shooting costs too much? what does $100.00 buy you today?

[stuckinthe60s]

all inputs are going towards why shooters don't go shooting, therefore its all gun related.
people say they cant afford to travel and pay for ammo or entry fees.

so, the goal of the topic is to learn WHY people cant shoot as much.

[Recycled bullet]

A $75 box of 357 magnum ammo cost way too much... so I spent $1,000's buying and reading books, getting molds and learning how to use them, buying bottles of propane and burners, leather gloves, dies and tool sets, trimmers, deburrers, primers, gunpowder, lead, brass.

As it stands now I shoot 357 Magnum for the same price as CCI minimags 22lr.

And now I can shoot something that cannot be bought in the satisfaction is that I made it with my own hand.

[Don P]

Looking at cost today, the best I have been able to find price wise for primers is .10 per primer, add .07-.09 per bullet and .03-.05 for powder has made me look at factory ammo as there is a local store selling 115 grain full metal jacket 9mm for 12.99 a box of 50. Cheaper than reloading

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Stuckinthe60s

people say they cant afford to travel and pay for ammo or entry fees.

so, the goal of the topic is to learn WHY people cant shoot as much.

The first sentence above answers the question in the second sentence.

It's very simple -- the cost of living is rising faster than income is rising, which means people have less disposable income. That's your answer.

[Paul B.]

Some of us just do not have the time. Since my car wreck in January 2020 I spend more time going to and from plus staying in doctor's office than any other pursuit. before the wreck I averaged two to three days a week at the range, especially just before hunting season. For two years after the wreck, my doctor forbad me from shooting rifles, even the lowly .22LR. Handguns were OK but they're not my favorite type of shooting. Between gas prices, the range is 52 miles round trip, four doctor's offices on 32 miles one way not to mention going there three times a week for chemo plus the co-pay and being sick with the runs the rest of the time, going shooting was no longer an option. To put it as simply as possible, sometimes, life gets in the way. Talk about withdrawal pains, I'm feelin' hem.
Paul B.

[stuckinthe60s]

taylorce1 made a very interesting point.
w/o income, many resort to credit. and it would appear a lot are in the act of trying to dig their way out of debt.

[stuckinthe60s]

I haven't bought 357 in decades. is it really 75.00 a box?!

[Recycled bullet]

It was $75 a box a decade ago

[tangolima]

Don't know about .357 magnum. But I bought a box of .44 magnum 5 years ago to zero customer's lever action. It cost a dollar a round. I'm in California.

Paul B. I also went through chemo during pandemic. Side effects knocked the wind out of me when it peaked. I couldn't go to the range. But to keep my mind focused and as physical workout, I set up target in my backyard to teach myself slingshot. I have easily shot over 30k clay balls. Courage brother!

Things are more expensive. I shoot less but more focused. Make every round count, and cut back on luxuries that I can't afford. Each trip to the range, I limit 20 rounds for each gun, and each round is for achieving something, instead of for fun.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[taylorce1]

taylorce1 made a very interesting point.
w/o income, many resort to credit. and it would appear a lot are in the act of trying to dig their way out of debt.

People do need to dig out of debt. My wife and I did most of it before 2020. It was very painful, but worth it. Now all we owe is $40K on our house, and it'll be paid off in 5 years.

Not having a payments on debt, frees up a lot of money. It allows you to do things more freely and easily. If I need something I buy it with cash, if I can't afford it I wait.

[online olympian]

I agree that nowadays everything is expensive, but I try to find through online stores for deals or discounts. I got my 9mm ammo from the LAX Ammunition store. I get 500 Rounds for 117$ ~ 0.2$ each.

Plus, I always search on dontpayfull.com for a deal or a discount code. This time, I used the code GARANDTHUMB, which got me 5% off. Might help you to save some money.

[DaleA]

Maybe things are improving.
My friend with the 50 round 5.7x28 Kel-Tec P50 pistol says we should take it out shooting again as he recently got a deal on the ammo. $70 for 150 round bulk pack of Fiocchi.
https://palmettostatearmory.com/fioc...s-57fmj40.html

If you read about my last adventure with him and this gun you would quite rightly suspect him of asking me along just to get me to load those 50 round magazines. He says they've gotten easier to load with use and appreciates the advice/tricks some of the folk here provided. We'll see.

[jmr40]

Need to approach this from another angle. How much $100 buys today vs
20, 30 or 50 years ago is irrelevant. How many hours you have to work to pay for the same item today vs 20, 30, or 50 years ago is a better gauge.

In 1975 I was a 17 year old kid with a minimum wage job. I had to work 92 hours to pay for a Remington 700 ADL. ($175 @ $1.90/hour) A kid today would have to work 75 hours at a minimum wage job to pay for a Remington 700 ADL. ($550 @ $7.25/hour).

If you take the same approach for gas, food or anything else prices are pretty stable and often cheaper. The median income for a family in 1975 was $6000. In 2022 it was $46,000.

One hour of minimum wages in 1975 would buy you about 2 gallons of gas or a burger, fries and a drink at McDonalds. Today 1 hour of minimum wages will buy you about 2 gallons of gas or a burger, fries and a drink at McDonalds. And since cars today typically get almost double the fuel mileage, we are only spending about 1/2 as much on gas.

My 1975 truck got 8 mpg city, 11 mpg highway. My current truck gets 16 mpg city, 20 mpg highway. And I'm making a LOT more than minimum wage now.

[stagpanther]

Large rifle primers are still being blockaded/hoarded in the US (they seem to be widely available outside the US). A large part of my collection will become useless sooner or later.

[Wag]

Originally Posted by jmr40

Need to approach this from another angle. How much $100 buys today vs
20, 30 or 50 years ago is irrelevant. How many hours you have to work to pay for the same item today vs 20, 30, or 50 years ago is a better gauge.

In 1975 I was a 17 year old kid with a minimum wage job. I had to work 92 hours to pay for a Remington 700 ADL. ($175 @ $1.90/hour) A kid today would have to work 75 hours at a minimum wage job to pay for a Remington 700 ADL. ($550 @ $7.25/hour).

If you take the same approach for gas, food or anything else prices are pretty stable and often cheaper. The median income for a family in 1975 was $6000. In 2022 it was $46,000.

One hour of minimum wages in 1975 would buy you about 2 gallons of gas or a burger, fries and a drink at McDonalds. Today 1 hour of minimum wages will buy you about 2 gallons of gas or a burger, fries and a drink at McDonalds. And since cars today typically get almost double the fuel mileage, we are only spending about 1/2 as much on gas.

My 1975 truck got 8 mpg city, 11 mpg highway. My current truck gets 16 mpg city, 20 mpg highway. And I'm making a LOT more than minimum wage now.

Ya beat me to it. It's a question of time.

If you make $20/hr and you pay $1 per round of 30-30 ammo, you have to work for an hour to buy a whole box.

--Wag--

[bamaranger]

Bamaboy says my cash register got stuck on 1990, 'cause I'm always griping about the cost of stuff. I dabbbled in F-TR class shooting for a couple of seasons in about 2010 or so, and got out primarily due to cost. Till I burned a day of leave on Friday to drive to the 2 day match, got a room for 2x days (I slept in the truck a few times, not often) ate out Fri and Sat night, paid the match fee, gas, and the cost of 150 rds or so of (reloaded) .308, it was pretty clear I was going to have to give up some other hobbies or leave F-TR. I love to hunt and fish too much, and put the F-TR rifle in the back of the safe. I figure a weekend like that in 2010 cost me about $250-300 bucks, and that was nearly 15 years ago. The expense of that can have only gone up since.

Local IDPA and outlaw 3-gun matches were a lot cheaper, $5-!0 bucks, for match fees and the range was less than 10 miles away. The club was reducing the IDPA stages to about 50 rds so that cost was not prohibitive to non reloaders. Three gun ammo cost was expensive when the boy and I shot them together (it was like 6-gun) but it was worth it to me.

Numbers.....100 bucks? That could buy you 500 .30 cal match slugs, or 1000 FMJ slugs for short range practice. Same money would get the better part of a 8# keg of powder if not all of it. Two nights at Motel 6.
Close to 3 tanks of gas in my '91 Toyota pickup. Better than half of a blue collar Leupold hunting scope (VariX-II-a)....new.

Today...my hunt club dues have doubled. Cup and core hunting bullets sell for $40.00 a box of 100 and God help you if you shoot Partitions. A room is $100 bucks a night if you're lucky. It costs $60-70 bucks to fill up the 4-Runner, locally, and more if I go North. An entry level Leupold is $300 bucks and forget about a Nightforce, Trijicon, Zeiss, etc. A new Ruglin lever carbine will cost you at least 10 of those $100 bills.

Retired, I will not get into what I made then, and what my income is now. I'm still better off than a lot of folks, the boy's raised, the house is paid for, and so too ( almost) all the veh's. And best of all, I'm still healthy. Physically anyhow....mental health is up to debate.

[Mike38]

on that note....lets list things that have truly doubled 100%, under biden:

1. gas

In my area anyhow, my electric bill has increased 110% and my natural gas bill has increased 90% since Biden took office.

[rc]

I shot up some 22 LR today. The 100 rounds were Federal Champion from Walmart that cost me about $2.50 over 10 years ago. Replacement cost will be at least $8. That's only a 320% increase but don't worry Bidenomics is working as intended.

[cdoc42]

In 1957 I rode my bicycle through town, collecting empty soda bottles for 2 cents each so I could buy a box of .22 LR for 75 cents. As a result, I counted every shot and never rattled off 10 or 20 or 30 at a time just for the hell of it. 66 years later, I have never emptied a 30 round magazine with my AR-15 at one sitting. Neither do I waste the cartridges that I handload.
Those .22 rounds cost me 1.5 cents each. I recently bought 250 rounds of Aquila for $25. That’s 10 cents each. The costs have risen 10.95 times since 1957 so $1.00 in 1957 requires $10.95 today. That is a cumulative price increase of 995.33%. Another way to look at it is $1.00 today buys 9.132% of what the dollar would buy in 1957.
So 75 cents for 50 rounds in 1957 = 1.5 cents each. 250 rounds would have been $3.75. I paid $25.00 plus tax. That is a 666.66% increase since 1957 – which is less than the cumulative 995.33% so I guess I got a bargain.

[tangolima]

10.95x in 66 years is 3.6% per year. I wouldn't complain if it keeps on going at the same rate.

Things are getting expensive above that rate recently. Even more so, I just make each round count more. Each shot must serve a purpose.

I survived college with $15 a week for food some 30 years ago. This is no problem.

-TL

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[5whiskey]

I'll bite here. Just 3 years ago, I could load 9mm for $0.08. Now? Primers alone will cost more than that. Powder is about 25% more expensive. I still have a couple hundred pounds of lead so I haven't tried sourcing it lately, but I'm also stingy with it because it goes quicker than you think (especially shooting high volume .45).

Rent is up a solid 30%. Gas has fluctuated my whole adult life so we can't really square all of the blame on one man for that. Groceries are up a lot. Like a whole lot. Expenses have gone up significantly, faster than wages by far for most people. No one can deny that. So a lot of folks have had to tighten the belt, and discretionary hobbies tend to get cut first. Add to that there is an air of economic uncertainty felt by most people. I, for one, have worked more overtime than usualy when I'm available to. Which eats into time for your hobbies. It's a vicious cycle.

Not everyone is retired with a paid for house. Not everyone is living hand to mouth. If a friend or acquaintance is complaining that he/she can't afford to shoot as often, there's a good chance their circumstance is different than yours. Or they prioritize their money into different venues. Or they mismanage it altogether. But it is generally an uncontested fact that inflation has generally outpaced wage increaes the past couple of years. Hence, discretionary funds have decreased. And the discretionary spending must also decrease.

[zukiphile]

Gas has fluctuated my whole adult life so we can't really square all of the blame on one man for that. Groceries are up a lot. Like a whole lot.

I'm not too upset by gas prices either. For me, it's like the price of milk, easy to notice but not an enormous impact on my spending overall.

I believe there's a kink to the demand curve for budget goods that makes them increase in price much more quickly than general inflation. I've always shot a lot of inexpensive 22lr and the cheapest 5.56 I could find. As compared to five years ago, the 22lr looks to be up 50% and the 5.56 is doubled. The premium 22lr prices seem much more stable.

I've always eaten lots of hotdogs and pasta. I notice that pasta has doubled from $1 to $2 a pound and hot dog buns are up 25%. Hot dogs themselves are a different kind of variable in which the mystery of their contents can influence price.

If I shoot 15,000 rounds a year of 22lr, that's only an increase of $300 annually for ammunition. The car that gets me there has adjusted in a way that snuck up on me. A cheap car is now $30k? This morning I saw a lad having lots of trouble parking his shiny 4x4 GMC quadcab pick-up, and before this post I took a peek at what something like that costs? $85k?

When I explain this and feel myself reaching for "I remember when..." I know I have incipient geezer-ism.

[44 AMP]

Gas has fluctuated my whole adult life so we can't really square all of the blame on one man for that. Groceries are up a lot. Like a whole lot.

If that "one man" (the big guy in the White House) takes the credit for when things go right, (and they nearly always do) then they get the blame when things go wrong.

Yes, groceries are up, so is EVERYTHING TRANSPORTED that uses fuel in its transport is up. Gas, and diesel, power the bulk of our transportation system, goods and people. When the cost of running the cars, trucks, trains and planes goes up, the cost of what is delivered does, too.

[5whiskey]

If that "one man" (the big guy in the White House) takes the credit for when things go right, (and they nearly always do) then they get the blame when things go wrong.

Yes, groceries are up, so is EVERYTHING TRANSPORTED that uses fuel in its transport is up. Gas, and diesel, power the bulk of our transportation system, goods and people. When the cost of running the cars, trucks, trains and planes goes up, the cost of what is delivered does, too.

YES! This happened in 2008/2009 when fuel prices spiked. Though inflation then wasn't what it is now, everything shipped saw a tick up in price as transport costs rose. To make matters worse, those price increases seem to "bake in" and never lower completely when the price of fuel decreases and holds steady. Those transport expense price increases may fade with time over a few years... but they don't closely follow fuel.

This griping about cost increases (and trust me, I'm with you guys), but today I scored 1k Remington 5 1/2 SP primers for $75.00 at the LGS. I feel like a got a smoking deal, even though that's more than double the last price I paid for 1k of primers (I stocked up at a really good time, but alas I've eaten into my supply a fair bit).

Also saw Vihtavuori N110 @ $40 for 2 lbs . I don't know what was up with that. There was a sign for Accurate powder buy 1 pound get 2 free . All of it was gone . Meanwhile, at the same LGS, Pyrodex was $55 per pound. No thanks...

[Oldrifle]

I believe $100.00 might not cover the expenses involved in ammunition, range fees, or firearm maintenance, as these costs can be quite significant.