Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting whats more expensive... rifle or bow hunting?

Archery COULD be dirt cheap if we all approached it like we did in the beginning..with basic functional equipment. . I could easily buy a ready to hunt, decked out, used modern Mathews bow on ebay for peanuts. It would be light years better than any bow I had to start back in the 80's. . Same for some new in package, but older and less-cool broadheads. A dozen decent aluminum arrows per year instead of the newest fad arrows at $150. Throw in some Arrmy surplus camo and chances are you can kill just as much game as you would spending thousands.

If a guy shoots very often, rifles add up the ammo cost quickly. But so does archery, as arrows get bent or lost, though the cost per shot is still less than shooting a gun. If the hunter in question is one of the guys who has to be stylish and buy a bunch of cool guy camo, that adds up fast, whether for blending into trees for archery, or blending in with the Roksliders wearing Sitka Gear. Quite a few archery seasons are earlier in the year, and thus take less clothing in general, as opposed to a late season hunt where one is wrapped in several hundred dollars in insulation. But that stuff is all relative depending on what weapon a person chooses at the time, since generally a person can still use a bow during rifle season.

Concentrating on gear is just one side of the equation. A difference in cost may come from where you're hunting. A number of guided archery hunts can be had for cheaper than a similar rifle hunt. Additionally, if you are able to hunt with a bow in your back 40, versus taking a week to go to a camp three states away for a rifle hunt, the costs will be a lot different.

Essentially, the cost difference depends significantly on how, where, and when a person hunts, as well as how much money they want to throw into the gear hole.

Yep. After the initial outlay for the archery equipment, archery is far cheaper (at least for me). A dozen carbon arrows and resharpenable G5 heads can last me quite awhile - but I'm careful on targets and am almost always shooting down at deer so unless a deer snaps off an arrow after being vented, I can generally find it, and, it's almost always reusable.

Compare that with I don't know how many pounds of powder, several thousand bullets (in multiple chamberings of course), I'll take the archery bill every time.

My hunting and target rifle experiences started over 65 years ago. I shot matches every week all year long. {On Thursday nights we shoot 22's at 50' with M52 or my 40X target rifle!

Bows are ineffective. The primitive 'indians' lost everything.

Are you allowed to drive a car still?

Bow hunting is more $’s, but very minimally. Use a Parker Buck-Buster purchased eight years ago and have absolutely no desire to ‘upgrade’, it has served me very well. This year need three packs of both Steel Force 100 gr. broadheads and green Nokturnals and I’m ready to go.
Really don’t need anything for rifle hunting....

I have bow and rifle hunted for 50 years. Archery is definitely more expensive. Buy a gun and ammo while it’s on sale and you can rifle hunt for a lifetime with a minimal investment. Arrows, broad heads add up and you must practice much more with a bow. That said, no matter the cost, they are both worth it.

I would say for one of each it’s about the same.

Rifle hunting is cheaper by far. You don't HAVE to shoot thousands or even hundreds of rounds every year in practice to kill deer and one "deer rifle" will last a lifetime. I have a good friend who has been using the same Remington 760 .30-06 to kill deer every season since 1974. I have watched him do his pre season zero check several times and it consists of nothing more than setting up a gallon milk jug at 90 yards in his back yard {all the room he has} and firing 3 shots rested over the hood of his truck. If they all hit the jug, which they always have, he says "good enough" and goes hunting. The guy fills his tags every year without fail.

Boxer/Stick's "easy to see......" line belongs in this thread.

I would say it is pretty close as well, I think Archery is a little less money

My hunting budget went way down when I gave up the bow due to a bad shoulder.

There were the obvious things: arrows and broadheads. I was never all that hard on arrows. However, I never was able to re-use them after taking a deer. I'd figure on consuming a half-dozen arrows and a couple broadheads a year.

However, there were lots of ancillary things that bow hunting seemed to require that rifle did not. A lot of it had to do with the range of the deer. Once I could nail a deer at 50 or 80 yards from the same treestand as I used to at 20-40 yards with a bow, things like scent reduction, cover scents, calls, etc. became superfluous. Actually, I still take deer at close ranges, even with a rifle, so I guess all that stuff wasn't necessary after all.

I reload, so ammo costs me a fraction of factory loads. The same batch of 50 rounds of 30-06 have taken about a dozen deer and I'm only halfway through it.

Its prettyhard to urgue with success.

This is where differences lie. 50 rounds here would be an hour of shooting in the offseason from various positions and distances.

Most of the archers I know are chasing the latest technology and are buying a new high dollar bow every couple of years. My bow is 10 years old and worth maybe 25 percent of what i paid for it. My 10 year old rifles on the other hand are worth at least what I paid for them.

You don't need to use a .30-06 for practice all the time. I probably burn more rounds per year in practice than most here but 80% of it is .22LR and 15 of the remaining 20% is .223. If you're a good hunter, you'll consistently put yourself within your personal effective range under circumstances that allow you to succeed, no matter what that range may be. That's how the friend I spoke of in my previous post kills deer with such regularity. He rarely needs to shoot more than 50 yards and at that range he is deadly.

I do that too, but not with that rifle and those loads, and I count that as part of my shooting budget and not my hunting budget.

I've got one rifle, my Ruger Hawkeye in '06, that gets fired once before season. It's been hitting the bull on the first shot every year, and I figure it's easier to keep one known good rifle just for the whitetail.

Scott,

You are right.

My answer is; It's about the same, 'cause you need the same amount of corn, for either !

Rifles are far, far more effective, accurate and powerful than the WEAK bow and arrows.

Bows are fun for you and a joke to me. The primitive 'Indians' LOST everything.