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Posted: 2/3/2011 3:36:53 PM EDT
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I was pricing components earlier today.
Then I considered the time involved and started reconsidering lol. Thoughts? |
| Well how often do you go shooting, and how many rounds do you go through each outing. Along with that, does your work/family/school schedule allow you free time to tinker about. I think if you have the time, and shoot enough it's worth doing. Just do the math, if you would recoup your initial loss in a fair amount of time go for it. |
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What did you come up for for total price per 1,000rds? Loading Berry's 124gr HP over Titegroup has me sitting at $150 per 1,000rds. Cheapest off the shelf 9mm I can find is a little over $210 (that's steel cased, WWB is ~$250 after tax). Saving $60 is enough for me ($100 when I compare it to WWB). Once I buy some cheaper bullets, it will be even more worth it. |
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I considered it and decided i'll just buy 9mm plinking stuff , 308 is worth it but for 9mm the savings vs time is not worth it to me on a single stage.
http://gun-deals.com/ammo.php?caliber=9mm+Luger |
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I've come up with similar pricing as mentioned. The only variable is the time and I don't have a progressive (or a turret press)
Considering I reload 223 for match, there goes most of my time. 38 and 357 for practice, there goes the rest of the time lol. When I shot 9mm regularly I was shooting about 100-150 rnds in a range session. Once the HiPower arrives I'll see where I'm at again in a range session. |
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Don't start reloading to save money.
Reload because you enjoy it. If your doing it to simply save a few cents a round than it is probably not for you. I enjoy sitting down and spending a few hours and producing some fine ammo. I take pride in my rounds and in shooting them. |
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*rough estimate here*
missouri 115G lead RN bullets = $55/1000 bullseye powder 3.5g = $20/1lb (least amount as possable to reduce leadding, but still cycles 100% in my gun) CCI small pistol primers+ $26/100 range pick up brass, cleaned and sorted by me = free total for 1000 rounds =$101 running a lee PRO1000 progressive press...I can load 100 rounds in about 20 min, everythings is the same with my .45ACP with the exception I run 4.5g of powder and i paid $65/1000 for 200g SWC bullets lead sucks to clean, and sometimes it can kill your barrel...but look at it this way. I can load 1000 .45ACP for $120 bucks, shoot till the barrels shot out in my 1911 . then buy a brand new barrel from midwayUSA for $85 bucks and STILL BE AT HALF PRICE of what it would cost me to just go out and buy the store bought stuff.... |
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My loads cost me .11 cents a round.
Winchester 231 powder, Montana Gold 115 or 124 gr fmj, cci500 primers, and my own brass or brass I get from the club. I load on a Dillon SDB progressive and can quite easily pound out 400 rounds per hour checking powder drops over 40 or 50 rounds and randomly checking crimp and OAL during the process. I shoot 200+ a week most times though so it saves me a fortune vs buying rounds. |
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Last year I went through around 5k of 9mm on my lee turret press. I spent a lot of time doing it and was starting to think the same thing. Then, my wife bought me a Dillon 550 all set up for 9mm for Christmas. I've only loaded 2k on it since then, but its a huge time saver. Infact I loaded 200 this afternoon, took about 1/2 hr. As far as cost goes, I'm running around $.12/rnd or $120/k. The press with dies (she bought the dillon dies even though I had a set of RCBS) and conversoin kit was $515. Thats 2.5 cases of the cheapest 9mm I can find. Add that amount to the cost of loading 5k of 9mm and you have around $1100. Now, order 5k of the cheapest you can find then pay for the shipping. You've got about the same. As far as time goes, I can't make it worth it. You have to enjoy loading. But, even a Dillon Square Deal will load you 3-400 an hour. Also, I practice with the same ammo I use in matches, so there is no compromise. All in all if you don't like the time it takes you should just buy factory ammo. Far as savings goes, you'll not save any money, you'll just shoot more. |
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I still don't understand the reasoning behind performing a cost benefit analysis on hobbies. I am not "well to do" by any means, but if I need to spend a little of my hard earned money on reloading supplies, so be it. I personally enjoy all aspects of reloading, therefore the time spent is not wasted. If it just so happens I save a few pennies here and there, awesome. If not, oh well, at least I have gained more knowledge on a subject I'm rather obsessive about.
You think folks who spend tons of money on their off road rigs do a cost benefit analysis on their hobby? I guarantee they don't. It's a hobby, relax, spend a little coin, and enjoy it. |
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You guys need to work on cost cutting more. Currently, I'm loading 125gn LRN 9mm for 7.50 - 7.75 per 100 with range brass.
For one, buying in bulk is mandatory. When I say bulk, you should be buying primers in 15,000 - 25,000 primer counts to maximize your hazmat shipping. Powder Valley has them in stock right now for a change. They're $24.00 a 1,000. Or, $0.024 cents each. Second, I opt for a low base powder. Even though pistol calibers do not take much powder, you need to look at it based off the total grain weight of the bottle vs. how many rounds it will load. I usually use Titegroup with 3.7gn's for this load. You should never buy less than one, eight pound bottle at a time. I usually buy 32 pounds of powder at a time. There are 56,000 grains of powder in each bottle. So one eight pounder will load 15,000+ rounds with my load data. Right now, Powder Valley has 8 pounders for $104.00 each. That equals 0.0069375619425173 cents each worth of powder. For easy math, we'll say .7 cents. Brass, there is not much need to buy the most common brass ever. I've never bought a single case. I've found about 16,000 out in the desert over the past 2 years. I did not calculate hazmat and shipping costs because this will differ for each person. However, buy more the better to reduce the overall bite. I believe the hazmat limit is 50 pounds. So use that for a target. The bullet is what eats up most of your coin. When buying lead bullets, you can see massive reductions in cost vs. buying FMJ bullets. You should buy the bullets in bulk as well. I often get 10% discounts over listed prices for buying in massive bulk. The smallest I buy in is 15,000 round allotments. Greater discounts can be reached if you go to 25,000 or even 50,000. Hook up with someone who reloads. Split the load if needed. For 9mm, you want to buy them in counts of 3,000. That's how many will fit in a priority mail box. Right now, SNS Casting is charging 55.50 for a 1000 pills. So 3 boxes will fit in one priority mail box. So $166.50 + $14.15 = $180.65. That is a little over 6 cents each. Now, if you bulk it up, you'd get 10% off. You'd be looking at $165.00 shipped, or 5.44 cents each. So now someone will cry they only want plated ammo. That's fine. We can do that as well. Go to Montana Gold. The cheapest crap they have is 115gn FMJ's. You must buy 3 cases of 4,000. This will give you 12,000 pills and cost you $864.00 shipped, or 7.2 cents per pill. The powder load will be slightly different. But the rest will be similar cost wise. If going plated, I'd probably opt for the 124gn jhp's for a little more money. So recap: Lead 125gn LRN Bullets: $0.0544 Powder: $0.007 Primers: $0.024 Brass: Free –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Total: $0.0854 per round (before hazmat) 115gn FMJ Bullets: $0.072 Powder: $0.007 Primers: $0.024 Brass: Free –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Total: $0.103 per round (before hazmat, powder value estimated) Prices have gone up since I purchased my bulk supplies a year or two ago it seems. However, these costs are pretty cheap. The lead listing is $8.54 per 100. Or, $85.40 per 1,000 rounds. The FMJ listing is $10.30 per 100, or $103.00 per 1,000. If you absolutely must buy brass, go to gunbroker. They sell once fired lots of 3,000 - 5,000 all the time. You'd probably spend $125 - $140 for 5,000 cases. Cited sources: http://www.powdervalleyinc.com/ http://shop.snscasting.com/ https://secure.mooseweb.com/montanagoldbullet.com/pricelist.tpl www.gunbroker.com If you can find components cheaper, plug the data in and try to drive the price further south. Loading 9mm would be extremely tedious on anything less than a Dillon 650XL with a case feeder. I usually crank out about 500 - 600 an hour. I usually opt to load a 1,000 rounds in one sitting. With all prep work and sorting of range brass, I would guess that I invest 3 to 4 hours to load a 1,000 rounds. I inspect my cases several times throughout my loading process that most just skip. So your times may vary. |
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But, even a Dillon Square Deal will load you 3-400 an hour. Also, I practice with the same ammo I use in matches, so there is no compromise. Square deals load faster than 550's for pistol rounds, I don't know why they list the 550 as being the faster reloader when it doesn't even auto index. I'm picking up a 550 in the next few months for .223 and .308 because it's a hell of a machine but I have not seen it load faster than a SDB. |
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Quoted: What did you come up for for total price per 1,000rds? Loading Berry's 124gr HP over Titegroup has me sitting at $150 per 1,000rds. Cheapest off the shelf 9mm I can find is a little over $210 (that's steel cased, WWB is ~$250 after tax). Saving $60 is enough for me ($100 when I compare it to WWB). Once I buy some cheaper bullets, it will be even more worth it. My 1000 round price is about $20-30 cheaper, but when you re-use brass, it's even cheaper the second time. |
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Been buying my 9mm on sale for $7-8 box of 50 for Blazer brass. Comes out to $170-180 per 1k. For the $30-60 dollar difference, I will continue to purchase. I reload enough as it is for cowboy shoots (.38 sp) and then .223, 6.8 SPC, .308 and my .45. YMMV cost wise, that's what I've been seeing as well and I've been using the same rationalization. My time already goes into 223/38/357 so I'm on the fence about reloading 9mm. I have been collecting a bunch of cases for some time (in addition to the factory ammo I've fired off lol) |
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I was pricing components earlier today. Then I considered the time involved and started reconsidering lol. Thoughts? You can shoot steel cased russki ammo for about 15 or 16 cents a shot. Reloads with cast lead bullets are around 10 cents a shot, if you recover all your brass. Problem is, I lose about 50% of my auto pistol brass, and chasing it down takes the fun out of shooting. I reload 357 magnum for my revolver largely because you don't lose those. Other than that, I've got a 1911 I shoot occasionally for fun, and I'm going to get an M&P9 and just run cheap russki ammo. ETA: if there was a brass catcher I could use for my handguns, I'd probably bother to reload it. As it is, I mostly reload 357 (don't lose those) and 223 (AR-15s pile them all nicely in one spot nearby). |
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What did you come up for for total price per 1,000rds? Loading Berry's 124gr HP over Titegroup has me sitting at $150 per 1,000rds. Cheapest off the shelf 9mm I can find is a little over $210 (that's steel cased, WWB is ~$250 after tax). Saving $60 is enough for me ($100 when I compare it to WWB). Once I buy some cheaper bullets, it will be even more worth it. Brown Bear 115gr 9mm FMJ, $165 / 1000 Sold out at the moment, unfortunately. ETA: They do have in stock Novosibirsk 9mm 115gr FMJ for $155 / 1000 and Wolf for $165 / 1000. |
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Quoted: Quoted: I was pricing components earlier today. Then I considered the time involved and started reconsidering lol. Thoughts? You can shoot steel cased russki ammo for about 15 or 16 cents a shot. Reloads with cast lead bullets are around 10 cents a shot, if you recover all your brass. Problem is, I lose about 50% of my auto pistol brass, and chasing it down takes the fun out of shooting. I reload 357 magnum for my revolver largely because you don't lose those. Other than that, I've got a 1911 I shoot occasionally for fun, and I'm going to get an M&P9 and just run cheap russki ammo. ETA: if there was a brass catcher I could use for my handguns, I'd probably bother to reload it. As it is, I mostly reload 357 (don't lose those) and 223 (AR-15s pile them all nicely in one spot nearby). I just lay out a tarp when I'm shooting bottom feeders. |
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But, even a Dillon Square Deal will load you 3-400 an hour. Also, I practice with the same ammo I use in matches, so there is no compromise. Square deals load faster than 550's for pistol rounds, I don't know why they list the 550 as being the faster reloader when it doesn't even auto index. I'm picking up a 550 in the next few months for .223 and .308 because it's a hell of a machine but I have not seen it load faster than a SDB. if you can walk and chew gum at the same time the lack of auto indexing on the 550 is meaningless with respect to time. |
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But, even a Dillon Square Deal will load you 3-400 an hour. Also, I practice with the same ammo I use in matches, so there is no compromise. Square deals load faster than 550's for pistol rounds, I don't know why they list the 550 as being the faster reloader when it doesn't even auto index. I'm picking up a 550 in the next few months for .223 and .308 because it's a hell of a machine but I have not seen it load faster than a SDB. 
You are correct, the SDB is a little faster to load on than a 550. Which is why I have 3 SDB's and 1 550. |
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I was pricing components earlier today. Then I considered the time involved and started reconsidering lol. Thoughts? You can shoot steel cased russki ammo for about 15 or 16 cents a shot. Reloads with cast lead bullets are around 10 cents a shot, if you recover all your brass. Problem is, I lose about 50% of my auto pistol brass, and chasing it down takes the fun out of shooting. I reload 357 magnum for my revolver largely because you don't lose those. Other than that, I've got a 1911 I shoot occasionally for fun, and I'm going to get an M&P9 and just run cheap russki ammo. ETA: if there was a brass catcher I could use for my handguns, I'd probably bother to reload it. As it is, I mostly reload 357 (don't lose those) and 223 (AR-15s pile them all nicely in one spot nearby). I just lay out a tarp when I'm shooting bottom feeders. I can't really do that at my range. Firing points are too close together and the range is too busy. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I was pricing components earlier today. Then I considered the time involved and started reconsidering lol. Thoughts? You can shoot steel cased russki ammo for about 15 or 16 cents a shot. Reloads with cast lead bullets are around 10 cents a shot, if you recover all your brass. Problem is, I lose about 50% of my auto pistol brass, and chasing it down takes the fun out of shooting. I reload 357 magnum for my revolver largely because you don't lose those. Other than that, I've got a 1911 I shoot occasionally for fun, and I'm going to get an M&P9 and just run cheap russki ammo. ETA: if there was a brass catcher I could use for my handguns, I'd probably bother to reload it. As it is, I mostly reload 357 (don't lose those) and 223 (AR-15s pile them all nicely in one spot nearby). I just lay out a tarp when I'm shooting bottom feeders. I can't really do that at my range. Firing points are too close together and the range is too busy. http://www.sherwoodakuna.com/ http://www.ctkprecision.com/brasscatcher.aspx http://www.gracomodels.com/catcher.html http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=112864 |
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Been buying my 9mm on sale for $7-8 box of 50 for Blazer brass. Comes out to $170-180 per 1k. For the $30-60 dollar difference, I will continue to purchase. I reload enough as it is for cowboy shoots (.38 sp) and then .223, 6.8 SPC, .308 and my .45. YMMV Where you getting Blazer Brass for $7-8. Had to buy some Blazer brass 9mm at Walmart for the first time in years and it was over $10.xx plus tax for 50 rounds. The Tula was $9.xx. |
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