General discussion > Black Powder Shooting

Cost of Shooting

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northmn:
 Just for grins I ran a spreadsheet of costs per shot of various calibers and charges.  While the combinations would be astronomical I ran it for ball size and powder charge.  I assumed that priming would cost the same regardless of caliber and realize that you can use musket caps and that musket flintlocks would hold more priming.  If you want figure that as extra.  I also declined from figuring in patch costs.  While I could I doubt if the cost would vary that much.  I used Swiss and GOEX for powder and figured the cost of purchased ball out of Track.  They are admittedly approximations but may say something.  I used a step up system as some ball were priced the same.  Price per shot by adding cost per ball to powder charge.
                                                                   $25        $15
Ball Size Price per Ball   charge Gr's               Swiss     GOEX
.283                 .08               15                     .05          .03
.380                 .10               20                     .07          .05
.445                 .11               25                     .09          .06
.490                 .13               30                     .10          .07
.530                 .14               35                     .12          .09
.562                 .18               40                     .14          .09
.570                 .21               45                     .15          .10
.600                 .33               50                     .17          .11
.695                 .44               55                     .19          .13
Above 695                           60                     .21          .14
Same price                           65                     .22          .15
                                            70                     .24          .16
                                            75                     .26          .17
                                            80                     .28          .18

A 50 using a 495 ball and 80 grains of Swiss would cost .13 for the ball from 490 and above to 530 and with 80 grains of Swiss at .28 it would come in at $.41 per shot.   A 58 using a 575 ball at .21 and a charge of 140 Swiss at .48 (70 @ .24 Doubled)  Costs $.69 per shot.
Some talk about the economy of smaller bores so I used this to get a feel for it.

DP

   

BrownBear:
In recognition that within 50 yards about the only differences between heavy and light charges are noise and recoil, we're doing almost all our range shooting with our small game light loads.  Those are 20 grains in 32, 25 grains in 36, 35 grains in both 50 and 54, and 40 grains in 58.  We also recover and recast all our balls.  Sure there's energy cost for the recasting, but that's no different than casting from new lead.  I don't know if energy figures into your ball costs, but if not, our balls are free. 

Using your #'s, that means we're spending .05 for the 32, .06 for the 36, .09 for both the 50 and 54, and .09 as well for the 58.  I agree that patch costs are negligible because we cut our own from ticking and make rather than buy our lube.  Sure we'll pump up the loads for big game hunting, but that's a pretty minimal quantity of shots compared to small game and range shooting.  Therefore we're spending roughly half (.05 vs .09) to shoot our small bores.

Roger Fisher:

--- Quote from: BrownBear on July 23, 2008, 06:58:02 PM ---In recognition that within 50 yards about the only differences between heavy and light charges are noise and recoil, we're doing almost all our range shooting with our small game light loads.  Those are 20 grains in 32, 25 grains in 36, 35 grains in both 50 and 54, and 40 grains in 58.  We also recover and recast all our balls.  Sure there's energy cost for the recasting, but that's no different than casting from new lead.  I don't know if energy figures into your ball costs, but if not, our balls are free. 

Using your #'s, that means we're spending .05 for the 32, .06 for the 36, .09 for both the 50 and 54, and .09 as well for the 58.  I agree that patch costs are negligible because we cut our own from ticking and make rather than buy our lube.  Sure we'll pump up the loads for big game hunting, but that's a pretty minimal quantity of shots compared to small game and range shooting.  Therefore we're spending roughly half (.05 vs .09) to shoot our small bores.

--- End quote ---
So you recover your shot lead and it sounds as though this is done at a club range????  I assume you dig down into your earthen embankments in line with your target holders.  Do you find most of the lead has washed or worked its way to the bottom of the dirt bank or at any height??  How deep into the embankment??
Our range must have a slew of such lead in the bank!!

BrownBear:
Relax Roger.  It's perfectly simple.

Here is a discussion of of our techniques along with photos of the gear and results.

Daryl:
Cool!  With GOEX at your price of $15.00 per pound ($36.00 locally), my cost per shot form the .69 would be $0.36 per shot with GOEX and about $0.50 for Swiss(which we've never seen). The Swiss was reduced to 2x70gr. due to higher speeds per gr.
; My .40 runs $0.22 for Swiss and $0.15 for GOEX - at $15.00 per pound, that is.

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