Holy smokes, using a shotgun is expensiiiive!

Makes one want to buy a thrower and go out with some friends.

Yeah that's my one gripe with sporting clays and trap/skeet.

The ammo's not all that expensive if you reload your own, but paying high prices for pigeons gets ridiculous.

Exactly! I have one acquaintance who is a serious hunter and clay shooter, and he has one of those fancy schmancy foot-operated throwers. It's hooked up to a battery. His ranch is huge and clays are flying nonstop. I think they're about $550. Worth it if I was into it.

I reload handguns but not shotgun but it seems the setup is pretty darn simple. Yet the cost of clay ammo is so inexpensive that you'd have to be a serious shotgun guy to offset the expense.

But all my friends either don't have a shotgun or one has a pump or they aren't into clays. I offered to get a cheapy loaner 20 gauge and invited a few out and of course they say "yes, for sure" but I know how that goes: it'll be me, two guns and a cheapy Wal-Mart $35 thrower, with me yanking the string and picking up the shotty. No thank you!

addendum: Just off the phone with the guy who invited me to join the league. Declined. He said it's a work/boss thing for him and he's kinda forced into it.

Maybe one day. Sure looks fun.

TMP said:

Makes one want to buy a thrower and go out with some friends.

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YamaLink said:

Exactly! I have one acquaintance who is a serious hunter and clay shooter, and he has one of those fancy schmancy foot-operated throwers. It's hooked up to a battery. His ranch is huge and clays are flying nonstop. I think they're about $550. Worth it if I was into it.

I reload handguns but not shotgun but it seems the setup is pretty darn simple. Yet the cost of clay ammo is so inexpensive that you'd have to be a serious shotgun guy to offset the expense.

But all my friends either don't have a shotgun or one has a pump or they aren't into clays. I offered to get a cheapy loaner 20 gauge and invited a few out and of course they say "yes, for sure" but I know how that goes: it'll be me, two guns and a cheapy Wal-Mart $35 thrower, with me yanking the string and picking up the shotty. No thank you!

addendum: Just off the phone with the guy who invited me to join the league. Declined. He said it's a work/boss thing for him and he's kinda forced into it.

Maybe one day. Sure looks fun.

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It's hells-a-fun just doin it on your own! All you need is one friend who really wants to shoot. Me and my old dirtbike riding buddy sorta don't ride as much now days so we generally try to shoot clays 1 -2 times a week. We generally take 1 box of clays for every 2 people ($4.00 - $7.50 for 90) we each have just a little hand thrower each ($5.00) and if your'e creative with it you can throw doubles and all different angles just hiding outta sight, and we try not to shoot over 75 shells each ($20 to $24 for 100) - that includes collecting whole and half broke clays after we finish the box then throwing up old hulls. It's a little ******* my way but it's reasonably cheap. Just anytime you get visitors make them bring their own guns, ammunition, and clays - or we tend to sell them (at a modest profit) if people won't bring their own (offsets the cost). I always had more fun riding than racing, fishing than tournament fishing, etc. etc.

I just go shoot skeet at a range with a thrower not a club. Buy a 100 pack of shells and 90 clays, have a good ole time with that then move to pistol. A range trip for skeet shooting only for me runs about $40-$50. That's clays ,ammo, and the $10 range fee. $25 for 100 pack of shells, $7 bucks for the clays, and $10 range fee. If I shoot slugs and buckshot at the "blowup anything within reason section" it costs a little more.

I do not envy you guys that dont have land. Or friends.

Out here, with plenty of open land, we can buy a few boxes of clays and a few more boxes of shells and have a blast with two hand throwers and two pump action shotguns. Two people throw, two people shoot, alternate.

I enjoy skeet shooting, but I don't plan on going into competition. I prefer spending my weekends stress-free and with friends.

I found a club in South Bend, IN, that was a really good deal. $4/round for non-members, and I'd just stock up on shells whenever they went on sale at Dick's Sporting Goods for $5/box. $3/round for members (after your $36 membership fee), and members could also prepay for 10 rounds at $2.50/round.

luckly our local range here doesnt make us buy their clays, so we buy our own (9.98 for 100) and the fee is 3 dollars per round with 5 positions. We get to use their electronic throwers with that fee. Total spent per range is about 17-20 dollars depending on how well you shoot.

PlayFront36 said:

I do not envy you guys that dont have land. Or friends.
.

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I definitely miss having land! I love going out to visit my mother in Montana and being able to step off the back porch and shoot! I do enjoy the 1,000's of things to do within 2 minutes of me and a raging job market though! I think I'll milk it for 2 more years and then move back to Ohio or Texas.

What kills me is my local indoor range only allows slugs so shooting my tactical shotguns are about a buck per trigger pull!

Yes, it is a little pricey. I don't reload SG yet so I'm shooting factory ammunition. It runs about $55 per flat (250 rounds) for Federal Top Gun 12ga. Skeet and Trap cost $3/round and 5-Stand is $5/round at my club. Of course, the Browning Citori Lightning Classic cost a few pennies.

I'll start reloading 12 ga soon so I'll be able to reduce ammo cost but everything else is pretty much a fixed cost.

The wife, two boys and I shot trap league for the first time last year. Spent $400 on ammo alone. Think I will be reloading this year.

Zombie Hunter said:

What kills me is my local indoor range only allows slugs so shooting my tactical shotguns are about a buck per trigger pull!

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The range I normally patronize has the same rule - I just bought a new shotgun, but I haven't shot it yet. I am looking for a different place to shoot that is a little more flexible. I might have to sneak over to West Virginia. :shock:

I don't know if you're shooting at some high priced, high class gun range or what, but a typical trip to shoot trap for me is in the $40 range at most of the local clubs around town, including ammo.

Compare that to a typical trip to an indoor range for pistol shooting, which usually runs almost twice that, and that is the cheap places (public range run by county Sheriff). The expensive, privately-owned places could easily go 3x that!

I reload 12 gauge, but I've found that you dont save money on 12g as much as the smaller gauge rounds. 25 rounds of 12g reload will equal the same as 25 rounds factory load from walmart. What you will save on is buckshots and slugs. At .23 per reload slug or buck shot, your saving at least .40 cents per factory shell, and those are the cheapest ones.

Yeah, I wouldnt bother reloading shot shells either. Unless it was something like 410 which are hard to come by around here.

PlayFront36 said:

Yeah, I wouldnt bother reloading shot shells either. Unless it was something like 410 which are hard to come by around here.

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410 is so damn high it's rediculous. I like taking my little 410 H&R out occasionally but it's just not got the smiles per dollar that a 12ga does. Me and a friend had considered reloading 12 but everytime we did the math we just couldn't beat wallyworld

Man! It only costs me 27 bucks for 90 clays and 100 rounds of shells and all the fun I can have!