Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Competitive Shooting Lowest cost high power competition cartridge?

There was a conversation at our smallbore indoor league night recently about the cost-per-round of high power competition shooting. Several of the shooters present also compete in high power position shooting or BPCR fun shoots. The group opinion in the room felt that it is difficult to come in much below fifty cents-per-round, whether using reloads or surplus service ammunition. Any thoughts?

BPCR 45-70 with your own cast bullets comes in at about the same price as good 22 RF.
Good 223 and 308 can be bought (in bulk) for well under 40 cents a round and reloaded for even less.
Bought 5000 rounds of German military 7.62 made by DWM 147 gr fmj for 36 cents a round to my door. Beautiful ammo, shame it's Berdan primed. Will shoot 5 sub MOA in DPMS LR.
Lake City (Federal) 223 @30 cents a round. Holds 1.5 MOA to 200 in basic Bushmaster.
Stockpiling for the Zombies !

This is not counting S&H, hazmat, tax, or whatever...
it also neglects any spillage, duds, or amortization of reloading equipment, and assumes shopping around and buying in bulk, possibly arranging 'group buys' amongst shooting buddies to save on shipping and hazmat, plus avoid state sales tax, etc.

8lbs Varget (Powder Valley) $145, assuming 24.0gn per round. Approx. 2333 rounds per jug, or 6.2 cents per round.

Rem 7-1/2 primers... $30/1000, so 3 cents per round (PV)

Hornady 75gn BTHP... $90.66/600, 15.1 cents per round (PV)
Nosler 77gn BTHP... $157.85/1000, 15.8 cents per round (PV)
Sierra 77gn MK... $105.72/500, 21.1 cents per round (OK Weber)

Remington-brand .223 Rem once-fired, non-crimped brass $50/500 (BrassMan Brass), so 10 cents each up front, assuming 5 additional firings (entirely reasonable in my experience with 1x fired brass and responsible loads) - 2 cents per round.

Mixed 1x crimped military brass can be had for cheaper, around $65-70/1000 (GI Brass or BrassMan Brass), but may have been fired full-auto thru a SAW, and in my experience involves considerably more work - harder to resize initially, have to crimp, need to sort by head stamp before crimping for dependable results, have to buy a primer pocket swager or reamer and spend the time using it, etc. Sort of false economy in my view.

So... if we used the cheapest bullets -Hornady 75gn BTHP @ 15.1 cents per round, Varget @ 6.2 cents per round, Rem 7.5 primers @ 3 cents per round, and start with 1x Remington-brand .223 Rem brass @ 2 cents per firing, assuming 5 more firings... that puts us at 15.1+6.2+3+2= 26.3 cents per round.

Buying in smaller quantities and/or locally such as buying 1lb bottles of powder or 100ct boxes of bullets at the local store could easily double that price...


YMMV,

Monte

Ammo Guide has a cost app.
Just add your load...

BS.

I know that I'm not paying nearly that for my handloads, which are built with high quality stuff.

Bulk buys of even factory loaded stuff can easily be had for less than 50 cents a round as well.

It depends on the caliber.

In .223, my cost is about 35 cents per round because I use a "high quality" bullet. In .308 it's right around 60 cents a pop, again due to the "high quality" bullet.

Denys,

You are of course correct. It also depends on the application and what they are calling 'High Power Rifle' - whether its XTC or Prone or F-Class. My LR F-Class loads with Berger .30 cal bullets and Lapua brass are considerably more spendy... but for XTC, especially @ 200-300yds, I don't see a need (for me myself) to shot a 'premium' bullet - I just don't hold hard enough to justify the difference in cost. It may be a bit presumptuous of me, but for Offhand and Rapid Fire events, I have my doubts as to whether anyone can *really* hold tight enough to tell the difference - assuming their gun shot say, 3/4 moa groups to begin with.

YMMV,

Monte

True. When I think "High Power", I think 223.



Also true.

Monte, I totally agree with you. When I shot XTC, the bullets were plain old Sierra.

But I was just talking about F-class and my most current costs.

I just noticed that the JLK .308 are now above 56 cents a pop. I think I may have to switch to the cheaper Bergers.

CB, please enlighten us about your concept of high quality bullets.

I'm loading .223 Rem with Hornady & Nosler bullets paired with Wolf primers for about $0.20 each. My practice ammo is even cheaper because that uses Milsurp powder.

With wording like that, you're looking for an argument, and a "gotcha" moment.

Sorry, ain't taking the bait, try someone else.

building a new rifle, but switching to cheaper bullets... doesn't make sense. Unless the cheaper ones perform as well and are as accurate. Do all the work, pay the entry fees, take the time off, travel costs etc... that does not equate to using cheaper bullets typically, especially in your sport.

Bullet wise you don't need much at 200 in highpower. I never did it much, but I know my scores would have been no different 99% of the time if I had shot 60 sierra flat base HPs in the 223. Or even "better" FMJ like non penetrator 62s were pretty good. Or even bulk 55 soft points or hps. 300 demanded a better bullet. 600 and beyond demanded the best IMHO.

Cheap speaks well of the 223 to run. And as Barry notes, you can run milsurp powders, I can't even think the number of local match wins I had at 200 and 300 yard ranges with milsurp powders which used to be as cheap as 2 bucks a pound. And then you could often buy bulk deals on blemished match bullets or get in on drop ships etc... that would have really good deals on bullets.

Brass is reusable, and LC for service rifle or even match rifle, IMHO, is more than good enough, worst case with a bit of culling. You should get 10-20 shots out of most any brass so that cuts cost.

The other place I won't cut corners is primers. There isn't enough price difference to matter. That being said for my purposes I've rarely found that match primers in 223 give the best accuracy. Typically its cheaper mag ones, but primers can cut groups in half or double or triple them so bottom line i use what tests best for primers.

Denys doesn't bait. He( and I too) are just asking what exactly do you mean and what have your results been. Everyone here( mostly) is always willing to learn, or to find out that others do basically what they do.

Jeff

Guess I wouldn't consider Berger bullets as "cheap". Less expensive maybe...

YMMV.

Jeff, as usual you make a lot of sense. Curse you. :-)

I was just reviewing my scores over the last year and I noted that in the last 3 matches, my scores have jumpe about 15-20 points. Two events occured at the same time.

1. I have annealed all my brass and will be doing so every load from now on.

2. I have switched from my Weaver T36 to a Nightforce NXS 12-42X56 with 1/8 MOA.

My X-count has also increased and whereas the first two matches of the year had 3 and 5 Xs in 60 rounds; the next three matches had 11, 14 and 11 respectively. I have been using the exact same load and bullet for a couple of years now and I certainly can't complain. When I aim properly, the bullet works very well.

So why mess around with success? I did swithc to Russian primers late last year and they have been working very well for me.

Well, I fail to see how asking you to specify what you mean by "high quality bullets" leads you to believe I am looking for an argument and a "gotcha" moment. The only thing I can see is that you are looking to walk back the words "high quality".

I'm happy to give you the components of my match loads.

In .308 Winchester, I start with virgin Lapua brass, which I lightly prep to my specs and then prime with Tula primers, powder with Varget that I buy in semi-commercial quantities and top with JLK 180gr VLDLBT bullets. I buy my components (except the bullets) from Powder Valley and I am currently on my 8th loading of the Lapua brass. This set of 500 cases will be retired with the rifle.

My .223 F-TR match load is made up of Winchester cases, bought in a virgin state, Remington 7 1/2 primers, Varget powder and either an 80gr SMK (for 300) or an 80gr JLK (500-600, 800, 900, 1000). If I go to a state match or something, I use JLKs for all three MR distances.

My .223 XTC load is made up of LC brass, Varget, Rem 7 1/2 primers and 77SMK for 200-300 and 80SMK for 600.

Denys

Cheaper.

What do you think contributed more to the extra points, the scope change or annealing your brass?

Anneaing. That ones easy.