There was a time when boys took Dad’s .22 pump and a box a shells and shot all day for 50 cents. Now…not so much. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
By Ray Reilly for Press Pros
If it’s been a while seen you bought a box of .22 shells for hunting or shooting tin cans…you’re in for a surprise. You need more than a paper route to pay for it.
Short and sweet, fall hunting season is soon to be upon us and some of you will be stocking up on the essentials.
Short and sweet…it’s going to cost more than you remember. Where simple hunting ammunition is concerned, it might cost so much that you put aside pre-season target practice. These are not the days of picking up a box of Super X .22s for 79 cents. And as I write this I’m staring at a box from the 70s, probably from a hardware store in Canfield, Ohio, with 79 cents written on the back in magic marker. Today, you’ll pay ten times that much.
Ammunition of all shapes and sizes are more now than you remember, unless you’re a committed shooter and don’t care. However, the cost of shooting is making a dent. I know numerous trap and skeet shooters who have given it up, altogether, simply because a box of 25 trap shells, on average, cost $8.00 a box. A decade ago they were $5. Two decades ago they were $30 for a case.
Center-fire ammo prices are extreme, compared to what you remember shooting in your grandad’s 30-30 Winchester.
A .308 cartridge, one of the most common big game hunting cartridges, is now about $30 a box, average – that is, if you buy reputable, American-made stuff…Federal, Winchester, Fiocchi, etc.
But how in the world can you justify playing $8.99 for a box of 50 to hunt, or practice, with a .22 rifle, when there was a time when .22s were priced cheap so that young boys could learn to shoot, and shoot all day? But no more.
The price got ridiculous during Covid, when materials (powder and lead) became in short supply and people began to hoard ammo.
“I sold a brick (ten boxes) of .22 ammo to a customer one day and he told me he didn’t even have a .22,” says Olde English Outfitter (in Tipp City, Oh) owner and operator, Evan English. “He just wanted to have the ammunition.
“But during that time when precious metals became expensive and in short supply, it drove the price of all ammunition up, and it’s never really come back to its original level. Today, that same box of 79 cent .22 ammo is going to cost you about $7.99. And the premium target ammo is going to be more…something like Eley or Lapua,” adds English.
What’s troubling is the ammo companies are literally pricing future generations of shooters out of the sport. No more do you see kids take their dad’s old .22 pump and a box of shells and go to the creek to shoot tin cans and frogs for a day’s fun.
Which means, fewer dads and sons are taking the time to learn to handle and shoot a firearm safely, and responsibly.
And if you’re a conscientious sporting hunter, who likes to use the .22 to squirrel hunt, or to control the population of raccoons and ground hogs, $7.99 is not unaffordable…but it’s still ten times what a box of shells cost when shooting was part of earning your Boy Scout badges.
“Prices have relaxed some,” adds English. “But they’re never going to be what you remember when they were 79 cents. Nothing is.”
But if you have a relationship with a retailer like English, he can steer you toward some credible, bulk pack products that will save you money. Remember, you can’t beat knowing someone in the business.
I hate it, for the sake of young boys and weekend shooters and hunters, everywhere. Because I remember clearly when my uncle once told me to buy as much ammo as I could afford when .22s were cheap. I bought a guitar instead, never suspecting.
‘Til next time, I’ve enjoyed it.
Olde English Outfitters proudly sponsors coverage of the outdoors on Press Pros Magazine.com.