Well I tell you and it ain't braggin', I belong to probably the best shooting facility/club in my state. It ain't bragging because it's only about 8 miles from the house, and it was close so I joined.
I didn't know what how good it was until later. Just got lucky.
At any rate, we have serious competitive shooters that compete at Camp Perry and a junior Hi Power program that is competitive nationally. PDs beg to use our range and we only let in who we want. I got out of a traffic incident last year on that alone. Point being I used to shoot unbelievable amounts of ammo, maybe over $1,000 a month for awhile between my brother and another buddy and myself, but shooting that much is a lot of work and I shoot now way less than I used to.
But there are some dudes I used to shoot next to alot when I go down there now are still always there like they used to be, and you have to scratch your head a little bit.
The LR game is a rabbit hole you can go down and never get out of, chasing the perfect rifle, the perfect caliber, the perfect load, the perfect technique and so forth, all just to go from 1 moa to a little under 1/2 moa. We came to that realization and the interest sort of died out a little bit. Got into more practical things, and you spend more time figuring and tinkering than shooting.
Having said that I think this summer we are in for an epic powder burn. My shotgun collection seems to have finally matured and we're going the direction of 3 gun competitive style shooting, probably among the more practical things you can train for.
And having said that I am getting back into the LR game I think. The issue was I have a perfectly good Savage 30-06 we trained on, can shoot 1 moa often enough, so why do I need to spend $4-5 grand on a slightly more powerful slightly flatter shooting 7mm dragon? Not real get ROI. But the thinking now is a change in attitude, that is instead of looking at it like that look at it as perfecting a shooting discipline. That led to the thinking of getting a 6mm BR, scary accurate round and an easy shooter. Which led to the thinking that since it is a project gun may as well build it myself, what I can, and take those skills and apply it to the 7mm dragon when the time comes. Because the time will come eventually.
The point being that whatever your budget may be you really need to think strategically about what your interests are, what your needs are, what is practicial for your situation because it always seems to be changing.
Are you guys watching that doomsday prepper show? What a blast that is. Crazy and brilliant. So now we're looking at weapons caches, cause you never know.
I mean look what they did to Bob Lee.
It's a lot of fun.