Personal Economics of IDPA

And I thought owning a boat was expensive.

At the rate I’m going, I’ll shoot 10,000 rounds this year in IDPA club matches.

At today’s prices for the factory FMJs that’s $2400.

But wait, there’s more.

I’d like to improve my game, so there’s non-match practice, which done right will burn up another 10,000 to 20,000 rounds.

so I’m looking at $7,000 in ammo costs.

(I think that reloader is becoming a critical item.)

But wait, that’s not all!

There are range fees too. $15 for a club match and another $15 for practice although range fees for practice can be reduced to $0 with $300 range membership.

So another grand in range fees for the year.

Oh, I need a gun for all this? Well the XD.40 I use for matches cost about $475 and if I put 30,000 rounds through it, something is gonna break. I’ll at least wear out a barrel. So there’s another couple of hundred in repairs.

Oops, I forgot gas. The club range is an hour and a half away, about 70 miles from my house, so another grand in gas.

That makes it around $10,000 for the year.

Since ammunition is the overwhelmingly most expensive item, if I can reduce that by either not shooting as much 🙁 or finding a cheaper source for ammo 🙂 then the cost would be less, but not that much.

If I could reduce ammo costs by 50% (unlikely given the raw materials costs) then the grand total would only drop to $6500. A $25% decrease is more realistic, so I’m back to around $8000

Ouch.