The Most Affordable Calibers To Shoot Today

This week, we broke a story about how most major ammo manufacturers were set to increase the price of their 9mm cartridges. That got me thinking. Usually, 9mm is one of the most affordable calibers to shoot. But with this price change, would that remain the same? And if it did, what are some of the other most affordable calibers to shoot?

So, I hit the metaphorical books and started researching ammo prices. Here’s what I found.

Time to start saving up your 9mm for a rainy day.

The Most Affordable Calibers to Shoot Today

Below, we’ll look at the three most affordable calibers to feed your guns. Note that I didn’t just take the three cheapest cartridges and call it a day. If we did, I would have only included pistol cartridges on this list. Since I realize some people like to shoot actual rifle calibers, I included one of those, too.

.22 LR

As David Byrne said a bunch of times in a row, “same as it ever was.” The .22 LR cartridge has historically been the single most affordable caliber for plinkers around the world. Much of that is because there’s not a lot of raw materials that go into making .22 LR. And since .22 LR is such a common round, manufacturers make a lot of it, which helps keep the price low.

As of this writing, .22 LR costs a mere 2 cents per round on average. That’s almost an order of magnitude lower than 9mm costs these days (more on that later). As a result, .22 LR is by far the most affordable caliber to shoot these days.

.223 Remington

Okay, so I know that .223 Remington isn’t going to be as affordable as many of the pistol calibers out there. But sometimes, you just want to shoot a rifle. And when you need to scratch that itch, .223 Remington is the cartridge of choice these days.

The fact that .223 Remington is the most affordable rifle caliber today is fairly surprising. Just a few years ago, the AK’s favorite food, 7.62x39, was the king of cheap rifle ammo. But that changed after the Biden Administration banned Russian-made ammo from entering the US on September 7, 2021.

This caused nearly all common cartridges to become more expensive, since Russia was the main source of cheap steel-cased ammo on the American market. But 7.62x39 was hit the hardest, since nearly all of it came from Russian factories at the time.

As a result of this ammo ban, 7.62x39 was dethroned in favor of .223 Remington as the most affordable rifle caliber. Today, .223 Remington costs about 39 cents per round, while 7.62x39 sits at 43 cents per round.

7.62x39, the former king of cheap rifle ammo.

9x19mm

Last up on our list of most affordable calibers is our old friend 9mm. Even in light of its looming price increase, 9mm is still going to be one of the most affordable calibers to shoot.

As of this post, the average price of 9mm ammo is 15 cents per round. That’s 50% cheaper than the next most affordable pistol round, 380 Auto (23 cents per round). So unless the prices of 9mm radically change – more than the 5% that’s predicted later this month – it’s still going to be the cheapest caliber for you to send downrange.

Final Thoughts

There you have it: three of the most affordable calibers to shoot these days. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the entries on this list will retain their spots for a while.

That doesn’t mean their prices will be static, though. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from watching ammo prices over time, it’s that they rarely go down. That’s why the best time to buy is always right now. Stock up!