I agree. I feel the same about saboted slugs these days. I was telling someone they are up to 3-4 dollars a shot. Thats premium dangerous game ammo. And they can't say its because of low sales. There are a whole lot of slug only states these days.
I can remember selling 12 gauge slugs for $1.75 a box. I made a whopping 2 cents per box on that sale.
Slug prices are up because the mfr. wants or needs to make X amount of dollars for every box of ammo sold. It does not matter if it is a 5, 10, 20, 40, or 50 round box. They do not base their markup on a percentage. They base it on per box sold. Why do you think they do not sell slugs in a 25 round box?? They do not sell them that way because hunter's would split a box. And to the mfr. that is a NO NO. That would mean only one profit amount instead of two. The day's of retail cost based on mfr. costs are long gone.
The easy way to prove this is with turkey loads. Why do you think they went to a 10 round box. Then all you read about in the gun magazines is "well since you only have to buy ten rounds you can go out and buy several boxes to experiment with in your shotgun". Then after you get the load you want you have to go out and buy another box, because you do not have enough to hunt with. YA RIGHT. Tom.