I got my insurance through another insurance company. It was cheaper than Geico. The only thing i was trying to put across the board here was that ammo is one of the cheapest parts of a hunt whether you believe it or not Heck the pair of waders you wear may cost more than the ammo you shoot in a year...even the high test stuff. Decoys and their upkeep will cost a pretty penny too. Heck at one time I had a thousand goose decoys. Awful lot of painting every year. We (three of us) set out 400 duck decoys one morning. Yep every duck in the area came to us. It was an awful lot of work just setting tham and pulling them when we were done...much less buying maintaining the anchor lines and keeping them painted. We each had 200 duck decoys and we believed in using large amounts which always seemed to work pretty well. Five of us had 8 river leases and 200 decoys each ...the price of shells was minimal when you think of all the other expences.
To give you an example of misdirected frugality...a customer was a pretty fair Sporting clays shooter...he reloaded with chilled shot which he bought from me. I kept telling him to use mag shot(better patterns) and he wouldn't. Well after a while I quit selling chilled as there was 50-75 cents difference in the price. He was annoyed and told me he might take his business elsewhere. No biggie ya know? Anyway I sold him one bag of mag shot. He came back in a couple of weeks and bought more. He averaged 5 birds per 100 more with the mag shot. Made a difference in his winning percentage(and class, of which he had very little). Penny wise...pound foolish is really true...and with waterfowl(and other game animals) I want them DRT. That is why I use and recommend hevi and the other good stuff rather than any thing else! To me good 'nuff just doesn't cut it
Oh and my shooting isn't all that great anymore! I'll be back in the spring...maybe we can go shoot again. I enjoyed it the last time.