Cheapest non-.22 caliber ammo?

[valleyguy]

Hi all,

As I've heard and seen, .22 (lr in my case) is the cheapest ammo by far, and best for practicing and honing shooting skills.

For handguns and rifles (either), what's the next cheapest caliber tend to be ammo-wise? (excluding .17) All of the prices I've seen online go $0.35+ per round very quickly, and most handgun ammo seems to be in the $1 per round neighborhood. Seems like doing a little shooting gets pretty pricey if you're not shooting .22's, no?

[Cranium]

it's gotta be 9mm and/or .38sp.

[ENTHUSIAST]

9mm >$.20 per round .45 >$.30 per round...go to Wal-Mart pick up some WWB *Winchester white box* if you dont wanna break the bank... a $ Dollar a round for Handgun WTF round/caliber are you practicing with an Unobtainium Jacketed Hollow Point chambered in .50 cal Desert Eagle or a bear gun?!?

[Jon Se]

I'm not certain if this is the cheapest caliber, but military surplus / wolf 7.62x39mm ammo can be purchased for around $.20 a round. ammoman.com has some great prices

-Jon

[valleyguy]

Enthusiast, I think you got the ">" turned around unless you were trying to prove my point -- the < points towards the lower value

When I do a google shopping search for almost any kind of handgun ammo, I see some mighty high prices.

[What Just Happened?]

Nope, Enthusiast has it right. 9mm ammo is a little over $0.20 per round and 45acp is a little over $0.30 per round. You can get some wolf 7.62x39 for about $0.25 per round.

If you want low cost ammo, you have to start loading your own. I pay about $0.08 per 9mm round.

[valleyguy]

Gotcha, wanted to be sure I was interpreting that right

Yeah, I'm getting a lot of feedback that I need to start thinking about hand loading if I want to be thrifty. Makes sense, and I guess it's a good way for me to learn ballistics as well and what difference the various loads are.

Eventually I'd like to have guns in 7.62x39 (might get one of those pistol-grip conversion Saiga's from Henderson for Christmas) and .223 (built my own OLL AR eventually over time) . I have a silly theory that once this gulf war ends, we might see a glut in ammo again (though of course tempered by the increased demand worldwide for copper and other metals). Right now the ammo industry is straining to increase capacity, as even PD's can't get the ammo they need for training and practice. All of a sudden, demand falls off, maybe we reap the benefits I can hope, anyways, and better to be prepared.

[sargenv]

Um... air rifle?

bb's are still pretty inexpensive.. no recoil and if you use a pump up gun, no co2 cartridges needed. You can even fire them indoors.

[double_action]

7.62x54r. About $0.14-$0.20 per round

[What Just Happened?]

I was looking, and the next cheapest centerfire I could find was surplus 5.45x39 ammo at around $0.11 per shot. But by design, they're all steel core and the only firearm that I know of that is chambered in the round is an AK-74.

[rksimple]

I was looking, and the next cheapest centerfire I could find was surplus 5.45x39 ammo at around $0.11 per shot. But by design, they're all steel core and the only firearm that I know of that is chambered in the round is an AK-74.

I think you can still get the WASR2 if you want to shoot up some cheap 5.45.

[xrMike]

Well, the cheapest BESIDES .22 (even cheaper in fact), would be BBs and pellets.