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How much money can I save by reloading?


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I'm with the "none" group. I started reloading with my father in the late 1950's and started acquiring my own equipment in the early 70's. In about 50 years of reloading, I haven't saved a dime - but I've done a LOT of shooting!

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Every time I turn around I'm spending $500 or $600 on bullets or primers or powder, its like a tide going out.

The reality is that if you buy components in bulk you can load very good ammo and it costs about 70% of the cheapest stuff at Walmart.

So if you bought just as much ammo as you relaoded the cost difference is 30 to 40%.

9 mm is the worst example to compare but my cost to reload a box of 9 mm with 125gr JHP's is about $6.00 and takes 4 minutes on my dillon 650. Wallmart is a 20 minute drive one way.

Anyone bought a box of 38 Super lately? I saw some at a gun show $38.00, thats nuts.

Edited by CocoBolo
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Not counting brass, I find I save about 2/3. That is, if a box of rounds cost $15, then I can normally load an equal amount for about $5. This a swag of course but I find it generally accurate for government work.

Now if you have to buy brass it is a different story. Having to buy brass brings the cost up to almost equal. So when I need brass I just buy bulk loaded bullets, shoot the ammo and collect up the brass. The savings otherwise is not worth my time.

None of this calculates the cost of getting set up. The pay back there really depends on how much you shoot and how fancy you want to get with reloading gear. Low volume plinkers; forget it, just keep shooting the cheap commercial reloads. However any sort of weekly or even monthly competition can justify at least a Square D.

Yankee Dog

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I calculated that my total investment for loading MATCH grade 45 acp (far better than anything I could buy)

Any time I see people say stuff like that I think that the person saying it needs to look for other sources of ammo or they've got some really oddball gun :huh: It generally isn't possible for the home hobbyist, even a serious one with the best equipment and years of experience, to load ammo that touches the quality (from an absolute sense) of what the factories are capable of producing. The only thing we can do "better" is tune the load to our gun and/or our purpose. If we sent our gun to them, and let them do their thing, they'd be able to come up with a better performing load than we could.

A lot of that is in the actual machinery we use and the limitations involved with it...and progressive presses are about the worst in that regard. Factory ammo loaded on a machine that has a fixed station for each function is going to be more precise than even a single stage press. I recently loaded up some 9mm to the most exacting precision I can get without going crazy. Loaded on my turret press using a Redding Competition Seating die, same lot brass, same lot bullets I still get a couple thousandths OAL variation (like .002+/-). I grabbed a box of Atlanta Arms 9mm and measured about twenty of them....not even a thousandth variation. Now, that particular ammo may not prove the most accurate in any one particular gun, but that goes back to tuning, not actual quality.

equipment to load and cast : $2500-$3000

That's a pretty high number really. Even if somebody jumps in and buys a pretty expensive press like a 650 ($800 for everything) they can get all the other stuff required to load and cast and still be at $2500 or less....and a lot less if they're reasonably careful. R,

has not been my experience....even what I load on my progressive is better than anything I can get (or have tried) from any factory....the ammo is tuned to my specific needs, for my specific gun set-up and my specific weather conditions....I can't find ANY factory ammo that shoots as well as what I can build....I have tried everything I can get my hands on....

I have noticed that if I load on my single stage and trickle by hand on a beam scale....and pay very close attention to OAL....I can even do better than the progressive....I thought it was just common knowledge that you can load better ammo your self....should I start a poll on that topic??

by the time you get a single stage, and a collet style bullet puller and a micrometer adjust metering insert and a good scale and a tumbler and a media sifter stuck case puller good calipers and this and that and blah blah blah....plus your first order of primers/powder/projectiles/brass.....you will be at that $2500 number....especially if you buy a Dillon

add to that casting gear and all the tools to verify your bullets and some lead

I budgeted $900 for my first loading setup....by the time I was producing ammo that I thought was good...and had all the tools to measure and verify it....plus some case prep tools....$2000, and I am not counting my first order of supplies....so I think $2500-$3000 is pretty fair, for gear....you could def. do it for less....but to really build some nice ammo...and have the supplies to justify your purchase....

I mean if a guy is only going to load 50 rounds here and there, on less than accurate equipment, with no way of measuring his end result...what's the point of doing it at all??

P.S. oh add a chrono. in there to verify velocity as well....you get my point right?? not trying to argue, but sooner or later...that's what you will wind up spending....

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has not been my experience....even what I load on my progressive is better than anything I can get (or have tried) from any factory....the ammo is tuned to my specific needs, for my specific gun set-up and my specific weather conditions....I can't find ANY factory ammo that shoots as well as what I can build....I have tried everything I can get my hands on....

I have noticed that if I load on my single stage and trickle by hand on a beam scale....and pay very close attention to OAL....I can even do better than the progressive....I thought it was just common knowledge that you can load better ammo your self....should I start a poll on that topic??

You're missing the point. The fact that you can tune a load to your gun to get better accuracy doesn't make it "better" ammo. You and I can't make ammo as consistently and perfectlyu as they can. The only thing we can do is tune it to our gun. So, our ammo might shoot better in our gun, but it's not "better" ammo.

The machines we use simply aren't capable of building ammo as precisely as a factory can. Think about any single operation and they have a machine and system that can do it better, time after time, than what we use. Our dies and presses are toys in comparison.

Like I said earlier, send your gun to a factory and tell them to come up with the absolute best combo they can and it's going ot outperform anything you can come up with because they have relatively unlimited time, people, historical data, testing equipment and resources to work on it....you and I don't. R,

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has not been my experience....even what I load on my progressive is better than anything I can get (or have tried) from any factory....the ammo is tuned to my specific needs, for my specific gun set-up and my specific weather conditions....I can't find ANY factory ammo that shoots as well as what I can build....I have tried everything I can get my hands on....

I have noticed that if I load on my single stage and trickle by hand on a beam scale....and pay very close attention to OAL....I can even do better than the progressive....I thought it was just common knowledge that you can load better ammo your self....should I start a poll on that topic??

You're missing the point. The fact that you can tune a load to your gun to get better accuracy doesn't make it "better" ammo. You and I can't make ammo as consistently and perfectlyu as they can. The only thing we can do is tune it to our gun. So, our ammo might shoot better in our gun, but it's not "better" ammo.

The machines we use simply aren't capable of building ammo as precisely as a factory can. Think about any single operation and they have a machine and system that can do it better, time after time, than what we use. Our dies and presses are toys in comparison.

Like I said earlier, send your gun to a factory and tell them to come up with the absolute best combo they can and it's going ot outperform anything you can come up with because they have relatively unlimited time, people, historical data, testing equipment and resources to work on it....you and I don't. R,

I understand that...but the point is that, since none of us have the luxury, of having a factory tailor ammunition to the ever changing needs of our guns....we can build better ammunition than ANY available factory load....I even started a poll to see what others think....I mean if you want to get caught up in semantics....then yes "better" is a incorrect word for me to use.....but that's what your basis is, semantics...

let me correct my laymen term

I can build better ammunition for my gun, than any factory ammunition I can acquire....because I do not have the luxury of having a factory (with precision instrumentation, and measurement methods) build ammunition for my specific needs....

Edited by AriM
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has not been my experience....even what I load on my progressive is better than anything I can get (or have tried) from any factory....the ammo is tuned to my specific needs, for my specific gun set-up and my specific weather conditions....I can't find ANY factory ammo that shoots as well as what I can build....I have tried everything I can get my hands on....

I have noticed that if I load on my single stage and trickle by hand on a beam scale....and pay very close attention to OAL....I can even do better than the progressive....I thought it was just common knowledge that you can load better ammo your self....should I start a poll on that topic??

You're missing the point. The fact that you can tune a load to your gun to get better accuracy doesn't make it "better" ammo. You and I can't make ammo as consistently and perfectlyu as they can. The only thing we can do is tune it to our gun. So, our ammo might shoot better in our gun, but it's not "better" ammo.

The machines we use simply aren't capable of building ammo as precisely as a factory can. Think about any single operation and they have a machine and system that can do it better, time after time, than what we use. Our dies and presses are toys in comparison.

Like I said earlier, send your gun to a factory and tell them to come up with the absolute best combo they can and it's going ot outperform anything you can come up with because they have relatively unlimited time, people, historical data, testing equipment and resources to work on it....you and I don't. R,

I understand that...but the point is that, since none of us have the luxury, of having a factory tailor ammunition to the ever changing needs of our guns....we can build better ammunition than ANY available factory load....I even started a poll to see what others think....I mean if you want to get caught up in semantics....then yes "better" is a incorrect word for me to use.....but that's what your basis is, semantics...

let me correct my laymen term

I can build better ammunition for my gun, than any factory ammunition I can acquire....because I do not have the luxury of having a factory (with precision instrumentation, and measurement methods) build ammunition for my specific needs....

It's not semantics on my part. When I say something is "better" I mean it's of a higher quality, made to tighter specs. You're taking the concept of accuracy and substituting it for quality, which is a false notion.

Accuracy results with one versus another says nothing about the overall quality, which we normally call "better" and "worse".

The painful fact is that your ammo, in your gun, is of a lower quality than what a factory can produce....it's that way for all of us. It will have more OAL variation, more velocity variation, greater powder charge variation, etc....virtually everything except maybe case and bullet specs (assuming you use what they do, or better) will be to a lower standard than factory ammo.

The fact that you can get better accuracy with a lower quality ammo isn't a new concept. .22LR is the best example of that. Frequently people will find a certain ammo that happens to be in the sweet spot for a particular gun and going to ammo that's twice as expensive, and clearly of higher quality, with more rigorous quality control measures won't do anything to help accuracy and is often less accurate. That's what you're experiencing with your guns. A lower quality ammo, that is tuned to the gun more closely provides greater accuracy.....but the quality still is lower any way you cut it.

Keep in mind I load a LOT of ammo and rarely shoot factory, so I'm not bagging on handloading, I'm just telling it like it is. We're all hobbyists and we don't have the equipment, time, experience or resources to be able to make ammo to the same quality standard as a manufacturer can. It's like a guy trying to build a race car in his garage. He might build one that's a better match for the local track, but it's not going to be better (from a quality standpoint) than one that comes out of a professional race car shop. R,

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I can build better ammunition for my gun, than any factory ammunition I can acquire....because I do not have the luxury of having a factory (with precision instrumentation, and measurement methods) build ammunition for my specific needs....

I should have just said this in my last post. Change it to the following and it would be a perfectly reasonable statement:

"I can build more accurate ammunition for my gun, than any factory ammunition I can acquire....because I do not have the luxury of having a factory (with precision instrumentation, and measurement methods) build ammunition for my specific needs...."

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has not been my experience....even what I load on my progressive is better than anything I can get (or have tried) from any factory....the ammo is tuned to my specific needs, for my specific gun set-up and my specific weather conditions....I can't find ANY factory ammo that shoots as well as what I can build....I have tried everything I can get my hands on....

I have noticed that if I load on my single stage and trickle by hand on a beam scale....and pay very close attention to OAL....I can even do better than the progressive....I thought it was just common knowledge that you can load better ammo your self....should I start a poll on that topic??

You're missing the point. The fact that you can tune a load to your gun to get better accuracy doesn't make it "better" ammo. You and I can't make ammo as consistently and perfectlyu as they can. The only thing we can do is tune it to our gun. So, our ammo might shoot better in our gun, but it's not "better" ammo.

The machines we use simply aren't capable of building ammo as precisely as a factory can. Think about any single operation and they have a machine and system that can do it better, time after time, than what we use. Our dies and presses are toys in comparison.

Like I said earlier, send your gun to a factory and tell them to come up with the absolute best combo they can and it's going ot outperform anything you can come up with because they have relatively unlimited time, people, historical data, testing equipment and resources to work on it....you and I don't. R,

I understand that...but the point is that, since none of us have the luxury, of having a factory tailor ammunition to the ever changing needs of our guns....we can build better ammunition than ANY available factory load....I even started a poll to see what others think....I mean if you want to get caught up in semantics....then yes "better" is a incorrect word for me to use.....but that's what your basis is, semantics...

let me correct my laymen term

I can build better ammunition for my gun, than any factory ammunition I can acquire....because I do not have the luxury of having a factory (with precision instrumentation, and measurement methods) build ammunition for my specific needs....

It's not semantics on my part. When I say something is "better" I mean it's of a higher quality, made to tighter specs. You're taking the concept of accuracy and substituting it for quality, which is a false notion.

Accuracy results with one versus another says nothing about the overall quality, which we normally call "better" and "worse".

The painful fact is that your ammo, in your gun, is of a lower quality than what a factory can produce....it's that way for all of us. It will have more OAL variation, more velocity variation, greater powder charge variation, etc....virtually everything except maybe case and bullet specs (assuming you use what they do, or better) will be to a lower standard than factory ammo.

The fact that you can get better accuracy with a lower quality ammo isn't a new concept. .22LR is the best example of that. Frequently people will find a certain ammo that happens to be in the sweet spot for a particular gun and going to ammo that's twice as expensive, and clearly of higher quality, with more rigorous quality control measures won't do anything to help accuracy and is often less accurate. That's what you're experiencing with your guns. A lower quality ammo, that is tuned to the gun more closely provides greater accuracy.....but the quality still is lower any way you cut it.

Keep in mind I load a LOT of ammo and rarely shoot factory, so I'm not bagging on handloading, I'm just telling it like it is. We're all hobbyists and we don't have the equipment, time, experience or resources to be able to make ammo to the same quality standard as a manufacturer can. It's like a guy trying to build a race car in his garage. He might build one that's a better match for the local track, but it's not going to be better (from a quality standpoint) than one that comes out of a professional race car shop. R,

I guess I shouldn't get involved with this battle of words, but I think about "better" a little differently. In this game what do we care about when related to ammo?

1.) reliability

2.) accuracy

3.) consistency (doesn't matter much unless it starts to effect power factor, accuracy, or reliability)

There may be a couple more things to consider, but if my loaded ammo is more accurate, equally reliable, but slightly less consistent dimensionally then my ammo is "better" (i used the "b" word oh no) for me than the factory ammo. Who cares about dimensional and powder variance if they don't significantly effect the things that matter.

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honestly , this is a debate of semantics....i dunno Bart....I really have nothing against you man....nothing at all....but you are arguing about wording...better is, itself a subjective subject....if it makes you happy, and makes you feel like you won some battle for me to say that changing "better" to "more accurate" is a valid observation, on your part, then so be it....but everyone else seems to have understood the intent of my OP....dunno why you want to take it to where it has gone.....at the end of the debate, we both hold the same truth....and we both reload....that has to say something....spin it however you want...I am not here to be petty

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I guess I shouldn't get involved with this battle of words, but I think about "better" a little differently. In this game what do we care about when related to ammo?

1.) reliability It won't be

2.) accuracy Only in your gun

3.) consistency (doesn't matter much unless it starts to effect power factor, accuracy, or reliability) it doesn't matter because it goes against your theory

There may be a couple more things to consider, but if my loaded ammo is more accurate, equally reliable, but slightly less consistent dimensionally then my ammo is "better" (i used the "b" word oh no) for me than the factory ammo. Who cares about dimensional and powder variance if they don't significantly effect the things that matter.

I get to watch hundreds of thousands of rounds get fired every year. I can't count the last time I saw a normal factory round fail to go off. Sometimes the lead free rounds won't light, but that's a primer compound issue.

I also get to watch lots of reloaded ammo get shot, and it's never as reliable. I've had a totally dead primer before....as in dead, dead, dead. Have you? I've never had one with factory ammo and I shoot a lot of each. When was the last time you saw a squib or double charge from the factory? You ARE more susceptible to doing those things no matter how careful you are. So no, your ammo isn't as reliable, it's not as consistent and it's only more accurate in your gun. None of that makes it "better". It may be a better choice for your gun, but that doesn't make the ammo better. The two are completely independant of each other.

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honestly , this is a debate of semantics....i dunno Bart....I really have nothing against you man....nothing at all....but you are arguing about wording...better is, itself a subjective subject....if it makes you happy, and makes you feel like you won some battle for me to say that changing "better" to "more accurate" is a valid observation, on your part, then so be it....but everyone else seems to have understood the intent of my OP....dunno why you want to take it to where it has gone.....at the end of the debate, we both hold the same truth....and we both reload....that has to say something....spin it however you want...I am not here to be petty

Uh, what planet are you on? :blink: Who's "everyone else"? The whole post was about cost savings, not quality. You came along and threw out the "I can make better ammo" red herring (okay, maybe not exactly a red herring, but still a diversion) and I pointed out the fact, not opinion, that the only thing you can do better than the manufacturers is tune it to your gun....that's it. Nothing else you're doing is to a higher standard or level of quality than the manufacturers are capable of doing.

Why did I point this out? Because this is the FAQ section and a lot of raw beginners are going to read it and some might walk away with the mistaken impression that Joe hobbyist is capable of building ammo that's to a higher standard than ammunition manufacturers can. They can't, you can't, I can't and the only folks that even come close are the hard core, world-class benchrest folks, which isn't even remotely a practical reloading application (God bless them for the stuff they teach the rest us!).

The good thing is that I honestly don't care if you do or don't have anything against me because it's not about me. ;)

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I guess I shouldn't get involved with this battle of words, but I think about "better" a little differently. In this game what do we care about when related to ammo?

1.) reliability It won't be

2.) accuracy Only in your gun

3.) consistency (doesn't matter much unless it starts to effect power factor, accuracy, or reliability) it doesn't matter because it goes against your theory

There may be a couple more things to consider, but if my loaded ammo is more accurate, equally reliable, but slightly less consistent dimensionally then my ammo is "better" (i used the "b" word oh no) for me than the factory ammo. Who cares about dimensional and powder variance if they don't significantly effect the things that matter.

I get to watch hundreds of thousands of rounds get fired every year. I can't count the last time I saw a normal factory round fail to go off. Sometimes the lead free rounds won't light, but that's a primer compound issue.

I also get to watch lots of reloaded ammo get shot, and it's never as reliable. I've had a totally dead primer before....as in dead, dead, dead. Have you? I've never had one with factory ammo and I shoot a lot of each. When was the last time you saw a squib or double charge from the factory? You ARE more susceptible to doing those things no matter how careful you are. So no, your ammo isn't as reliable, it's not as consistent and it's only more accurate in your gun. None of that makes it "better". It may be a better choice for your gun, but that doesn't make the ammo better. The two are completely independant of each other.

wait a minute....."It may be a better choice for your gun, but that doesn't make the ammo better. ".......that is not a possibility.....if it's "better for your gun" it's better....plain and simple....

on the issue of having primers not go off.....do you check each one of your primers visually before you load them in the tube? I do....it's easy....make sure there is an anvil, and make sure there is red compound in it....very easy to see with just a glance....I have NEVER had a round fail to light.....I will agree though, that getting a consistent powder charge is another issue....factory ammunition is def. more consistent....

having said that I kind of do see where you are going with your statement about "better" being too lose of a term...but i have had factory ammo duds as well....so I dunno....

Edited by AriM
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The cost savings analysis for this reloading questions obviously is much better today than when this thread was started last year. Hopefully the person that asked the questions bought a reloader at that time.

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  • 1 month later...

ammo4uy1.jpg

ammunition556mmpq9.jpg

I posted this a while back on another forum. A few people who were thinking of reloading had asked about costs associated with it. I thought it might be helpful because with the rising cost of ammunition over the last couple of years, many shooters are considering the alternative of reloading to help cut costs. A lot has been written about how much, if any, money is actually saved when everything is taken into account. This is a cost breakdown for the 2,350 rounds of .223 I finished loading a few months back. As I said, a fellow on another forum, who was interested in reloading for his AR-15's had asked me. The brass I used was mixed headstamp. CCI, Remington, Winchester, Lake City, S&B, and a few others I'm forgetting. This brass was obtained from on line sources on the web. I processed it all the same. First I resized and deprimed all of it with a RCBS Small Base Sizing Die. Then I processed all of the primer pockets on my Dillon 600 Super Swage, because some of them were military with crimped primer pockets. I then trimmed all of them to uniform length on my Giraud Powered Case Trimmer. After that they went into the tumbler for several hours and received a polish with ground corn cob and Dillon Rapid Polish added to the media. The final step was to run it through my Dillon and crimp with a Lee Factory Crimp Die. They turned out very good. My total investment in this batch of .223 was:

Brass---------$20.00 total. (It was free, but I paid the shipping).

Powder-------$65.00 for 8 pounds of AA 2230C. (25.0 Gr. per load X 2,350 = 58,750 Gr. 58,750 divided by 7,000 Grains per pound = 8.39 pounds of powder total.)

Primers-------$59.38 for 2,350 primers @ $25.00 per thousand.

Bullets-------$172.21 (2,350 Winchester 55 Gr. FMJBT from Midway)

Boxes--------$52.00 for 100 boxes and trays from Midway. (Actually $26.00 because I used only 47.)

Grand Total = $342.59

remington1000rounds223ia8.jpg

By comparison the 1,000 rounds of Remington UMC FMJ in .223 pictured above cost me $371.00 delivered from Natchez, (over a year ago). Reloading can be extremely cost effective but you must find good sources, and buy in bulk. Here are 2 very good sources for brass, bullets, and powder. If you are willing to do a little Internet hunting, brass can be found quite inexpensively. It may require cleaning, and primer crimp removal, but tools to do that can be purchased cheaply, and the amount of time added to the operation as a whole isn't much.

http://www.gibrass.com

http://www.patsreloading.com

Now let's make some adjustments, then do the math to find out just how much, if anything, I really saved. Before we do that we need to make one critical adjustment. The $371.00 I paid for the 1,000 rounds of Remington UMC is LONG GONE. Rising fuel prices along with non ferrous metal prices have driven that number to new heights. Especially when you include shipping. If you buy locally, whatever you save in shipping you'll eat in sales tax. So it's pretty much tit for tat. The Glendale, Arizona Cabela's 2 miles from me as of last week, charges $10.00 a box of twenty for Remington UMC .223. Let's roll with that figure. Cabela's is a very large retailer, and while others might stock ammo a little cheaper, Cabela's most always has it in stock which is important because you can't very well buy what a store doesn't have when you need it. So, using Cabela's $10.00 a box of twenty price for Remington UMC 55 Gr. FMJ .223 ammo that comes to:

$500.00 per 1,000 plus 8.1% Arizona sales tax. That's $540.50 per thousand. $540.50 X 2.35 = $1,270.17 for 2,350 rounds.

So as I type this it would cost me $1,270.17 to walk out of Cabela's with the same 2,350 rounds of .223 that cost me a grand total of $342.59.

Now let's do the math.

$1,270.17 - $342.59 = $927.58 Savings over what it would cost me right now to buy the exact same thing 2.5 miles from my home from one of the biggest shooting and hunting retailers in the country.

Now let's talk time.

Resize and deprime all 2,350 cases....... 9 hours. (That's only 4.3 cases a minute, but I'm 55, and not the fastest guy when I reload.)

I tumbled all 2,350 cases over 2 nights while I slept. Adding the time to install plus remove 3 loads, (I use a Dillon FL-2000).......2 hours. Again I'm slow.

Run all 2,350 rounds through my Dillon Progressive.......Approx. 300 rounds per hour. Yeah, I know they say 500 to 600 rounds per hour, but that's not very realistic. You have to include refilling powder measures and primer tubes, plus taking a break once and a while. 2,350 Divided By 300 R.P.H. = 7.83 hours. But let's be generous and call it 9 hours.

My wife has nimble fingers and she enjoys boxing and labeling them for me, but I'll toss in another 3 hours for that as well to keep things on the up and up. So, the grand total in time invested runs:

9 Hours (Resize and deprime)

2 Hours (Putting in and removing from tumbler)

9 Hours (Yanking the handle on the Dillon)

3 Hours (Labeling & Boxing)

.................................................. ...........

23 HOURS TOTAL

$927.58 Savings Divided By 23 Total Hours = $40.33 PER HOUR.

$40.33 per hour is a damn good wage, let alone getting it for doing something you enjoy in the comfort of your own home.

So in conclusion I would say reloading is still worth it, but you must buy your components wisely, and use good equipment. As for "earning" $40.33 per hour doing it. Let's just call that icing on the cake. That cake will get more and more "frosted", as ammo prices just keep getting more and more expensive. And rest assured THEY WILL! Bill T.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I started reloading on my own press last August. I bought a Dillon 550B from BE, plus bells and whistles, for $1100. This includes a 9mm setup I haven't used because I am too lazy to do the math and subtract it from the total.

I shoot .45acp out of a STI Trojan.

Brass is mixed manufacturer range pickups and some brass I have collected from my own shooting; for this I consider it free because I have much more range pickup brass than once fired from me.

Primers: Wolf LPPs $140/5k or $28/K

Bullets: BBI 230gr RN $200/2k or $100/k

Powder: WST $62/4lb or $16/lb @ 4.7gr = $10/k

Total: $138/k

I have shot about 4k since I got my machine, for a total cost of $552.

The cheapest I can find .45 for is from ammoman.com Wolf non-reloadable for $199/500 or $398/k.

Times 4k = 1592

Difference is $1040, or, with the subtraction of the 9mm setup from the 550B price, about even.

The big question is: "would I have shot 4k if it cost me $1592 for factory?" No, probably not. So reloading has allowed me to shoot more than I would have, for roughly the same price, with the future of saving $2080/yr in the future, assuming I shoot as much in the future as I do now (in fact, I will probably shoot more.)

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  • 1 year later...

I started reloading on my own press last August. I bought a Dillon 550B from BE, plus bells and whistles, for $1100. This includes a 9mm setup I haven't used because I am too lazy to do the math and subtract it from the total.

I shoot .45acp out of a STI Trojan.

Brass is mixed manufacturer range pickups and some brass I have collected from my own shooting; for this I consider it free because I have much more range pickup brass than once fired from me.

Primers: Wolf LPPs $140/5k or $28/K

Bullets: BBI 230gr RN $200/2k or $100/k

Powder: WST $62/4lb or $16/lb @ 4.7gr = $10/k

Total: $138/k

I have shot about 4k since I got my machine, for a total cost of $552.

The cheapest I can find .45 for is from ammoman.com Wolf non-reloadable for $199/500 or $398/k.

Times 4k = 1592

Difference is $1040, or, with the subtraction of the 9mm setup from the 550B price, about even.

The big question is: "would I have shot 4k if it cost me $1592 for factory?" No, probably not. So reloading has allowed me to shoot more than I would have, for roughly the same price, with the future of saving $2080/yr in the future, assuming I shoot as much in the future as I do now (in fact, I will probably shoot more.)

Thank you. I am still up in the air if I am going to get into reloading.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well so far I am about a grand in the hole with start up costs. I did order my first batch of Montana gold XML and I saw the savings. I used to pay 300 bucks for 1,000 rounds and just paid a little over 100 bucks for the montana bullets. Looking forward to this reloading way of life.

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  • 5 weeks later...
The bottom line is you don't save a dime... you are just able to shoot more for the same price. ;)

that is very very true JT you wont save anything but.. you will shoot more...lol

I agree, I don't find myself saving money either, but I do get more enjoyment out of my money by being able to shoot more.

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  • 4 months later...

A lot of us have been using Dillon equipment for years and if well cared for we can sell it for more than we paid for it. Money made.

Half the fun of reloading is scrounging up the bargins and free five gallon buckets of wheel weights. I haven't saved any money over the years but boy have I kept the lead in the air.

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  • 4 months later...

I don't reload but a friend of mine does it for me for both 9mm & 223. he does it at his cost since he's not a business & can't make an profit from it.

115g practice 9mm, don't remember off hand what brands he uses but the bullets are FMJ: $170/1000

55g 223 ammo (I supply the brass which is free since I collect it after all 3-gun matches): $230/1000

I just got a load for 147g 9mm which he's going to make some samples for me to try but i don't remember what he quoted me for cost ...

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

They say it does not make sense to reload 9mm, that it is not worth it. Well, if you shoot a lot, consider the accuracy and the seasonal ammo shortage (as now, actually), it makes complete sense.

My calculation is a saving of $7 to $8 for a 50-round box of 9mm if you buy bulk or jump on opportunities.

I found a box of 500 Maesters hard cast bullets for $38 versus over $50 currently because the little gun shop where I found them had been sitting on them forever. He also had Federal primers at $3 a box of 100. That type of opportunity is not to let go by.

At my games I often see people selling primers and powder off of their bulks, or sometimes with a couple bucks markup. You can't see a 4lbs canister of 320 for $115 (note: nobody cares about sales tax at that point) and not just grab it. Because ordering on your own would add hazmat and shipping.

It takes me 30 minutes to load 100 rounds of 9mm, from the moment I pick up the box of primers to the moment I label the box and put it away, and that of course visual inspection of powder drops, sampling OAL, drop checking, etc...

$8 x 4 = $32 saved on 200 rounds of 9mm in one hour, which is more than my net hourly salary as a software engineer.

Of course the investment is: Dillon 550, die sets, tumbler and media, all the little tools, including scale, caliper, case gauge, etc... a total of $600.

Since I shoot about 1,000 rounds a month, I am expecting to recoup the investment in 4 months. Of course, since the Dillon has a high resell value, this is not counting with the equity in the gear.

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