Is shooting going to becomea rich mans game?

[squodged]

Is shooting going to once again become a rich man's sport?

 

With the the price of Cartridges going up because the chinese are buying all the worlds lead and a second price hike looming on the horizon.

 

I was in a gun shop the other day and the propietor was reckoning that the materials to refill your own cartridges are becoming harder to source aswell?

 

So are we ********?

 

Is the normal working man going to be priced out of the sport?

 

What do you reckon?

[lurcherboy]

It already is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LB

[berettaman1]

AS a retired bloke on a crappy pension I have allready started to cut down instead of shooting every week as I used to do I now shoot once every 3 weeks, even my Eley cartridges have shot up to £115.00 from £92.00.because I dont shoot every week my scores are getting worse and I no longer look foreward to competing. I suppose its going to get worse.

[08shooter]

i too have gave up my 3 rounds of skeet a week up at 4 quid a line plus shells its hard to justify. i know you could argue what price do you put on having fun.trap 7.5s now costing me 27 quid a carton. this year i used them decoying and to be honest i did nt miss no 6 32g they were about 36 quid. too dear for me for crows.i do however enjoy shooting fac air and you can have a good days shooting for under a quid. when the dark nights come in i will go back to shoot skeet once a fortnight and i seem to shoot it better floodlit.i will use fac air every saturday that way it evens itself out. i know im only a working man and could nt afford to decoy and shoot skeet all summer so the skeet had to give.i think gun clubs should try and cut the cost of a line to try and keep shooters interested from what i can see they are hiking the prices too. result many people are giving up shooting which i think is a bad thing,it takes numbers away from a unified voice to our government about shooting the lesser the numbers the more gordon brown will tramp all over us.anyhow most the clays i shoot now will be from a trap at home where they will cost me little to shoot.

[beatingisbest]

The price of driven days or even walked up shooting is going in the right way for me and youngairgunner, but the wrong way for most guns.

[njc110381]

I've been told of a time when my grandad used to pay something like 1/4 of his weekly wage to buy a box of 25 decent fowling loads! He used to wait until he could wing several geese with one shot before he'd fire, and wouldn't dream of shooting a pigeon! My dads air rifle was the tool for vermin and small quarry. It's not the way things happen now, but it shows how much harder things used to be. We've had it easy for a long time. Things are not quite as cheap now as they have been, but they're still pretty reasonable compared to years ago. I'm happy for now, I can't see it getting much worse. The shells are only going up because of lead prices, and they'll even out again soon enough! I've cut down my clay shooting a little, but being realistic it doesn't cost that much to do a spot of decoying now and again. If you keep the meat to keep the shopping bill down it works out ok even for a **** shot like me

[Dead-Eyed Duck]

I don't think that averaged out over the years the price of shooting has gone up.

 

Years ago (more than I care to remember) it was reckoned that 10p went up (the price of a cartridge) and £10 came down (the cost to rear a pheasant).

 

The problem is that cartridges have remained the same price for donkeys years, and only now is the price rising along with the cost of lead on the world market.

 

Prices will never come down fully to back to where they were, but competition will have an effect when the price of lead comes down.

 

The next time you buy a round of drinks in a pub you will appreciate that shooting is cheap!

 

Don

[Cranfield]

The price of cartridges remained almost static for quite a few years and by shopping around, you could usually beat yesterdays "best price".

 

Get together with a few friends and buy in bulk, that could be the answer.

[trakker01]

i recon its bull S**..look at the prices in the 'states' etc, for carts & ammo.. B)

 

we are robbed for taxes ,& all the other bumf as usual......

 

i know prices have increased on metals & costs in the 'states' have risen ........but !!! huh..look at the diffrence....??

[Mungler]

I think it is too expensive but I recognise it's all relative.

 

If you don't play golf, don't drink or gamble and your only vice is shooting then it matters not.

 

As a pious ex smoker I can now make the observation that smoking costs a minimum of £35 a week, the same as 3 rounds of 50 bird sporting at my local. Tack on £10 spunked on the lottery and maybe £80 for a skin ful, kebab and taxi home....

[jayward]

well im a working man and tbh this shooting game aint cheep i pay £50 for my lesson and then clays and carts £24 for 100 ive had like 8-10 lessons so far + £50 for my sgl app and then theres my gun safe @ £110 and then theres gona be the cost of my guns if/when i get my licence im looking for a remy 1100 and a Beretta S686/7 so there aint gona be mutch change from a grand there so in total im prob gona spend 2.5 -3k b4 i can go out on my own !!!

then after that i will buy 1000 carts @ £97 and then theres decoys and nets and boots and clothes etc etc shoot i better stop b4 i realise its way way 2 expensive to * Start shooting * in the 1st place but tbh a few rounds @ a weekend when im fixed up aint gona skint me ,tbh its a good job i dont drink or smoke tho @ like £24 for a round of 100 thats inc amo so will be less when im fixed up for say 2 hours good fun yehh i can shoot 100 a lot faster but i likes a butty and brew stop !! what could i be doing cheeper that i find as mutch fun tryed skydiving ,wakeboarding, carting , etc etc all of which i done my self a expensive injury doing so im happy with the current costs but then again i dont know any better im just a newbie lol

[08shooter]

well im a working man and tbh this shooting game aint cheep i pay £50 for my lesson and then clays and carts £24 for 100 ive had like 8-10 lessons so far + £50 for my sgl app and then theres my gun safe @ £110 and then theres gona be the cost of my guns if/when i get my licence im looking for a remy 1100 and a Beretta S686/7 so there aint gona be mutch change from a grand there so in total im prob gona spend 2.5 -3k b4 i can go out on my own !!!

then after that i will buy 1000 carts @ £97 and then theres decoys and nets and boots and clothes etc etc shoot i better stop b4 i realise its way way 2 expensive to * Start shooting * in the 1st place but tbh a few rounds @ a weekend when im fixed up aint gona skint me ,tbh its a good job i dont drink or smoke tho @ like £24 for a round of 100 thats inc amo so will be less when im fixed up for say 2 hours good fun yehh i can shoot 100 a lot faster but i likes a butty and brew stop !! what could i be doing cheeper that i find as mutch fun tryed skydiving ,wakeboarding, carting , etc etc all of which i done my self a expensive injury doing so im happy with the current costs but then again i dont know any better im just a newbie lol

mate forget about the lessons im sure someone would help you out there if you were on my side of the water id help you with what little i know. keep shooting im sure you wont regret it. good luck

[paulos]

well im a working man and tbh this shooting game aint cheep i pay £50 for my lesson and then clays and carts £24 for 100 ive had like 8-10 lessons so far + £50 for my sgl app and then theres my gun safe @ £110 and then theres gona be the cost of my guns if/when i get my licence im looking for a remy 1100 and a Beretta S686/7 so there aint gona be mutch change from a grand there so in total im prob gona spend 2.5 -3k b4 i can go out on my own !!!

then after that i will buy 1000 carts @ £97 and then theres decoys and nets and boots and clothes etc etc shoot i better stop b4 i realise its way way 2 expensive to * Start shooting * in the 1st place but tbh a few rounds @ a weekend when im fixed up aint gona skint me ,tbh its a good job i dont drink or smoke tho @ like £24 for a round of 100 thats inc amo so will be less when im fixed up for say 2 hours good fun yehh i can shoot 100 a lot faster but i likes a butty and brew stop !! what could i be doing cheeper that i find as mutch fun tryed skydiving ,wakeboarding, carting , etc etc all of which i done my self a expensive injury doing so im happy with the current costs but then again i dont know any better im just a newbie lol

mate forget about the lessons im sure someone would help you out there if you were on my side of the water id help you with what little i know. keep shooting im sure you wont regret it. good luck

im inclined to agree here. lessons are good for showing you the ropes and for finding any faults in your technique, but providing youre safe theres no reason you shouldnt be able to just turn up and shoot. 8-10 lessons seems an aweful lot, you dont need to pass a test after all. get yourself out down to your local cluba nd have some practise with the lads there!

[Mungler]

I got my basic training and understanding from a DVD series on clay shooting. Ebaytastic. Had a couple of lessons down at Braintree along the way to tune it all up, and now its just down to practice and throwing lead into the sky at as many different targets as possible.

[chunk]

I still find shooting good value. I use a lot of .22 ammo, which is cheap, and a fair bit of HMR, and a few fibrewads for a bit of pigeon shooting, which is not quite so cheap, but i still go out three or four times a week for various things. The only thing i find a bit dear is a round of clays.

I shoot every other weekend with my daughter, so i double up on expenses. We generally do 50 practice each just for fun and to keep the costs down, but to do 100 registered each would amount to about eighty quid when you consider cartridges, and entry fees for both of us. Not something i could afford every week, so we do this every now and again.

I have no interest in driven game, which is dear, so in all i`m quite happy with what i do, and the costs of it.

[bobt]

It always makes me laugh when people will spend £300 on a days driven birds, the scrimp on the job by using the cheapest crappiest cartridges, why not spend another quid a box its not as if they will use many boxes per day.

 

I agree that prices have gone up, but am willing to put a few hours in work extra to pay for things I want.

[humperdingle]

Agree with you there - There's very little the wee man can do about these price increases... we do what we can afford, and unfortunately that sometimes means cutting back on our shooting.

 

I've recently started rabbit and pigeon shooting after doing much clay shooting... it's much cheaper and often only involves the petrol costs and a few cartridges... plus I can spend ages walking around, stalking etc, instead of blasting 100 clays in an hour or so.

 

Sometimes we just need to adapt and enjoy our sport while it's still available.

[squodged]

i recon its bull S**..look at the prices in the 'states' etc, for carts & ammo..

 

we are robbed for taxes ,& all the other bumf as usual......

 

i know prices have increased on metals & costs in the 'states' have risen ........but !!! huh..look at the diffrence.... :( ??

 

This is the view that the propietor of a local gun shop of mine was saying. He seemed to think that the people who source the materials to make all ammo weren't trying hard enough to find the best deal.

 

Either that or in a round about way it might be the government ******** us again!!!

[Pushkin]

When I first started shooting back in the early seventies, the first gun I bought was new, a Sabel 3" magnum with 30" barrels choked full/full and the cost from our friendly gunshop was £78 with a gunslip and 1 box of carts thrown in; all the warranty and back up I could want as well as all the good will the shopkeeper could provide.

(Henry D - you may recall the shop -Shotcast - in Dundee?)

That gun is still with me today but sadly in no condition to use - through my own negligence - but sentimentality is a little price to pay for keeping it. Cartridges at that time were - I think - under £3 a box of 25(?) or you could buy Baikels in boxes of 10 if you were hard up and had a strong shoulder!

 

My usual shooting jacket was an old army style Parka - the one with the furry edge on the hood and the fishtail hanging down the back. A pair of wellies with fishermans hose underneath and a scraggy pair of jeans. Venturing onto the Eden estuary mudflats (long before it became a game preserve and there was no need for a licence) meant you had to invest in a set of waterproofs - mines were simple and cheap - a deep sea fishermans souwester mac and leggings and a wooly tammy on top and a pair of fingerless mitts on my hands. God, but those were great and often wild days with a good bag most outings and a great feeling of camaradrie with those you were with - the banter itself was often worth the early rise.

 

When I took up shooting again last year; the new an O/U - because nobody seems to use side by sides nowadays unless you are the landed gentry and anyway - who wants to be old fashioned? I spoke about the gun on this site previously and felt I got a good deal. It was second hand but in really good nick - multi choke, hardly used, case of carts, a gunslip and a set of hearing protectors thrown in for the total of £400 - bargain!

 

Then I had to get a good jacket but almost cried when I saw the price of them. Ended up with an army camo for £20, trousers -are just what I have for working in the garden. I've bought a leather cart belt for £15 whilst on my hols from an antique shop in Leyburn - must have been a house clearance because they had others as well as gunslips etc. (Might be worth a look lads if you are in the area?) I also bought a pair of camo gloves for £4 from the gunshop there as well! My camo hood was a tenner from the same shop I got the gun - and my deeks were £23 for 10 - and they seem to work just fine. My permission cost me nothing more than accounting to the farmer how I'm doing. I've joined the local widfowlers club and will be back on the Eden this year (with licence) and hopefully these old legs will still take me far out to the good spots. Other than that you can add in the costs for my hide nets - about £30 for the two and the cost of the poles £10 and last of all the cost to the club for informal clay days. Other than that I think the dearest cost was for a pair of Le chameux boots £95 and I wouldn't be without those - I like my feet warm and dry. I didn't need to buy a game bag becasue I still had my old one from years ago and still in really good nick (had to keep that good - the missus bought me that way back

 

Total - well you can work that out for yourselves guys - but well under a grand for all that fun and the only rolling expenses are the club fees and the cost of carts really - and the latter I can afford to buy in bulk nowadays so that keeps the cost down still further. Next thing on the agenda is a new dog kennel - got the metal panels last week and the wood is to be ordered this week. A dog in the near future and then the vet's bills and all that feed!

 

All in all I think it depends on your personal taste; if you want to have and own real top of the tree gear and equipment then it has to come at a cost. A really expensive gun may make you feel and look good - but it don't improve your shooting or your bag - or even your enjoyment. Who but an eedjit would take a 2 grand gun out on the mudflats? Who but the same eedjit would take a 2 grand gun out on a shoot and then worry themselves sick in case it got knocked about a bit? :(

Its meant to be about enjoying the sport last I heard

 

Pushkin

[Andy W]

The way I think about it is I dont smoke, hardly drink and I really love clay shooting so to me what ever the price I will find the money, it is therapeautic and relaxing to me to get out to a nice ground like Cloudside for example after been working all week, we deserve it to ourselves regardless of the costs, I shall carry on shooting.

 

Regarding carts, when I started shooting for a short while in 1990, a box of carts was £2.45 so have not really gone up much, I keep saying to my mates lets get together and buy 20,000 carts as there is enough of us but some people can not afford to spend £130 in one go and buy theirs in 100 at a time, I get through approx 125 each weekend, discounts must be had somewhere for bulk purchases, just a matter of finding where.