wayyy OT: world consumption of .22 shells

Haveing a somewhat casual discussion with a welder over which is the most used cartridge. 7.62X39 or the .22?
I had read somewhere that over a billion .22s where shot every year. I googled it but couldn't decipher it.
Thanks
i_r_

22LR shells

I know of a factory in MN that used to make about 4 million 22LRs a day. That was back in the '90's and they may very well be double that now. Let's assume this factory makes 6 million 22LRs per day now and they carry 25% of the US market share. What's that add up to? My calculator doesn't have that many 0000's on it.

John

I think that ends up being 4.8 billion/year total (200 days production/year), or 8.7 billion rounds/year (365 days/year).

I wonder how many .223 rounds are used per year.

I wonder if "How its Made" takes suggestions?
For a non-military round, thats a whole lot of plinkin'.
thanks
i_r_

Not a hunter or hobby shooter, but on a cost per shot basis, how can you beat a .22? I can remember when, not too long ago, sale price for a pack of 50 .22lr was 99 cents. Can't remember if that was at Kmart or W.T. Grant.

How it's Made would probably find amunition offensive! The show is produced in Canada.

reggie_obe said:

Not a hunter or hobby shooter, but on a cost per shot basis, how can you beat a .22? I can remember when, not too long ago, sale price for a pack of 50 .22lr was 99 cents. Can't remember if that was at Kmart or W.T. Grant.

Click to expand...

The only thing cheaper that goes BANG from a gun are BBs and Pellets.

I don't know about that. Last pellets I bought were not too cheap. "Pellet Guns" are not what they were when I was a kid.
have fun
i_r_

I went through about 1500 last Sunday (breaking in my new auto loader) if that helps.

The .22's are cheaper now than in the 1950's,IIRC. At least,a box of 50 SHORTS were .50 cents back then. Now shorts are special,and cost more than LR's.

I don't know if the military still use 22s but fifty years ago when I went into the army we used them for weps fam. If they are still using them it don't take long to add up when each new service member fam fire three or four hundred rounds.
re

Just a data point:

But to really figure out how many are made each year, you'd need to know how many rimfire ammo machines each company has as well. There aren't that many machine manufacturers left that make the machinery (two, maybe three IIRC).

That being said, you'll also need to know what kind of .22 is being produced. Most people don't realize that (largely) the only difference between "Match" and "Standard" .22 ammo is the speed at which the machines are run and the final QC (hence "target match" vs "match", "target match" is the stuff that didn't quite make the "match" QC specs, but did fall into the "target match" spec). And yes, ammo is sampled every few hours and shot through a universal gun to check for pressures and shot on paper for accuracy.

The machines (at least the ones I have seen) can run anywhere from 850K-1.2M rds of production in a 24hr period, depending on what is being produced. Then figure in the maintenance time to replace worn tooling, down time from changing the tooling for the production cycle, say .22LR to .22 Mag or .22 Short, and you begin to quickly bring down the amount of ammo you can physically produce. Not to mention the various delays when starting up the line (drying time for the priming compound, time for cooling in between the annealing process/es etc....

Of no doubt, I'd wager money that the .22 LR is made more than the 7.62x39, if for no other reason than it moves off the shelf (store or military warehouse) a lot more quickly. Not to mention how many people buy in bulk, stash and buy then buy more...

Somebody told me at the SHOT Show that CCI was producing most of the .22 rimfire ammo made in the USA despite the brand on the box. Stuff made in Mexico and sold here is just that.

Lowell

Personally, I try to keep 4-5k rounds on hand. When me and the boy go plinkin it takes at least 2 bricks to satisfy the lust. More if we bring the wife or another kid. I only kept about three bricks in stock until I went to wallyworld one november,not too long ago, and they were COMPLETELY out of ammo.
have fun
i_r_

.22 is used a lot in Bulls-eye pistol completion.
90 rounds a match.
One match a week.
10 or more shooters on the line.
It starts to add up.

K.

I recall a short note in American Rifleman some years ago that stated the world-wide annual consumption of .22RF ammo was on the order of 2 to 4 billion rounds, making it the most consumed caliber of any.

High grade match ammo is made on a few dedicated machines housed in temperature-controlled rooms. Eley has 4 such machines for their high-end stuff. Per a conversation with an Eley rep last year, a production run for one lot number of Eley red box, or black box, only totals about 8 cases (40,000 rounds) of ammo. Evidently that is their production run limit based on how well the machine can consistently produce top quality ammo before needing adjustment.

If you buy a lesser grade of ammo (which is the huge majority of all ammo), the production of such is not done on machines in temperature controlled rooms. "Target" ammo is produced on such machines. Also, those machines run for longer time periods before they are shut down for maintenance. Quality control is not as good. Competitive shooters who use lots and lots of match and/or target ammo are well aware of the consistency differences, and make their purchases accordingly.

High speed ammo, the most widely produced and distributed, and usually cheapest, is obviously made with very little quality control. That is witnessed by the fact that it is so hopeless, accuracy-wise. Competitive shooters refuse to use it. Not to mention that Anschutz recommends against it, due to increased throat erosion reasons.

Additionally, the quality/consistency of the various raw materials/components that goes into the various ammo quality levels will vary. No sense using the highest quality components for ordinary high speed plinking ammo.

Bottom line: match ammo costs a lot more for a reason. The QA/QC costs are substantially higher.

Whether or not your rifle will perform better with better ammo is a totally different issue.

When I was a kid, my dad had several bricks of .22 shorts. Each box of 50 in the brick had a 9 cent price tag. During my misspent youth I had a brick a week habit. Winchester Wildcats were $3.99 a brick at Walgreen's. I bet they do not sell ammo any more. Gary P. Hansen

Manufacturing .22RF

Different companies do it differently according to the range of their Market...ELEY (Britain) maintain small Lot, High total quality production for their Target and competition ammo, they also developed the "dry prime" system ( very "touchy")...Other companies, especially in the USA with humongous markets of all grades of ammo, use the following process.

At the beginning of a run with completely New Tooling, (usually nowadays TC made) the first few 100,000 are classed as their "top quality Competition ammo", as the dies etc are still held to very close tolerances. AS the Dies wear ( yes, even TC does wear away), the next lots are downgraded to "Target" label. Then comes the "Hunting" range, and finally, the "Home Brand" labelled stuff for large, Discount Buyers.

BY this time , over a Million rounds have been produced, the dies are at their Worst Tolerance Limits, and they shut down the Machines, re-tool, and start again.

Some of the dies can be "re-activated" to draw cases for .22 Magnum ( larger dimensions) others are simply scrapped.

The other thing one must take into account, is that today .22 cases are made in three "metals"...Pure 70/30 brass, Mild steel with a brass plating or Electrolytic wash; and Grey Steel.(with or without a lacquer)

Former Eastern Bloc countries make preferencially the grey steel cases, having developed the technology for this in the 1950s ( from German Patents). For general use (Hunting, Plinking, etc) these "el cheapo" cases are just as good as brass.

As to "who" makes .22 Ammo, there has always been "Interaction" between the major Players ( more unkind people would call it a "Cartel" or a "Sherman style trust") where the production is shared out between co-operatrive manufacturers to enable the market to be covered well.

The US & Americas form one "Cartel", the European area another. The Arrival of the Eastern Countries has upset the applecart a bit, but most of the Smaller countries have been joined to one or other makers of the US and European groups...whilst the Russians (as usual) have "gone it alone", with their multi-factory production capacity. (EG, the Former Schonebeck DDR new factory was taken over by Lapua, with all its very new & exceptional .22RF machinery in 1990; S&B of Czech Republic makes ammo for Winchester; PPU of Serbia supplies some former European semi-defunct companies...and so on)

The Only "unknown" is the Chinese ( aka Norinco) which make under their own banner, and sell everywhere they can....US Blockades notwhitstanding.

.22 rimfire is also the easiest technically to produce of all the Small Arms ammo ( see "Frost", "Ammunition Manufacture," NRA Publications, 1980s).
Even the "spinning" of semiliquid priming compound into the rim cavaity of the case is easy compared with making Centre-fire primers, of either Boxer (US) or Berdan(Europe etc) persuasion.

Thus, ease of manufacture plus Low cost of raw materials plus accessibility to all but the most Prohibitive of National Gun regimes, leads to a perfect market situation...lots of product and lots of consumption.

regards,
Doc AV
AV Ballistics Film Ordnance Services & AVB Forensic Services

Brisbane Australia.

not so cheap

gwilson said:

The .22's are cheaper now than in the 1950's,IIRC. At least,a box of 50 SHORTS were .50 cents back then. Now shorts are special,and cost more than LR's.

Click to expand...

NOT REALLY. When I started shooting at age 11, a box of HP rounds was 43 cents, and solids were 39 cents. A carton of Federal .22 ammo is $35 at a local gun shop and a Canadian Tire Store. Allowing for inflation, I think we are paying more today.

You are right about the .22 Shorts. Canadian Tire is charging about $10/100 for them.
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