What a Range Day Costs in 2026: 9mm, .22 and .223 by the Round and Hour

In BulkAmmoFinder's July 2026 catalog, a 6,300-round case of .22 LR worked out to 8.62 cents a round, less than a third of the 27.45 cents that typical 9mm cost. Shoot 500 of those .22 rounds across a three-hour afternoon at a Houston indoor range that charges $22.17 an hour, and the day comes to about $110, more than twice a 100-round 9mm hour on the same lane. The box price tells you what the ammunition costs. It does not tell you what the afternoon costs, and the afternoon is what you are actually buying.

Where these prices come from, and what they leave out

Every ammunition figure here comes from BulkAmmoFinder, a sister site of GunShowSchedules. Its methodology page says it currently covers a single online retailer, Ammunition Depot, and its affiliate disclosure says it earns commissions on purchases through its links. These are one store's listed prices, not a national survey.

Cost per round is the package price divided by the round count, with shipping, tax, rebates and destination fees left out. The caliber pages put it plainly: "Prices are dated observations, not live quotes." Every record used below was checked July 24, 2026, and some prices will have moved since.

"Low" and "high" are the cheapest and dearest priced records we could read for each caliber, and "typical" is their median. The pages load their listings from a public data file, and the medians and highs come from the priced records readable in it on September 29, 2026: all of them for .22 LR and 12 gauge, 15 of 19 for 9mm, 9 of 12 for .223/5.56 and 7 of 10 for .380. The lows match each page's own "lowest observed" figure. Unread records could shift a median or high.

Cost per round across five calibers

Mind the fine print. The .22 LR figure rests on one priced record, Remington Golden Bullet at $542.99 for 6,300 rounds: a data point, not a market. The cheapest 9mm and .223 entries are remanufactured, not new production. The priced 12-gauge records are mostly buckshot and slugs, so they say little about a round of trap.

Two surprises hide in plain sight. The smaller cartridge is not the cheaper one: typical .380 ACP ran $0.3970 a round against $0.2745 for 9mm, and the cheapest .380 record sat above the cheapest 9mm. If you are still choosing a first pistol, that gap belongs in the decision, and our first handgun guide covers the rest. Package size moves the number too. The same PMC Bronze 55-grain .223 load was listed at $0.5049 a round in a 120-round bundle, $0.4762 in a 420-round can and $0.4645 in a 1,000-round case. Milsurp calibers are a different market, covered in our milsurp rifle ammo guide.

What four ranges charge, and how they bill

There is no honest national average range fee, so here are four published rates from four regions, taken from each range's own page on September 29, 2026. Notice that they do not even agree on the unit.

An hourly rate charges you for the minutes spent loading magazines and taping targets. A daily fee rewards a long day. A slot with built-in cease-fires sells 90 minutes, of which only part is trigger time. Missouri adds a pace rule: no rapid fire, at least three seconds between shots. A 50-foot indoor lane is also too short for a 100-yard zero, which is why the indoor column below skips the .223.

Ears, eyes and paper: the costs that ride along

NIOSH's outdoor range guidance measured firearm noise between 159 and 169 dB, well past the 140 dB peak it recommends, and its advice is short: "Wear double hearing protection (earplugs and earmuffs) and eye protection when shooting." Our hearing and eye protection guide explains the ratings. Here is a basic setup, priced from manufacturer pages on September 29, 2026:

• Foam plugs: Howard Leight's Super Leight disposable plugs list at $4.52 for five pairs, or about $0.90 a pair, one pair per trip.
• Passive earmuffs: the Leightning L3, NRR 30, has an MSRP of $43.25.
• Glasses: the HL100 over-the-glass model, rated to ANSI Z87.1-2015 High Impact, lists at $9.94.
• Targets: Thompson Target lists its 12.5-by-19-inch scope sight-in targets at $6.99 for the default 10-pack, about $0.70 a sheet.

Muffs and glasses last many trips. Spread over an assumed 25 trips, the muffs cost $1.73 a trip and the glasses $0.40. Electronic muffs such as the Impact Sport at $95.94 make the muff line $3.84. Per session the gear adds $4.43 with two targets and $5.83 with four: small, but it does not shrink when the ammo gets cheap.

Three sessions, itemized with the arithmetic

The assumptions drive everything, so here they are: a $5-an-hour public range (the Missouri rate), your own protection, typical catalog ammo, one hour for 100 rounds of 9mm, three hours for 500 rounds of .22, and 90 minutes to zero a .223 and practice with 60 rounds.

If your range bills only whole hours, the .223 range line becomes $10 and the session $44.34. The ammo spread matters too: the 9mm line runs from $20.45 with the cheapest remanufactured case to $45.58 with the priciest hollow points, and the .223 line from $24.26 to $36.78.

Per round, per session, per hour: three different winners

Each unit crowns a different caliber. The .22 afternoon wins per round at 13 cents and per hour at $21.31, and it is still the most expensive session. The 9mm hour is the cheapest session and the most expensive hour. The .223 loses per round, and not narrowly, at 70 cents.

The hidden variable is rounds per hour. Here the .22 shooter goes through about 167 rounds an hour, or $14.37 of ammunition. The 9mm shooter burns $27.45 an hour, and the .223 shooter, slowed by zeroing, $19.94. An hour costs the hourly fee, plus rounds per hour times cost per round, plus gear spread over the hours. Cheap ammunition invites volume, volume takes time, and time is what the range sells.

The same sessions at four different ranges

Here are the session totals with the range fee swapped. Ammo and gear are as itemized above, except at Top Gun, where the fee covers protection and a target. The Ben Avery weekday row assumes the $10 fee covers the whole visit, since weekday shooting there has no time blocks, but its fees page lists $7 for 1.5 hours; confirm first.

The .22 afternoon swings the most, from $58.93 on an Arizona weekday to $109.61 indoors in Houston. The 9mm hour moves less, because its cost is mostly ammunition. A flat daily fee favors the long .22 day, provided a rotation rule does not cut it short. An hourly lane punishes the slow afternoon, though per hour the indoor .22 still beats the indoor 9mm, $36.54 to $49.62.

Show table or shopping cart: the ammo math

A gun show has one structural advantage on ammunition: you carry it out. There is no shipping, and you can read the box, the lot number and the headstamps before you pay. Against that sit admission, parking and no return window, and show tables mix factory boxes with repacks and loose rounds. Our ammo storage and shelf-life guide covers what to check on an older box and how to store a case at home.

Online, shipping is a real line item because ammunition is a regulated hazardous material. The Postal Inspection Service says small arms ammunition is prohibited from the mail. UPS takes it by Ground within the 48 contiguous states, plus intra-Oahu and intra-Alaska, when marked as a Limited Quantity, never through drop boxes and never to anyone under 18.

Buying ammo online: what to compare

• Delivered price per round. The whole order, shipping, tax and fees included, over the round count. Case price alone flatters everyone.
• Package size. Bigger packages can cost less per round, as the .223 example shows, but only if you will shoot the whole case.
• New or remanufactured. Decide which you will accept before a low price decides for you.
• Lot. Ask whether a multi-box order ships from one lot, and keep the lot number in case of a recall or defect question.
• Range rules. Some ranges restrict certain ammunition, such as steel-cased or steel-core loads. Ask before buying a case.
• State rules and shipping limits. Confirm the seller ships to your state and address. California's Department of Justice says ammunition a resident buys out of state has to go to a licensed California ammunition vendor before the resident can bring it home, unless an exemption applies, and it lists eligibility-check fees of $5 for the standard check and $19 for the basic check. Those rules remain in effect while Rhode v. Bonta is pending; an en banc Ninth Circuit panel heard it March 25, 2026 and had not ruled by late September. New York requires a buyer who is not a dealer or ammunition seller to pass a background check before a dealer or seller transfers ammunition.
• Returns. Many sellers treat ammunition as final sale. Ask how a defective box is handled before you order.

Common range calibers are carried by online ammunition retailers, sporting goods chains, local gun shops and some manufacturers' own web stores.

A range-day budget checklist

1. Find out how your range bills: by the hour, the day, the slot or the round of clays.
2. Check what the fee includes. Protection and a target are sometimes in it.
3. Estimate your rounds per hour honestly, then multiply by the delivered cost per round.
4. Price ammo per round, delivered, for the exact package size you will buy.
5. Spread muffs and glasses over the trips you will realistically make.
6. Ask about ammunition restrictions before buying a case for that range.
7. Confirm your state's purchase and transport rules before money changes hands.

If a show is part of the plan, pick a date from the gun show calendar and bring your per-round number from home. The cheapest box on the table is only a bargain if the afternoon it buys is one you can afford.