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.