It is nuts but it's plausible.
the contradiction in that sentence alone pretty much proves that nothing you are saying is valid.
22lr guy. .. why is ammo so hard to get? When ammo makers are making at the fastest pace ever? Dealers used to be able to buy all they want when they wanted and now they can't why? Where is it going? I offered a plausible explanation many think is nuts. It is nuts but it's plausible. I believe it but then I have seen evidence.
yet NOBODY else has? speaking about rimfire and rimfire only 22LRguy said that CCI is currently making 4M rounds a day. so using that number lets someone want to go shooting. he goes through 500 rounds (on the low side honestly). now, 4M rounds a day is 14M a week (lets be honest that is including the weekend too. there is a good chance that all, if not a good chunk of the weekend days throughout the year are either closed or at reduced capacity for maintenance. but i am going with the example which is most in your favor). if just using my scenario of a weekend at the range there can be 28,000 people a week who do that (14M/500). doesnt that seem kind of low? using the very generous rate of 14M rounds a week from CCI for 52 weeks in a year (which is VERY generous) you are looking at a total of 728M. lets say that there are 5 manufacturers which make rimfire ammo at the same rate (again very generous) that is only 3.64B rounds a year. using the estimate of an outing being 500 rounds that would mean that in a YEAR there can be 7.28M outings of that fashion. it is estimated that there are 270M-310M firearms owners in the US. taking the low side of 270M. lets just say that only 5% of americans use .22LR ammo (HAHAHAHA thats funny isnt it. we all know its a lot more) that would mean that there would be 13.5M 22LR users in the US. so across those 13.5M users there is only enough ammo for 7.28M outings? seems like there will be a shortage doesnt it.
that example above makes your argument as strong as possible while mine as weak as possible. even with those numbers there is a huge defect in ammo.
lets do a more realistic calculation. lets say that the average person uses 500 rounds of 22LR ammo a month (again this is average there are people who use a hell of a lot more and other who use less). lets also say that 20% of american firearm owners would fall under this category. also using 290M as the number of firearms uses in the US (mid point of estimates) and still saying that there are 5 companies which produce .22 rimfire ammo in the quantities we are speaking about. that would mean:
- each of those people would use 6k rounds a year on average.
- there are 58 million people which fall into this category for a total of 348B rounds a year
- 69.6B rounds each company
- and being very generous and saying that they operate 365 days a year would give you a total of 190M rounds a day would need to be made by EACH company.
now, you can nitpick at my numbers all you want. however, these are off by 2 orders of magnitude from current production levels. even if you take only 10% of my estimate that is still almost 5 times the current production level. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HAVE ISSUES GETTING RIMFIRE AMMO!
so, you are here sprouting conspiracies with no facts to support your claims. i am using simple math and conservative numbers (to show my point of view, generous to show yours) and the numbers all back me up. oh, and this doesnt even factor in exporting to other countries such as.... i dont know.... canada (and the rest of the world). you are wrong. at this point i cant even say that you have an opinion. opinions have to be somewhat plausible. yours are so far from that with not a shred of proof that they are nothing more than ignorance.
Where do you think all the surplus ammo is going since it's not hitting the resellers shelves?
ammo which is made for the military and then sold to consumers when they have an excess amount is called surplus ammo. the military doesnt really use .22lr. thus there is no surplus .22lr ammo.
/facepalm
...but I did read an interesting article this morning; 
