From today’s Shooting Wire, demand for AR-15s has been dropping, but is still high for .22s:
And the research tells me what everyone already knows: gun sales are slowing again. It seems the “Barack Boom” has started to go bust. No real reason, other than maybe the fact that everyone has all the AR-style rifles they can shoot, store or afford, but there is an undeniable slowdown –virtually across the board. One exception, the still-ubiquitous .22 caliber rifles. They are selling quite well – probably because we’ve all realized that our assorted thumper guns have become the “gas guzzlers” of the shooting industry.
I’d be willing to bet that more of the folks buying up guns in the Great Obama Gun Rush are first time gun buyers than some would care to recognize, and a .22LR has to be part of any collection if someone is serious about shooting. Â You can blow through a lot of ammo learning to shoot, and it’s cheaper to do that with a .22 than with an AR.