum ammo?
no, it's just the way it use to be made.
My first negative exerience with some of the new stuff, brand i don't remember, i was shooting at 100yards
and bullets were hitting the dirt at about 70.

You all need to try and shoot some Junior 22 LR, after that, anything else you shoot will be great ! I still have about 20 boxes of it from about 15 years ago that I just can't figure out what to do with it.

The Remington is FILTHY and I'm not one to complain about dirty ammo. Just handling it coats your hands with a 'golden' residue that positively glitters in the sun. I grabbed a brick of thunderbolt during the shortage that leaded the barrel so bad I had to force a rod through the bore and came out with large slivers of lead. Never again for thunderbolt. I am working my way through the crap I got during the shortages (sill have a bunch of cheap Winchester). CCI has always been good and Federal is usually good as well.

I had some of that krapp, it was absolutely worthless. I tried to shoot some of it but gave it up as a bad job after half a box or so. I think mine was more like 20 years ago, found five boxes of it in the back of my ammo locker a while back and threw it away. Being as old as it is now and as bad as it was to start with, I would never consider putting it in any gun of mine.

I have never been able to run a full mag of them through my Browning Buckmark. EVER! And like you gentlemen, some of them sure sound different than others!

I let the kids burn them up in their bolt action 22's. We won't use them in the 10/22's or the buckmarks.

Just checked my stash. Looks like the only Remington .22 rim fire I've got are three 50rd boxes of Subsonic HP. IIRC, they were the first and so far the only Rem. rim fire I've bought since the shortage began. All the rest have been either CCI, (Stingers, Mini-Mag, Std.Vel., Quiets) Federal or Winchester, pretty much all bought at Walmart over time, a few at a time. Picked up a couple more boxes of CCI standard Velocity last week at Walmart.

Will never know just how much I had before the shortages hit. But between myself, the kids, and the grandkids we shot up around 2,000 rounds saturday and sunday. It didn't make a dent and I'm back to buying a few rounds every week...

I know a few years back I came across 8,000 rounds of cci mini mags that I had forgotten for at least 15 years.

My main use of the 22 is on fox squirrels in my orchard. I shot 8 in short order but now I haven't seen any in weeks. There are plenty around but they have to hike quite a ways across open ground to get to my orchard.

Never ran out but I spent 3 yrs trying to find what I usually shoot. Had to substitute for a while. Thankfully things are a lot better now, they have us over a barrel when it comes to 22 ammo. Can't duplicate it or reload it, when it's not available it's just gone.

I've favored the CCI mini mag HP for most of my shooting for decades now. And they have always put out good quality ammo. Told this before, but a while back I was cleaning a seldom seen corner of my garage and found a green plastic tote with some assorted shooting stuff and 80 unopened boxes of cci mini mags in the bottom. IIRC this would have been 2013, and this tote had sat on the floor of my unheated garage since we moved here in 1995. Temps over those years ranged from -32 to 108f.
I shot this stuff up over the following months and never had a misfire. It seemed as accurate as newer production stuff.

I bought a bucket of remingtons new and improved golden bullet 2 summers ago. It's ok for plinking and for the price I paid I have no major complaint. 35 years ago this was my preferred ammo. NO MO...

as far as I am concerned, there is still a shortage. When you can' walk into any retail outlet that sells guns and ammo, and select from a variety of brands, specs and packaging, there is a shortage. I don't think I ever dropped below 20K+ rounds in the locker, not being able to buy at will was still was a pain.

I was thinkin' 'bout shortages
when thinkin' 'bout shortages wasn't cool.......

Vinny

P.S. and not just in rimfire................:)

there never was a "rimfire ammo shortage" here.
there were a lot of gougers buying it up everyday
and selling it at greatly inflated prices online and
at the shows. of course, they wouldn't have been
able to pull it off if the folks that bought that grossly
inflated priced ammo hadn't paid that high price for
what should be cheap bargain promo ammo.
i witnessed those gougers buying up the ammo and
had posted that fact on several sites, but folks just
couldn't believe that would be true and i often got
flamed over it. oh well. . . .

My closet has more .22 rimfire now than ever before in my life. Could use a little more. ;-{>8

I'm still pissed beyond believe over the .22LR situation. Yeah I do find some on shelves from time to time, but prices are still pretty rough if you ask me. 10c a round is still just WAY too much for .22lr...the ammo companies are just making a killing.

And the ammo companies still haven't risen to meet demand. I get that it doesn't make sense to build a new factory to meet fluctuations in the marketplace, but 6 years isn't a fluctuation; it's the new normal. They are straight up failing us and no one seems to give a chit.

I need some more 22's. You can't have enough.

Must be your location......
There's stacks of almost all the rimfire manufacturers stuff in all the stores around here.
Which is odd because I didn't see a single box for at least five years.

Agree about the price but you better get used to it cause I don't see it changing very much....if at all.

I'm stacked. But, I'll still buy more if the price is right.

I was taken to task several times here for mentioning that, and was assured that these fine gentlemen were just trying to make and nice, honest living. miles

I got caught with my pants down when the shortage/hoarding started so I have a lifetime supply now and I'm still buying a brick here and there.

Same here, brother. They'll never trap me again.

I just got a case of Norma TAC this week from Cabellas. Very good ammo that is very affordable. It was 399 plus tax with free shipping. Probably the best bang for the buck going on right now.

Ten cents a round is what the better ammo cost before the shortage, or nearly so. And that's where the cci mini mags are now. The above mentioned armscor stuff is about equal in quality and about 8 cents per round.

I picked up a brick equivalent of armscor at farm king last week.

And I still prefer the cci but if armscor was all I could get I wouldn't sweat it for a minute...

Still in relatively short supply around here - my guess is lots of people catching up after the shortage. Some powders and primers in the same boat.

R.E.M. t-bolts always been junk and GB too IME.

When I shot a lot of bricks in the 80's thru a MKII I used mostly WW Super X copper solids. $1 per 50. Don't seem to ever recall a misfire or bad performance. What's happened to Super-X?

Original WW PP's have been very good. Though Not plated.