Ammo Costs, etc.. is it time?????

ammo cost

You can still buy lapua master from Charlie Scott for less than $7.00 a box.
He has a add in the classifieds
 
Hi All,

Here is what Penny and I have done to cut expenses, we started this last season.

No practice other than check out the guns at the start of the season.

No more multiple test lots. I rely on a friend to let me know what is good for his guns, what is good for him usually works fine for us. I’m lucky to have such a friend.

Warm up the gun with less expensive ammo.

No more purchasing ammo by the case, just a few bricks at a time.

No more “high end” ammo.

A perfect solution? No. Remember, we are supposed to be having fun at this game. It’s no fun when every time you send a shot down range you cringe at the $ flying away. As to gas, we combine as many errands as possible into each trip. I really feel bad for you folks who want to attend a lot of matches, some of which involve long drives. The cost of gas can be worse than the ammo cost.

Al
 
With SK Standard Plus I'm getting average group size of .22. There will be groups from .1's to .3's in there.
With Eley Tenex my average will be about .20 and there will also be groups in the .1's and .3's.
Is the roughly $700 more a case for Eley worth the approx .02 difference?
 
Expensive Eley or Lapua is not worth the difference over SK Standard or Wolf or whatever until you enter competition. I don't believe anyone shoots more expensive ammo just for the heck of it. If lower end ammo could consistently compete it would be used consistently.
 
Rise above!

I used to piss and moan about the rising cost of gas, health care, ammo ect. It is inevitable. We have very little control over these things. The trick is not to let it get to you. Rise above all the BS. You are all benchrest shooters, and are among the finest people in this great country. Enjoy the freedoms that we do have. You want more stuff? Earn more money. Not too many of us earn a living behind the trigger, though I wish someone would offer me a job ammo testing. This is a pastime. We wring the most of what we can out of ourselves, out equipment, and our sub-par ammo. And I for one, LOVE IT!
 
From Beau
"Expensive Eley or Lapua is not worth the difference over SK Standard or Wolf or whatever until you enter competition. I don't believe anyone shoots more expensive ammo just for the heck of it. If lower end ammo could consistently compete it would be used consistently."

You are right - Shooters shoot the more expensive stuff because they think it is better. ($1200 ammo HAS to be better than $400 stuff!) The difference between Standard Plus and Tenex is very hard to determine. You almost have to shoot it all up to confirm just how much difference there really is. Now, I know many shooters claim there is a big difference, and they can see it by just firing a few groups, but I sure don't see it in the gun I last made a comparison with - and I admit this is just ONE gun, and I probably should have shot more groups. This is a very much modified 52C prone gun (It even has a tuner on it!) Maybe it wouldn't be competitive to shoot SK in BR but based on how I've observed all rimfire ammo shoots, I just have to say there won't be one shooter in a 100 that will be able to tell the difference.......And now we will hear from some of those other 99!!!
 
cheaper ammo

pacecil
You are right,i DO think the more expensive ammo is better for competition.Last year due to high costs i shot only SK Standard.With that i finished 65th out of 734 on the A-Line and 91st. out of 734 on the Agg. Line. So....the cheaper ammo will allow a person to go and compete but will it let you win against the best Eley or Lapua.....i "feel" it will not. My Hongisto 40x is as good as any rifle i shot against,my wind flags are great,my rest is top notch so that seems to leave me and the ammo? Now i am not claiming to be a world class shooter but i can shoot and i have shot side by side with some of the very best...Brock,Hontz,Besche,Scott,Emmert and so on and have watched them get the hundreds when mine has been..just out.. too many times to not "think" the ammo makes a difference. So anyhow,i think the cheaper ammo shoots very well but when we are talking top level competition i think it will not allow you to win. Still, i hope to make several matches this year just to shoot with the guys!
Colt.45
 
Team

I'm trying to form a two man team - somebody to buy the ammo and me do the shooting. Once that's established we can start looking for the third member to cover the gas and match fees.
 
Keith23 said:
If no one else finds this to be the case, please let me know. Perhaps I have rifle problems I don't know about.
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I've seen exactly the same in smallbore prone with Wolf Target; great groups but once in a while a low 9 at 6 o'clock. (different targets?). I have not had one bad round (knock on wood) from the current lot of SK Match.

Mark
 
Yamahammer Answer

Yamaha 225 TTR converted to road use, lights etc, gets over 100 MPG.
 

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Beau said:
Looks good there but somehow I can't see my FA headed down I-75 with one of those rigs.
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Beau, Get you a rig like that with a side car and you can bring Foster to Chattanooga!
Gene
 
pacecil said:
From Beau
You are right - Shooters shoot the more expensive stuff because they think it is better. ($1200 ammo HAS to be better than $400 stuff!) The difference between Standard Plus and Tenex is very hard to determine. You almost have to shoot it all up to confirm just how much difference there really is. Now, I know many shooters claim there is a big difference, and they can see it by just firing a few groups, but I sure don't see it in the gun I last made a comparison with - and I admit this is just ONE gun, and I probably should have shot more groups. This is a very much modified 52C prone gun (It even has a tuner on it!) Maybe it wouldn't be competitive to shoot SK in BR but based on how I've observed all rimfire ammo shoots, I just have to say there won't be one shooter in a 100 that will be able to tell the difference.......And now we will hear from some of those other 99!!!
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Pacecil,

If you were to look back through my posts over the last several years you would see that one of my favorite slogans is "If you BELIEVE it works, it does." Now, I could argue the mental effect for tuners, barrel indexing, 6 O' Clock firing pins, generalized voodoo, and a few other things. But, there is a difference in ammo. I think the biggest difference is that you are more likely to find a good lot of ammo as the price goes up, but there are also some real duds in the high end ammo. I guess that also means that you can find some really good ammo in the lower end, but I think it's harder. I don't think the Eley, Lapua, Etc managers sit around and say "Let's make some Club today." Rather, I believe the testing determines the grade, so there should be some good ammo at all levels. But, again, I believe you will more likely find better ammo at the higher end. Now, I also believe that you generally have to shoot in competition to see the real difference. The reason seems to be that when there is no structure, a great four shot group with a flyer may simply be seen as "as good as it gets" or some shots are ignored on a score target. Problem is, it won't hold up in competition where one or two bad shots will put you in the middle of the pack and five or six will kill you. I'm not saying that you do this because you seem to be a little more scientifically minded than most. But, bottom line is if the various levels of ammo are equally as good, it ought to be fairly easy to prove that statistically. I've never seen it, but I have seen the opposite.
 
Foster, I know you well, but I don't know Beau, but it would be a funny sight to see you and Beau coming down the road to the range on a crotch rocket with a side car pulling a little trailor. :p
 
John E. Rupert said:
With the new HIGH costs of ammo, maybe it is now time to settle down and shoot only one discipline??? Some of us older people (shooters) on a fixed income, are facing the challenge of all these new costs. My wife and I both shoot and two years ago we were faced with the decision to shoot only one discipline. Now we're faced with higher costs yet. What are some of you fellow shooters going to do to off set these costs????
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I know the purists wouldn't like it, however, make CCI or RWS the only ammunition allowed and see who does the best with that! Most of the local pistol match shooters do this because it is cheap. The results are all relative anyway. I would have been out of your game a long time ago due to the price. Add the price of gas and it certainly puts a crimp in a lot of budgets. At the rate prices are escalating, we'll all be out of the game. We retirees of some duration have been screened out due to this.
 
Sacrilegious though it may be, one way to level the field and ease the pain would be to have the match sponsor supply the ammo at cost.
 
I posted in a thread on the cost of some rifles in the classifieds. I was slammed and flamed, not to mention ridiculed.
The cost of this hobby is going to do nothing but go up, that can be seen across the board when it comes to ammo in all calibers.
For some either the quantity or quality will have to suffer to be able to afford it.
 
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