I created a simple poll on X the other day to get an idea of how much ammo people use. My hypothesis was that the ranges represent different commitment levels to firearm usage and that the population size of a commitment level is inversely proportional to the annual ammunition consumption. It became apparent as the results started coming in that I didn’t get the ranges quite right and can benefit from adjustments as evidenced by the answer distribution. There is probably at least one more commitment level as well, but X polls are limited to four options. Regardless, I believe the results somewhat support the hypothesis.
Before getting into round counts and commitment levels, I want to say that my intention here is to have fun and share observations that I’ve made. I’m not throwing any shade at any person or any group of folks. The observations are just that, observations. They are based on my experience, conversations I’ve had with others, and things I have read. There is no doubt some personal bias here as well. I guess what I’m saying is take what is in this post with a grain of salt. Perhaps the content will provide you with some insights or provoke some critical thinking. If nothing else, I hope this information is at least interesting. With that said, let’s look at the first group.
The Non-Shooter
Believe it or not, there are gun owners who don’t fire a single round of ammunition in a single year. Surprised? If so, then hold on to your seat because the next thing I’m going to say should surprise a fair number of those who aren’t already surprised.
Out of the 107 million estimated gun owners in 2024, about 40% fall into this group. I’m not kidding. According to the most recent participation report from NSSF, about 63.5 million Americans participate in some form of shooting activity each year. To be clear, it’s not that the folks in this group never shoot. Rather the frequency in which they participate in shooting activities is measured in years.
These numbers are wild to me. Especially, when considering that 72%, or about 78.1 million owners, say they keep a firearm for protection.
Anecdotally, I know some folks that fall into this category. They are good folks and responsible owners. Every once in a blue moon, I manage to drag them out to the range with me where I’ve seen them handle a firearm safely and manage to put holes on paper. Given enough time in perfect conditions, I’ve seen them warm up and get an occasional bullseye. But things fall apart for them when they attempt to pick up the pace.
I suppose some folks may fall into this group due to economic and financial constraints, but the ones I know simply don’t have the interest or motivation to go shooting. That’s fine. To each, their own. While I will continue to encourage the non-shooters that I know to practice, train, and shoot more, I realize that it’s up to them to do it.
The Occasional or Casual Participant
The next most active group of gun owners are the ones that do one to four shooting activities per year. The mostly likely activities for the members of this group are hunting and recreational shooting. While it is unlikely, they may attend a class or participate in local competition every few years. Generally speaking, these folks aren’t training or competing. Members of this group are unlikely to go through a case of ammo in a calendar year which makes their annual ammo consumption less than 1K rounds per year.
Admittedly, I’ve fallen into this category when it comes to rifle and shotgun related activities. I’ll hunt when deer season comes around. I’ll probably shoot a few matches with a carbine. I might attend a carbine or a shotgun class. I’ll even go to the range a couple times in a year to stretch the long range legs on the rifle. That’s about it and a case of rifle or shotgun ammo lasts me more than a year.
So, yeah, I think it’s fair to say that I’m a casual rifle and a casual shotgun shooter at least purely from an ammunition usage point of view. The realization of that has me thinking of different ways to increase my activity levels, but I’m not sure that’s gonna happen anytime soon given how much time I dedicate to pistol related activities.
It’s hard to say how big this group really is, but I can make an educated guess using the end of the analysis published in Chapter 2 of Karl Rehn‘s book, Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training. There are some caveats here. The NSSF participation data used towards the end of that chapter is specific to Texas which has a larger than average gun owner population than other states. As such, I suspect that activity levels might also be higher than average. Furthermore, the NSSF participation data is outdated. I’m not sure what year it is from but the data used estimated 55 million owners in the USA which I estimate to be pre-Covid era estimate. Covid yielded a tremendous increase in gun ownership and probably affected participation rates as evident by the decrease of the non-shooter population which was approximately 64% in the published analysis. While I’d like to use more current data, the most current NSSF participation report has a price tag of $500 and I would rather spend that money on ammo.
So with that said, using the participation data from Karl Rehn’s book, which was approximated that owners who shoot between 1-4 days was about 15% of all owners and considering the participation growth between owner estimates used in the book and in this post, I estimate the occasional or casual participants to be about 24% of today’s owner pool. This suggests that the population size of occasional or casual participants is roughly 25.6 million gun owners.
The Competent Hobbyist
The competent hobbyist group is a little larger than the previous group which contradicts the hypothesis the poll was based on. C’est la vie.
Members of this group are about four to five times as active. In other words, they shoot between 5-19 days out of the year. They are more likely to compete in a few local matches or attend a class in a calendar year. It wouldn’t be surprising that they make it a point to go to their local range and put a box of ammo through their defensive tools on a monthly basis. There is even a chance that some members of this group have heard of dry fire practice and do a little of it from time to time.
Given the level of participation, I would expect that members of this group go through at least one case of ammo if not more which puts their estimated annual ammo consumption rate somewhere between 1K to 5K rounds. Furthermore, this level of participation is enough to develop a competent level of marksmanship skill. That is assuming the case or cases of ammo aren’t being mag dumped into the trash.
Once again, using the analysis data from Karl Rehn’s book while considering changes in participation, we can estimate that approximately 31% of owners, or 33.1 million gun owners are competent hobbyists.
The Proficient Enthusiast
The populations for this group and beyond get really small really fast. Considering that out the estimated 107 million owners, 41.5 million don’t shoot, 25.6 million shoot on occasion, and 33.1 million hobbyists shoot less than 20 days out of the year, we are left with roughly 4.8 million shooters or 4.5% of the the population who are training and competing with high levels of vigor.
An enthusiast is likely attending multiple classes a year and shooting multiple local matches each month. They are probably dry firing regularly if not daily. There is even a chance they are occasionally traveling to a major match or two. They are likely members of at least one shooting club and associated with shooting sport organizations.
In terms of skill level, they are likely becoming more competitive and perform at levels that suggest some automaticity. They are likely C or B class USPSA competitors if that’s their thing. If they’re into IDPA, they are probably either Sharpshooter or Expert class competitors. With regularly planned and structured practice, it is possible for enthusiasts to attain even higher levels of performance. In other words, they are going beyond competence and live in the world of proficiency.
With this level of activity, the enthusiast is probably going through a case of ammo, give or take a little, every month and possibly a couple of cases on occasional months. Doing a little bit of math on that we estimate an annual ammo consumption rate of 5K to 20K rounds.
Ammo burn rates in that range used to seem astronomical to me. Borderline crazy. At least until a case per month became my normal for pistol related activities.
Attempting to estimate the size of this group requires taking a different approach with a different data set. I opted to use classification statistics available on HitFactor.Info. My assumption is that the percentage of the HQ classified population that holds D, C, or B classifications across all divisions is likely proportional to the remaining highly active owners who fall in the enthusiast bucket. In other words, roughly 77% of the highly active owners fall in this bucket which gives a population of roughly 3.24 million gun owners who are enthusiasts. This represents roughly 3% of all gun owners in the USA today.
The Rising Star
I have a handful of friends who used to be enthusiasts and started leaving me in the dust this year in terms of performance levels. After talking with them and reviewing what changes they have made, it can be summarized as they are working harder and smarter to level up.
These folks, or rising stars if you will, practice on a daily basis. They are also shooting a good bit more. They are participating in multiple local matches every week. While they are still training, they are also getting private coaching frequently. They are attending every major match they can including national level matches.
The volume of ammo used by these folks is staggering. Two cases per month, or 24K rounds per year is commonplace. A case per week isn’t unlikely. More than that isn’t unheard of. While 50K or even 60K rounds per year isn’t unusual for folks in this group, it’s hard to put a cap on an annual ammo consumption rate for this category. As such, I’m going to leave it at 20K or more rounds per year.
Using the same estimation approach used for the enthusiast category, but limiting to the percentage of the HQ classified population that holds A or Master classifications across all divisions, I’d estimate this population of rising stars to be roughly 18% of high active owners. That yields a population of about 790 thousand representing about 0.7% of gun owners.
The Consummate Professional
Consummate professionals are the cream of the crop. They are the Grand Masters. This group includes national and world champions. The best plus the best of the best.
One might expect that the handful of folks who have reached this level shoot even more than the rising stars. And some do. Ben Stoeger thinks he is on track to shoot more than 100K rounds this year, possibly breaking 150K rounds. However, I’d argue Ben Stoeger’s round count this year is an anomaly.
Based on what I’ve heard from several folks who have reached this level of performance that is impossible without automaticity, they don’t often shoot more than they did when they were rising stars. Several of them have even backed off their peak annual ammunition consumption rates since they can maintain their current level with a lower rate but are still shooting at least 20K rounds per year.
Considering the percentage of the HQ classified population that holds Grand Master classifications across all divisions, we can estimate that the population of consummate professionals is about 4% of highly active owners. This translates into roughly 160 thousand folks who perform at this level and contribute to pushing the limits of human performance. This group represents about 0.1% of all owners in the United States of America.
Let’s Summarize
Once again, there is no shade being thrown here. These are just observations that I found interesting.
For example, I’ve considered myself an avid enthusiast for a long time. I think that holds true in the context of pistol shooting, but not true when it comes to shotguns or rifles. I could make the argument that I’m a hobbyist when it comes to those other platforms based on the fact that I dry fire with them on occasion and my activities typically involve competition and training activities. But based on round count alone, I’m a casual rifle shooter and a casual shotgun shooter.
The lines aren’t hard fast when it comes to categorization. Sure, annual ammo consumption is an indicator. A clue, if you will. But it’s not the only factor. I’d argue that how those rounds are used is a more meaningful indicator than round count alone.
However, looking at it through the lens of ammo consumption alone by my estimates, flawed as they may be, we have roughly:
- 41.5 million non-shooters who aren’t going to fire a single round this year (and possibly next)
- 25.6 million casual or occasional participants that going to participate in shooting activities 1-4 days this year each using less than 1K rounds
- 33.1 million competent hobbyists who are going shoot 5-19 days this year each using somewhere between 1K to 5K rounds
- 3.24 million proficient enthusiasts who are going shoot more than 20 days this year and use somewhere between 5K to 20K rounds each
- 790 thousand rising stars who are gonna burn more that 20K rounds each this year as work towards reaching the limit of human performance
- 160 thousand consummate professionals who are also going to burn 20K or more rounds each this year either maintaining their skills or pushing the boundary of human performance potential
Are you surprised by which group you belong to based on your estimated annual ammo consumption? I know I was when I considered it via the lens of platform context.