Or would eventually become cheaper, with respect to gunpowder.
But what about gun barrels? Don't they have to be drilled out to create the bore? Aren't drills expensive to make? Far as I know, the only groove cutting technology back then was by hand, using gouges or other chisels.
So how did someone like Mathias Corvinus afford an entire army of arquebusiers? And why even use them?
https://firearmshistory.blogspot.ca/2010/05/barrel-making-early-barrel-making-in_29.html
EDIT: Lol, I guess people are tired of questions about gunpowder and bows, but here's hoping I'll get a good answer or two.
You're ignoring a lot of that article, like
The blacksmiths of Italy and Spain that made the early gunbarrels usually used iron from old horse-shoe nails. There was no specific reason to prefer iron from horse-shoe nails, merely that a majority of the early barrel-makers just happened to be the same blacksmiths that dealt with making horse shoes and fitting them.
They were using horse shoe nails because it was the cheapest/most plentiful source of iron they had around. And what does horses being a luxury have anything to do with it anyway? It's not like they were slaughtering horses to get at the nails.
Making these barrels was labor intensive and expensive and hence this technique was used to manufacture barrels for the finest sporting guns of that period.
This wasn't the method used for arming troops, it was for making expensive high performance toys for the rich. (Because it would produce a barrel that was lighter than barrels made through other methods)