Cabelas:
Cabelas tends to show online stock of their .22 LR ammo early in the morning, between 3 and 6 AM typically... most of the ammo engines do pick it up but you have to move fast as a result. You can order only one box/brick/pack of each type of ammo, but NOT more than one per day of any one type or your order will get cancelled automatically. If you have them shipped to a store (free) you have two weeks from the time they arrive to pick up all of your order(s) which will simply accumulate until you pick them up in a single trip through the customer service line. I've tested and verified the process and it works perfectly without violating daily purchase limits, and is much more gas/time efficient than running to the store to keep checking or only being able to buy a single brick/box/sleeve/bulk pack per trip. Win-win.
These sites tend to catch Cabelas when they restock almost immediately:
http://www.gunbot.net/ammo/rimfire/22lr/
http://www.wikiarms.com/
In particular keep an eye on the Federal Automatch and Remington Thunderbolts - http://www.cabelas.com/product/Shooting ... 753211.uts and http://www.cabelas.com/product/Shooting ... 734676.uts
Wal-Mart
The local Wal-mart stores seem tied to at least 3 different DC's, one of which has been putting a lot of Federal AutoMatch out there (10-20 bulk packs per store at least twice last week). The others seem to be pushing smaller 100 packs of Mini-Mags, 225 packs of Remington Golden Bullets and 50 round boxes of Federal Lightning lately, you'll see the trends when you use the search engine...
This engine makes it easy to find when ammo is being stocked overnight:
http://www.wikiarms.com/walmart-search
The trick is to check after midnight to see which stores got a shipment after they were closed (24 hour stores are tricky), and arrive a little before 7 which is when most stores will have a sporting goods key carrier on site and restock their ammo from the overnight delivery. Some stores open at 6 but they don't roll out ammo until 7 AM when the sporting goods key carrier arrives. I was able to buy 3 bulk packs of ammo on two consecutive days at two different stores on my way in to work, no lines and no waiting. I also swung through a few additional stores showing inventory and verified the online data was matching up with actual delivery of product.
I do believe that both Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center have something "strange" going on with their internal store inventory management (insiders buying-reselling or setting it aside for friends and family before it hits the shelf)... While remaining civil and polite, I showed the department managers on my phone that their store showed ammo in stock as of midnight yet nobody was able to find it they got real snotty/evasive with me, and one claimed he hadn't seen ammo "in months" even though I'd watched it go in and out of stock per their store website inventory more than once the same week. The same inventory tracker had been completely accurate at all the other stores I checked out. The the process for checking them in to inventory from the truck before they get moved to the display case and then trickle out of stock until they hit zero as they get sold should be identical between stores, so unless there's a black hole between the back room and the shelves in the Brooklyn Park/Center stores something else is happening to the .22 LR ammo in those locations. I documented my observations and sent a letter on to corporate, perhaps they will have the store managers in question look a little more closely at their sporting goods inventory/stocking practices.
All of the Sporting Goods managers I talked to described the same basic group that rolls through their stores regularly and cleans out most of the inventory in one or two trips, but they usually get there a bit later and I didn't see hide or hair of anyone else buying ammo on my research trips. Early bird gets the worm boys and girls... just know when to be there and you should be able to set up for spring as long as inventory is in the channel.
Good luck out there.
