[svtruth]

I'm a new shooter and I was wondering how many have guns that have shot enough so that the ammo cost equals or exceeds the purchase price of the weapon?

[Waffen]

By the end of most firearms life they have shot many times the original price in ammo costs alone. No exact figure because it differs for each caliber.

[Stickjockey]

I have an Enfield SMLE that was made in 1915. Cost me all of $85. I'd be willing to bet that it had shot more than it's purchase price in ammo even before I got it.

[dolanp]

Hmm the K31 leaps into mind, though I haven't shot mine enough yet to pass that threshold. It would be easy enough to do, though.

[jason10mm]

My competition 1911 has had MANY times more ammo shot through it than it cost. I would wager that any IPSC shooter of any experience would tell you that the pistol is the CHEAPEST part of a shooting hobby :) (not the cheapest for a collecting hobby, but for a shooting one).

[shermacman]

My CMP M1 Garand cost $550. Doesn't take too long to eat that much ammo in .30-06! On the other hand, my Ruger .22-45 is going to take a lot of $8.50 boxes of 550 Federal rounds to meet the purchase price.

[MuzzleBlast]

My SKS cost all of $100 ten years ago. I've exceeded that in 7.62x39 ammo many times over.
Among sport shooters, I would suspect this is more the rule than the exception.

[Zach S]

I've got nine that have, and five that havent.

My polymer kimber, purchased three years ago for about $650, has somewhere between eight and ten thousand rounds through it.

[ACP230]

I'd guess that my Ruger Mark II has shot at least its price in ammo.
I used to practice Bullseye a couple times a week and shoot matches out of town.

My Smith M57 .41 Magnum was used in bowling pin matches for a couple years. It should be approaching the amount I paid for it in ammo fired.

My custom .45 pin gun cost a bit more than either of the above, but I shot it a lot too. It must be close at least.

My hunting guns probably haven't shot their cost in ammo yet. My match guns probably have.

[grimjaw]

Get a used NEF Handi-Rifle in .45-70 or some such, and start firing Buffalo Bore through it.

I think about three boxes would do the trick.

jmm

[rwc]

Probably a truism for everything except lightly used .22s.

[JoeHatley]

Interesting way to look at things. I've never really thought about it before.

Even using my own low cost reloads (maybe because of it) all my guns have shot many times their purchase price in ammo.

Joe

[VARifleman]

My anschutz 2013 has had quite a bit over it. I bought it three years ago. :D

It's very easy to go over a .22's price with ammo.

[Greg L]

My first reaction was to snicker & say "of course". After a bit of reflection it isn't quite that easy.

For my .22s - probably not, at $0.01/round it takes a while to add up. Close though
Surplus rifles - again probably not. I got bit by the C&R bug hard & have lots of variations of a few basic designs. I've fired many thousand rounds of surplus ammo at $0.08-10/round but not consistantly through a couple specific rifles
Other rifles - yes
Shotguns - yes as I only have two but they get a workout
Pistols - many times over with the only exception being the previously mentioned .22

Buy quality, in the end you will spend more feeding it if you shoot with any regularity.

[LiquidTension]

My AK falls into that category. I know I've bought at least 6 or 7 cases of 7.62x39 since I bought the gun. The gun was only $300, each case of ammo runs $75-90.

[Andrew Rothman]

Not yet, but I'm doing my best to get there!

[Hawk]

+1 on the K-31 observation. Using Norma, one can do it with 40 rounds.

Closely followed by my Ruger #1-H, (purchased used) burning through "bonded bear claw". There just isn't a lot of "plinking grade" .416 Rigby and it is awful fun to shoot.

Both are a living, breathing advertisement for reloading.

They all get to where the ammo exceeds the firearm price, some just do it faster than others. Pulling up the rear is my lightly used Ruger 22/45. But its day will come.

[MilsurpShooter]

hmm, with the amount of 8mm surplus I've bought I could have gotten.... 4 Yugo M48's at the Mitchell's Mauser price lol

[kudu]

I shoot mostly shotguns, got about 15. Just my Beretta competition gun which I have about $4000 in, I know I have about $8,000 in ammo through it. Most of my other shotguns I have had longer than the Beretta. I know I have shot in excess of 200K rounds of assorted shotshells.

[Standing Wolf]

I've got match pistols that have fired many, many times their costs in ammunition over the decades.

[captain obvious]

If this isn't the case something is very wrong with the gun, or I bought it for reasons other than shooting (i.e. my carcano)

[mfree]

IIRC I got my well-beaten type 99 arisaka bubba edition (sporterized badly) for $85.

At roughly $40 per box of 20 for Norma ammo.... you do the math :)

[only1asterisk]

I've got a nice 1911 that hasn't been with me long enough to shoot it's cost of $0.06 handsloads to excede it's cost, but every other gun has.

David

[michigan_rkba]

most of my ammoman.com orders exceed the purchase price of many firearms...

[Smokey Joe]

Svtruth--Gotta be true for most things ya use regularly, which require any sort of fuel or supplies. Do the numbers on fuel cost for a car over its live vs. cost of the car. Ammo for a gun, same way, unless we're talking special collector pieces.

I was told when I was first getting into Lab retrievers, that it didn't matter much what I paid for a particular dog, that would be "only the down payment" to owning one. True!!--even if I didn't include the vet bills!

[Moonclip]

.410 shotguns are also easy to do this with. As a single barrel one can cost less than $100 and ammo can be $8-9 per 25 it is easy to do. As mentioned some milsurp guns are cheap to get in to but expensive to shoot. Even 22lr firearms can get more than their initial cost through them in ammo. I have a friend who easily has 30 550rd bricks through his Ruger MKII and that is getting close or equal to the cost of the gun he shoots it through.

I tend to space my firearms shooting around to avoid were and tear on any one gun but I do have beaters I don't care about as much that get more ammo than normal. For instance I have 7 Makarovs but I never shoot the rarer Chinese one and shoot my worst example of a currently common Bulgarian model 90% of the time when I want to shoot a Makarov. It would take a long time though at $6 a box mmo though to exceed the cost of the original gun.

[Malamute]

At .02 cents per round average cost for .22 shells, I've shot over $4000 worth of ammo in a single S&W .22 revolver.