If it feels like ammo prices got a little softer this spring, you’re not imagining it. We track live prices across the country’s biggest retailers, and the numbers are in. The median round of ammunition fell about 3.5% over the second quarter of 2026. That took the typical round from $1.40 down to $1.35.
But that headline hides the real story. The savings aren’t landing evenly. One half of the gun world is watching ammo prices tumble. The other half is paying the same, or more, than they did back in April. Here’s everything the data says about what ammo actually costs right now.
The five-second version
- Cheapest round in America: .22 LR at 7.7¢, which buys a 100-round afternoon for $7.69.
- Most expensive mainstream caliber: 6.5 Creedmoor at $1.48 a round. That’s a 19x spread from top to bottom.
- Biggest faller: 9mm Luger, down a brutal 14.3% in a single quarter.
- Biggest holdout: 6.5 Creedmoor, which actually rose 2.6% while everything else dropped.
- The value champ: KYGunCo posts the lowest in-stock price in 5 of 12 popular calibers, more than any other retailer.
The big split: trainers are crashing, precision is holding
This is the chart that tells the story. We measured how each caliber’s median cost-per-round moved from late April to mid-June.
Look at the top of that list. Take 9mm Luger. It’s America’s caliber, the round more people feed through more guns than any other, and it dropped 14.3% in three months. Right behind it came 5.56/.223 down 7.5%, .40 S&W down 7%, 7.62×39 down 6.5%, and .45 ACP down 5.8%. Ammo prices for every high-volume training caliber are in free-fall.
Now look at the bottom. 6.5 Creedmoor went the other way and rose 2.6%. The .30-06 nudged up. The .308 Winchester didn’t budge at all. The precision-rifle and hunting calibers shrugged off the whole slide.
Why the split? The drops are concentrated exactly where competition is fiercest, in the high-volume range calibers that a dozen different sellers fight to undercut by the case week after week. Precision and hunting ammo is a different animal, lower-volume and fiercely brand-loyal and far less sensitive to a price war, so when the broader market softens it barely flinches. When prices fall, they fall first where shooters buy by the thousand.
Bottom line for your wallet. If you shoot 9mm, .223, or .40, this is one of the better buying windows in recent memory, and our guide on where to buy cheap ammo online shows where to lock it in. If you shoot 6.5 Creedmoor, don’t hold your breath.
From 8 cents to a buck-fifty: the 19x spread
Not all trigger pulls are created equal. Here’s the cheapest in-stock price for every major caliber we track.
At the bottom, rimfire is still king of cheap, with .22 LR at 7.7¢ and .22 WMR at 26¢. The centerfire value tier starts at 9mm, around 27¢ a round, then climbs through .380 at 32¢, .40 S&W at 36¢, and the shotgun gauges, with 12-gauge at 40¢. From there it keeps climbing. The .45 ACP sits at 44¢, 5.56 at 54¢, and then the rifle calibers take off into dollar-a-round territory, topping out at 6.5 Creedmoor‘s $1.48.
The full top-to-bottom gap is wild. A single 6.5 Creedmoor round costs as much as nineteen rounds of .22 LR.
What it actually costs to shoot
Per-round prices are abstract. This is what they mean when you’re standing at the firing line, using the cheapest in-stock ammo for each caliber.
| You want to | Caliber | It costs |
|---|---|---|
| Plink for an afternoon, 100 rounds | .22 LR | $7.69 |
| Fill a range box, 50 rounds | 9mm Luger | $13.50 |
| Top off a carry mag, 15 rounds | 9mm Luger | $4.05 |
| Load a 30-round AR mag | 5.56 / .223 | $16.14 |
| Run a 50-round pistol session | .45 ACP | $21.99 |
| Break a box of clays, 25 shells | 12 Gauge | $9.91 |
| Zero a precision rifle, 20 rounds | 6.5 Creedmoor | $29.65 |
That .22 number is the one to sit with. A full afternoon of shooting, one hundred rounds, for less than eight dollars. There is no cheaper way to put rounds downrange in America, and it isn’t close. If you’d rather beat the centerfire prices above, rolling your own can push cost per round lower still, and we ran the math on whether reloading is actually worth it.
Who’s actually cheapest?
We tallied which retailer holds the lowest in-stock price in each caliber. The crowns:
| Retailer | Calibers where it’s the price leader |
|---|---|
| KYGunCo | 5 |
| Sportsman’s Warehouse | 3 |
| Brownells | 2 |
| Optics Planet | 1 |
| Sportsman’s Outdoor Superstore | 1 |
No single store wins everything, which is exactly why a price index matters. KYGunCo leads the pack and takes the cheapest slot in five calibers. Even so, the smart buyer checks the board before every purchase. The cheapest 9mm and the cheapest 6.5 Creedmoor don’t live at the same retailer.
Ammo prices: the eight-week glide path
Zoom out and the quarter looks like a slow, steady exhale.
No crash, no spike in ammo prices. Just a patient decline from $1.40 to $1.35 a round across April, May, and June. The kind of quiet, grinding move that’s easy to miss week to week but adds up to real money over a case.
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How we built this
The USA Gun Shop Ammo Price Index is built from our live retail catalog, the same real-time pricing that powers our buying guides and our US gun statistics hub.
- Snapshot: 7,615 in-stock ammunition listings across 27 calibers, captured June 2026.
- Trend: 5,356,697 individual price observations recorded between April 23 and June 16, 2026.
- Method: every listing is normalized to cost-per-round. We report the cheapest in-stock price, the bulk-case median, and the all-listings median per caliber. The cheapest figure uses a 5th-percentile floor so one bad listing can’t skew it. Out-of-stock items are excluded, and boxes, cans and accessories are filtered out.
- Retailers: KYGunCo, Optics Planet, Sportsman’s Warehouse, Brownells, Sportsman’s Outdoor Superstore, Sportsman’s Guide, Ammunition Depot, Bass Pro, and more.
Prices move. This index reflects the market as of mid-June 2026.
Frequently asked questions
How much does ammo cost in 2026?
As of June 2026 the median round of ammunition costs about $1.35. Prices run from roughly 7.7 cents for .22 LR up to about $1.48 for 6.5 Creedmoor. Common 9mm starts near 27 cents a round in bulk, and 5.56 around 54 cents.
What is the cheapest ammo to shoot?
.22 LR is by far the cheapest at about 7.7 cents per round, so a 100-round afternoon runs roughly $7.69. After rimfire, 9mm, .380 ACP and .40 S&W are the most affordable centerfire calibers.
Are ammo prices going up or down in 2026?
Down, but unevenly. The median round fell about 3.5% over the second quarter of 2026. The drop is concentrated in high-volume training calibers like 9mm, which fell 14.3%, while precision-rifle rounds such as 6.5 Creedmoor held firm or rose slightly.
Which caliber is cheapest to shoot per round?
.22 LR at about 7.7 cents, followed by 9mm near 27 cents, .380 ACP around 32 cents and .40 S&W around 36 cents. Rifle calibers like .308 and 6.5 Creedmoor are the most expensive, often over a dollar a round.
Where is ammo cheapest right now?
It varies by caliber, which is exactly why a price index helps. In our June 2026 data KYGunCo posted the lowest in-stock price in 5 of 12 popular calibers, with Sportsman's Warehouse and Brownells also frequently cheapest.
Free to use. Journalists, bloggers, and fellow shooters are welcome to cite or embed these charts and figures with attribution to USA Gun Shop at usa-gun-shop.com.
Want more original gun data? We also mapped the most armed-to-the-teeth states by dealers per capita.
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