I hope everyone had a satisfactory weekend. I spent part of it at Cabela’s teaching my dad how to buy ammo without looking like a newb. Several years ago he moved from the Delaware Valley to Bumfsck, Central Pennsylvania, and he’s been interacting with the local culture. Unfortunately, the rifle I lent him is chambered in .17HMR, which is about as rare as hen’s teeth these days, so I was growing concerned that we wouldn’t be able to feed it.
Fortunately he just called and told me he scored some at a local gun shop. I guess panicking suburbanites aren’t making their way out to the rural shops to clean the shelves of rimfire ammo just yet. A quick safety check shows he was learning good habits, so the people teaching him seem to be on top of that kind of thing. That’s not something I wanted to take for granted because some of the poorest gun handling I’ve seen has been on public ranges in rural areas where everyone grows up around it. Fortunately, my dad has access to a private range. As I’ve mentioned before, I did not grow up in a gun owning family. I didn’t really get into shooting until after I moved out and had a decent paying job where I could afford toys.
A friend of mine who lives in ButtPhsque (Bumfsck’s sister city) has opined that if you’re the type who doesn’t reload or cast your own bullets, it’s nice to have guns chambered for calibers like .32/20 and .30/40, because even if the urban hoards reach your town, they usually aren’t looking for archaic (but wonderful) calibers like those. When the hoards depart, there are usually one or two boxes of “obscure” calibers left on the shelves of Back Creek gunshops and hardware stores.
Check your local walmart. I ALWAYS see a couple boxes of .17hmr. It has been the only thing on the shelf most of this year.
Out here in these hinter lands 22 RF is difficult to find. it seems to levitate off the shelf as soon as it appears. OK my me I have quite a bit for my needs.
At my local Rural King farm store yesterday, the only .22 was CCI shot shells, but there were a couple of varieties of .17. There were also a couple boxes each of 7.62×39 and .223, and 4 types of .308. It’s easing up just a bit.
Is that the stuff in the short case(.22lr) or the long case(.22WM)? I have a bunch – as in a coffee can full of one and three or four hundred of the other – that he’s welcome to at a very reasonable price… Out of town at the moment and don’t remember which is which.
The parent case of the .17HMR is .22WMR, but .17HMR is necked down.
.17HMR has always been available in my area. .22 is in short supply but you can buy anything else if you want to pay the price.