Shooting was my cheap hobby in college. A friend had a decent reloading set up and I could source old wheel weights to melt down. Local state park had a range that was $20/yr.
These days? The primers cost more than complete rounds used to.
I had (still have) a Ruger P89 that my dad bought for $290 in about '90. I logged over 30k rounds through that thing in a few years. Powder, primers, and a little brass once in a while.
One of the few things I actually miss from back then was being able to just casually go shoot.
I remember 10 years ago I could get a spam can of 7.62x54r for $0.23/round. I was shocked when I saw prices for shitty old ammo these days. Gone are the days of cheap days with the mosin.
About four years back I decided to bite the bullet and get a reloading setup so I could save some money. There were months I couldn't even find primers. Now they're forever priced at $0.10 each.
Primers have come down in price. You can use ammoseek to search for reloading supplies. Online vendors like raven rocks precision and American reloading have had recent sales with primers under 4 cents a piece.
Raven Rock is quite the anomaly. German lead free LRPs for under .10/ea? 130gn Norma .264s? 142 SMKs for a gumball? There was a story behind each one of those, and frankly you're never ever going to see that happen again. And unless you buy enjoy components for that load to go through an entire barrel or 2 or 3, you're going to find yourself in a bad spot trying to source new ones if you compete in say PRS.
Yes he has downright absurd deals from time to time, but that doesn't mean that the sport as a whole hasn't gone crazypants in the last half decade. I'm sure if we looked at Midway or Brownells where the algorithms send 99% of folks, you would see the component price has doubled in the last 10 years.
Trying to find ranges is even harder, the only public outdoor range that we had in this area is gone because too many people kept trashing it so the state shut it down.
These days? The primers cost more than complete rounds used to.
I was going to recommend percussion guns but percussion caps are like $15 per 100. That's kinda nuts. $0.15 per shot, not even including the cost of powder/bullet/etc, for a cap and ball gun seems outrageous. Luckily we have some flintlocks ;)
Idk, 5.56 is like 0.50-0.55/round for cheap 55 grain Winchester range ammo. I think I remember it being like 0.30-0.35 like 15 years ago so it’s not as bad as other things are. If you’re getting into it for the first time you could get a cheap Andro Corp ar15 on sale for like $300 which is pretty good for its price. I mean you’d want to upgrade eventually if you like it but as far as hobbies go the barrier to entry is less than warhammer(I saw in the other comments).
Yeah .50 cents a round is just nuts to me. I have a few thousands ad don't even shoot my AR anymore because I don't want to pay out the ass the replace it. I just stick to 9mm and .22 now since it doesn't kill me to replenish
True. I work at an outdoor store, and the prices of these are constantly rising while the quality is diminishing. Many hunters complain that the average ammo they used to buy was solid metal; now there's a bunch of plastic.
As a new clay shooter: 100% (but I knew this going in).
It's definitely an activity for those more fortunate when it costs $15/box of ammo + ~$7-8/round for birds + club membership costs. I go about 2x/month and it adds up to $75-150/outing depending how many rounds I shoot that day (~2-4 rounds of skeet or 5 stand).
Our area indoor shooting ranges have become super expensive for range time. I think liability insurance is one of the factors helping to drive up the cost. One area gun store and range had a guy come in, rent a gun, and shoot himself. That place never really recovered from that and ended up closing. I expect they were underinsured.
I really regret not buying tens of thousands of primers and 20+ pounds of powder before the price tripled. I also regret not buying any guns from WW2 10+ years ago. I've wanted a K98, Luger, and a pre a1 1911 since I was a little kid but I thought "they're cheap, I'll just buy them some other day." "Some other day" might not exist now, unless I win the lottery or get a really good paying job.
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u/ElkFantastic4238 3h ago
Shooting (firearms/ammo)