Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Price of shotgun shells

Sure glad I still have a good supply of powder, shot, primers, wads and hulls. Costs me about $2.80/box to reload.

One of the young shooters here got a sponsorship from Browning and Federal (IIRC), we have a couple of high school and small college teams locally (one won a NC). Got high school bass fishing teams too, with one college offering scholarships of all things.

I do, too, but I'll be severely traumatized when that stash is done. Still have half a ton of 8's bought at $11/bag. It's a bit higher, now, I see, lol.

And around here those are mostly unobtanium. I can find 20ga in 8s or 7.5s. But, 6s and larger of any type are hard to find.

Midsouth has a good selection of Fiocchi shells from 8.99 and up.
I been buying these for 14.49 bx little under 16 Inc tax.
Got 300

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Used to shoot win AA Super sporting clays.
Like 13 a box now at wally world if you can find them in stock.
They would rather use their primers on tgt loads which are more profitable to make IMO.
Ammo manufacturers are making big profits and making overhead cost like before.
They ain't hurting in a you will take what we are gonna make market.
The " new norm" ....


These are clean burning shells.
Have a punch and a payload.
Ain't like I'm going thru a ton of them last couple days dove hunting anyways...
I have gotten off 2 shots since the 1st.....
🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🥴😔🤣😔🥴🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

They are easy to find on the ground.
2 are not hard to spot.🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
🥴🤣🤣🥴

The last 20 years or so the ardent Shotshell reloaders have started to age/die out of the hobby. When they do, they leave their kids and grandkids with their stash. And the kids aren’t interested. I’ve been going around buying odds and ends forever now. I’ll never have to buy a factory shell again.

This is news to me. Last time I bought shells in 19 and 94 they were 29.99 a flat!!

Steel.shot dove loads in 20 ga.
$15-18 a box.


Ordered some online from Sportsmans Warehouse.
Nobody had any in other stores here.
Went to a gunshop weeks later and they finally had some....couple.bucks.more.

I do remember paying 6.50 for Expert shells way back.
They dropped stuff dead.
I quit shooting cheap shells years ago.

Powder Valley's having a sale;

https://www.powdervalley.com/produc...um=Email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Deals

I used to burn tons of the cheapo Winchester Universals when I was in Jr High and hunted every day of dove season from sept 1 through Oct 15th when muzzleloader started and then picked back up after for the last week of October. They were $12.49 for 100 rounds.

Now me and dad buy whatever we can turn up on sale or at estate and garage sales, mostly 12s but usually $3-$5 a box.

I have been hitting gun shops when I go to the city looking for 410s for months so the boy would have some for dove season. Finally found some last month, one shop had Federal “cheap” game loads for $28 a box. Another had Clever Mirage 2 1/2” 8s for $18.75. I grudgingly bought three boxes.

It was worth it to watch him connect on his twelfth shot this morning though! I’ll swing in tomorrow and grab a couple more boxes to keep him going.

Can't put a price on that!

Some of that brass is about 70 years old. Still shoots fine. Old LP primers less than .03 each. Haven't purchased any reloading components in over 15 years, other than a small quantity of WW primers about 10 years ago.

https://www.reedsgunsandammo.com/ammunition/federal-20ga-game-shok-6-2-75in-25rds-h2006-029465072667
20gauge - #6

https://www.reedsgunsandammo.com/ammunition/12ga-top-gun-lead-250rds
12 gauge

Scheels has a good amount. Well, they did last week. Our group of guys has over 400 confirmed kills on doves so far this year. This morning didn't go very well but the other hunts were bangers.

Our summer trap league has gone from four divisions of ten teams each down to three divisions of eight or nine. That's a loss of about 75 weekly shooters and the league held its own for forty years. Loss is in last two years.
Mostly us old pharts left.

Cool stuff!

Those 20 gauge loads are a good deal. Those are 7/8 ounces of shot rather than a 1-ounce load but for a lot of upland game it wouldn't matter much.

Just so you know this is not inflation …
I bought up a lifetime supply of reloading components back about 20 years ago
Still shooting doves at 1.50/box

My 5 MEC's 9000's, grabbers and Steel shot model have loaded over 250,000 rounds in all gauges, they have paid for themselves many times over. When I need to load either clay target shell or hunting shell just take the cover off the machine and cranked them out. My buddies have to shop for their shot shells or mail order them so other than maintaining supply of reloading components worry free of running low with reloading bench few feet away.