Handling The High Cost Of Uspsa Shooting

[raz-0]

Cost is realtive. Like some others have mentioned, the limiting factor for me is time. There just isn't enough of it for me to concern myself with the cost of travel or lodging, or even components.

I simply don't have the time to make money the limiting factor (yet).

However, the cost of loading ammo has gone up, the cost of gas has gone up, and if I had much more free time, I'd probably notice it.

Fortunately the ammount of shooting I can do without putting a lot of milage on the odometer locally is pretty staggering. So should the time come up, I think my answer isn't going to be shoot more USPSA matches, but diversify a little.

[Bwana Six-Gun]

FWIW,

Don't add up the the dollars you spend. Thirty years ago I was an up and coming shooter at skeet and then I got married and started looking at cost versus family obligations and that was it. I stopped shooting. Talk to your wife and work out what you want to do together. Combine shooting trips with a vacation. If you start adding up what you spend on shooting all you will do is get depressed. The solultion I have found is, set aside "x" amount of money each pay period for your "fun money", whether it is shooting, vacation, X-Mas gifts or whatever. Use that to do your thing. Do not dip into the "family money" for your fun. I am able to do that and pay for all my reloading components and the coocasional new gun or big match.

Last of all, if you must count costs, count what you have gotten out of it. New friends, the thrill of shooting a really good stage, winning a stage (I'm still waiting for that one), and again, the people you have met. Nowhere will you find a better group of people than the ones you will meet shooting. In 30+ years of competitive shooting of one kind or another, I have never seen the like of a new shooter showing up at the range to watch and shooters saying "Want to shoot today?" When that happens there is a flurry of a--holes and elbows diving into shooting bags, trunks and such until there is enough gear and ammo for the new guy to shoot the match and no one ever says, "By the way that ammo will cost you $X. All are glad to help someone out and get them started. That's what keeps me coming out there every month.

My $.02 for shat it's worth.

[LPatterson]

I decided not to worry about the cost and just shoot for the fun of it. I don't have a wife & I'm retired so what I don't spend will go to the kids. As they were in their teens & early married years they each borrowed about $10,000, which they have never managed to start paying back. So my plan is to spend & charge as much as I can/want now & not worry about how much the kids might inherit later. If the credit cards charges exceed what is left in my IRA then that is just too bad.