Cost to reload?

[tomme boy]

if you had a 350 legend you were able to shoot the whole time during the bat flu. And ever since dipshit got rid of the russian steel case ammo, I have never found so much brass cased ammo at the range. We hardly ever see steel case right now.

[Ron3]

You can't factor in the price of independent ammo manufacture. If it is not on the shelf, you can be creative at home with reloading stock. Kind of like cooking, nothing to eat at home? With some creativity and a few good cook books, ammo can be made with an assortment of components. During covid times, the only people shooting were reloaders.

That's a good way to look at it.

People forget that during some panics 9mm FMJ jumps to $20 /50 with very few choices while remaining the "cheapest" centerfire ammo to shoot! 147 gr 9mm, .38 special, .45 acp and others were $40/50 and sparse even at that price.

Rifle rounds go to .80 - $1 per shot for the cheapest .223. Everything else was more.

[markm]

It's crazy. I try not to think too much about cost per round. I have old primers that the replacement cost would be 20-25 TIMES, my purchase price. That's the one component I stacked stupid deep when they were silly cheap.

[MarshallDodge]

55 grain 223 is costing me 17 cents per round but most of those components were bought five or more years ago.

Right now, that same load is probably about 25-30 cpr.

That said, I rarely load the cheap stuff. Match ammo is where the money is saved, typically 50%.

[BuzzinSATX]

As a guy who I took up reloading during COVID, I can tell you it can be done and while I’m not sitting on any $0.04 primers or $15/lb powder, it’s still all relative to ammo prices.

I made the decision to NOT go single stage and bought a Dillon 550 new from Scheels. Best decision I made.

Primers are getting reasonable so if you are even thinking about this, buy them now. Powder is the crazy component at this time but when you decide on a powder, buy in bulk when you find it on sale. And for me, I have a couple different powders I will use. My go-to powder is Vihtavuori…N320 and 3N37 for pistol, N140 for rifle (.223 & .308).

Bullets seem to be the one fairly consistent component…I am not pretty much buying mostly from Rocky Mountain Reloading as their projectiles work great for my needs…and they have some very good deals.

Good luck.


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[Krazykarl]

If we are forced to pay more for powder, might as well buy the best. The VV powders are magical.

[shadowspirit]

From OP: Sorry I disappeared. I got logged out and couldn't find my password. Then, I got caught up on other things. Thanks for the responses thusfar.

[ndmiller]

I really wanted to try and start reloading rifle (.223 & 300 Blk) with a Lee hand press, but just don't know what to buy (powder/primers) except hand press, dies and QC collets. I can do prep while sitting around just about anywhere and load a few hours a week in the garage.

Any idea how many rounds I could load with a hand press in 3 hours?

Is it worth buying all this stuff for that amount of rounds/shooting a week?

FWIW I have enough 9mm to last many many years, but would get those dies as well....Assume I would need a different powder.

Powder is essentially what's holding me back, too many choices and only what's available really matters. Not even sure where to start.

[markm]

Any idea how many rounds I could load with a hand press in 3 hours?

Difficult to say if you factor in brass prep.... cleaning, sizing, trimming, crimp removal, etc. If I started with 100 rounds of once fired LC with crimps, it would be 4-5 hours before I finished a complete round. I don't load start to finish like that in one session, but if I did it would be a long session.

[Krazykarl]

It is all about efficiency. A Highpower champion once stated that if you are spending more time reloading than training, you are doing it wrong. I think it was Mr. John Feamster. Brass prep is the time killer. Do it in stages. Do it in batches. Pick one day to resize and do 500. Pick another day to trim and deburr the same 500. Annealing, crimp removal, and other prep techniques can be a one and done for the life of that piece of brass.

If you are limited to a single stage press, than pre prime your 500 prepped cases. The only way you are going to become efficient in the single stage world is with a powder measure. Trust your measure. Dump 20 charges into 20 cases. Trust your eyeball for any inconsistent throws by scanning your case block. Seat the bullets.

In the progressive world with a Dillon 550, efficiency is improved. Good primer seat feel, good measure with appropriate sized powder granules, manual index of the stations so that you have control of everything.

My cost in time is minimal. My boys are good enough now that I run a sweat shop of ammo production.