Folks are going down in payload to save money. I thought it I would share my thoughts.
At my peak level of trap shooting, I was going though over 400 rounds a week and about 70% were practice targets. I went with 1 oz loads for practice to save money. Shot was $38/bag. That works out to $.095/oz. By saving 1/8 oz per shot, I was saving 3.15 oz of shot per box. For a saving of $.30 a box. With a consumption of up to 14 boxes a week of practice loads, that saved me about $4/week. My scores suffered a bit and I decided it was not worth the savings.
My current price of shot is $50/bag (see link below). That works out to $.125/oz. The savings per box with 1 oz loads comes to $.40/box. I will keep loading 1 1/8oz.
For ****s and giggles, I broke out the spreadsheet I use for costing reloads and worked up the price of a box of 12 ga reloads using current component costs (the numbers in brackets are my current inventory costs)
Powder at $50/lb ($15 for mix of Promo/Clays)
Primers at $75/k ($30 for Win 209's)
Wads at $100/case ($70)
Shot at $50/bag ($38)
STS hulls at $50/k used 6 times.
7/8 oz loads cost $8.53
1 oz loads cost $8.92
1 1/8 oz loads cost $9.31
Fortunately, I still have a supply of old inventory and my cost (using 1 1/8 oz) is $4.94/box. The cost increase of shot has had an impact of $.85/box of the total cost increase of $4.37 ($9.31-4.94)...or 20%. The bulk of the cost increase is due to powder ($2.25) and primers ($1.13).
IMO focusing on reducing the amount of shot does not save much compared to the impact fewer pellets make to your score. Yes, it is easy to do, but the savings are minor. I have shot thousands of targets and scores are impacted. Common sense tell us less is never more. It is why there are rules on the maximum load you can use.
With shot at $50/bag, if you shoot four boxes, you will save $1.60 per session using 1/8 oz less of shot. If you cut the load by 1/4 oz, savings are just over $3 for 100 shells. Each person can decide the cost/benefit for themselves.
I am werid....I get my jollies from breaking clays not missing them.
BTW, here is a link to the price of shot from a company I dealt with when I was VP of the trap club:
https://www.dawsonent.com/Reloading.pdf