Mounted Shooting Costs

This is a sport that looks interesting. I've been looking around the internet a little bit about it and wondered if some of you who have been doing it would share your input about the costs involved. It looks to me like $500-$600 a piece for two revolvers, $200-$300 for a belt and holsters. What else is there? How much do you spend when you go to a shoot? Thanks.

You can find decent revolver for less, if you search through pawn shops, good leather is going to cost, as most of the western rigs you see are more for looks and wont hold up to real use. Check out cascity.com forum classified, lots of cowboy shooting gear for sale. Pretty sure you must stay .45 colt.

Some people at my barn do it, and the rounds they use in the guns are about $.50 EACH, so take that into consideration. If you need a lot of practicing, it can add up fast. Not sure on the entry fees.

I bought 44 caliber cap and ball revolvers and conversion cylinders.
Practice with dirt cheap primers and powder loaded into the percussion cylinders, then swap in the conversion cylinder for match day.
You could also reload your won ammo for practice. Way cheaper than .50 per round.

Figure about $500/gun times 2. You can get a nice custom made rig for about $300-$500 depending on what you want. Past that there is little cost once you get your Blank Brass and learn to reload your own practice.

On average if you buy your practice ammo which is about $.36 each you can relaod for about $.10 each once you guy your brass. Average cost of brass is about $24/100 but you can reload it quite a few times. If you buy one shoot brass from live rounds you will need to modiffy them and then they CAN NOT be used for live ammo only blanks.

Then you will have to have all the stuff to practice with like balloons and balloon sticks and such but that is minimal.

Most groups will have practice night and they average about $10/night covers the cost of the balloons and such.

This is one of those cost heavy front load type events but once you get going not too bad.

.45 colts are a stinkin' expensive round! Costs me around $30 per practice. I go through a 50 round box every time I shoot really fast! If I buy two boxes, it costs me about $50-$60 per practice. I HIGHLY suggest reloading for .45 long colt. Saves a TON!

Keep in mind that Cowboy Mounted Shooting is NOT LIVE ROUNDS. You can not just go out and buy this ammo for practice. If you are shooting live found yes it is expensive. But this is not live ammo is it blanks. You do not even have to know anything about reloading to make blanks. It is easy fast and once you have your blank brass cheep.

Thanks for all the replies. Going to check out a show in October and see if it's something I might want to get into next year. Glad this thread's on here now.

+1, But I practice with live ammo a lot, unless I'm practicing from a horse. But yeah, reloading will be easy with the blanks. I try to shoot everyday, and shoot with live ammo (reloaded of course) :)

Ammo cost is high in this game. About .50 delivered for the .45 rounds is about right.

Just about every certified supplier provides crimped ammo. It was my understanding that crimped casings could not be reloaded. Especially the nickel ones.

Loading your own will save money, but that assumes you have the reloading equipment. Getting set up for that can be a big investment. There are also some complications - if not done right, the are problems with primers backing out and jamming the pistol. I wouldn't say reloading blanks requires no knowledge of reloading.

I have heard of someone producing .22 inserts for the .45 cylinders. Much like the inserts used to allow 12ga shotguns to handle the .45 pistol blanks.

This allows you to load .22 blanks into your .45 pistol for practice. Best part is, you can buy the "nail gun" shells at home depot for this. Makes practice very inexpensive - probably less than you can reload on your own. Plus, you can buy different strengths/loudness levels which makes them great for training a new horse.


As to the original question... don't forget to budget funds for a good hat and some fancy cowboy clothes. Even if you miss, you will still look good. :)