Do they charge too much for buck shot?

I got to thinking the other day...
How come you can buy regular high brass 12 gauge shells for something like $7.50 for a box of 25 but you pay somewhere around $3.50-$4 for a box of 5 rounds of buck shot from the same manufacturer?
Are we getting screwed here?
Do they charge that much just because they can?
Or is there some production process that raises the price that I don't know about?

Supply and demand. For every 25 buck bought, there's 500 target or field loads being carried out the door.

Same reason a 28 gauge load that uses less shot and powder costs twice as much as a 12 gauge load of equal quality.

Do they charge that much just because they can?


Of course. It's called capitalism. It's a good thing.

Joe can produce 50 of X style shell in an hour
Joe can produce 50 of Y style shell in an hour


Joe knows people use the X style shell about 10x more, so he invests a lot of money into equipment focusing on producing X style shell faster/more efficiently


Now Joe can produce 500 of X style shell in an hour
But Joe can still only produce 50 of Y style shell in an hour

They both use the same everything, but joe charges about 2x as much for the less desired shell because it isnt as efficient to produce, and the small demand that is there will adapt to pay the extra costs.... there is a reason why X style shell sells more after all :)

Walmart in my area has 15 round value packs of remington 00 buck for $6.69, I have cleaned them out twice.:)

I tried the Remington stuff in my shotgun but it doesn't pattern worth a crap. Even at the bulk pack Walmart price you are still paying more.
I guess it does make sense though.
At least I am not shooting alot of .410.

What gun and choke are you using, it paterns great for me with my 870 21" barrel and mod choke.

I'm sure that part of the problem is that Buckshot has to be packed into the shell, and the overshot wad is a little more difficult to place than a simple crimp.

So with busckshot, there are more operations, and it's a little more difficult to make.

As an experiment, pry the overshot wad from a 00 buck cartridge, and dump out the shot. Now just dump the shot back in. Repeat 3 or 4 times. Does it always fit?

One other big difference is the method for making the shot. For birdshot, the lead is melted and then dropped in a shot tower, forming almost a perfect sphere before it lands in cooling liquid. The buck shot is bigger and cannot be formed the same way; it must be swaged. This is similar to the way you roll a dough ball between two hands. It's much more difficult to get an acceptably round projectile and uses different machinery. Supply and demand surely have a lot to do with it as well.

Mastinson,

I picked up some of that walmart stuff, but I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet. How is it?

mastinson - It really doesn't suprise me that it doesn't pattern well in my shotgun. It is an 18.5 inch Mossberg 500 with a cylinder bore. Winchester 0 buck patterns OK in it, anything Federal patterns best. I prefer 3" because it has more pellets.
Antibubba - you'll just have to try it in your gun and see. I arrived at my choices by buying a box of every kind of buck shot I could find and patterning them all at 10 and 25 yards. Shoot the ones that don't pattern well for practice and buy more of the one that does.