Not too many years ago, ammo was cheap and gas was cheaper. I remember filling up my car for under $15, less then 10 years ago. At the same time, ammo was 50 rounds of 9mm for about 6 or 7 bucks. A box of 45 ACP was less then $10 and 550 rounds of 22LR in the Federal bulk box was like $8.99. I was buying 7.62x39mm for $1.99 a box of twenty and blowing through thousands at this cost.
Now, gas is over $4 a gallon and it takes me $45 to fill up the tank. Even the cheap boxes of ammo cost $12 for 50 rounds of 9mm and you are lucky as hell to find 45 ACP for $20. The surplus 7.62x39mm is about gone and, if you can find imported stuff, it is running at least $5 a box. Long gone are most of the surplus 8mm Mauser, 6.5mm Swedish, 9mm Mak, 7.62x51, 30-06, and 7 mm Mauser.
The price of the U.S. dollar has dropped through the floor, less then a third of the international value it had 10 years ago. So, the cheap import stuff is not as much of a savings, if any, as it used to be.
Places to shoot are a lot further out now then they used to me. Housing has encroached on my old shooting spots and many of the other ones I shot at were closed down because people were dumping stuff. So, not only do I have to drive further, which costs more, each box of ammo is a least double what it used to me. Even the cost of components for reloading has gone up enormously.
I need to win Powerball to get back to the amounts of shooting I used to do.
