cost effective reloading

Ron Moore said:

Reloading your own ammo comes in handy when ammo is hard to find like it was in 2020.

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Components weren't any better, which brings me to my point; reloading is no good unless you keep a running supply of components. Lots of components. At that point, you will never come close to breaking even, let alone saving money.

Reloading was never meant as a money saving scheme. It was meant as a means to load and tailor ammo to suit your personal needs and goals(accuracy).

The best way to save money on ammo is to buy it cheap and stack it deep.

In times of ammo panic , components , particularly primers are harder to find than loaded ammo .

As noted , in normal times , it's more affordable to stack up 10k primers than 10k loaded rounds . Bullet casting is a separate hobby in itself . But once you have the equipment and molds , scrap lead can always be found .

I was already into bullet casting for muzzleloaders and BP pistols. Then 2020 happened and I started because of the circus trying to buy ammo. Kicking myself now because I passed on a 1874 original Calvary Carbine in 45-70 because I did not want to get into another hobby and reloading less than a year before it all started.

Loaded 9mm and 45 colt of course, because the latter is expensive, even when people aren't crazy and was just no whereto be found for a year. I like being self sufficient. Making bullets, loading ammo, growing food and canning meats. I really got sold on my 30-30 ammo. I like Hornady Leverevolution but its $30 per 20 plus shipping because no one carries it is Hagerstown. So I shot Remi Core-lokts as I found them under $18 before. Made a load with 184 grain flat nosed bullets and 3031 and my round flat out perform Core-lokts at 100 yards. I had to elevate the rear aperture shooting core-lokts and lower it back down with my own rounds. That kind of clicked with me.

Factory ammo might be good to toss pills down hill at the range, but generic stuff sold at a lower price point is made to be at a low price point and quality suffers. I can match and beat the price point of Core-lokts and get the performance of leverevolution

You can absolutely save money loading 9mm in volume. Even with a sweet setup like a 750. Even with paying painful prices for SPPs. Even when accounting for the scrap price of your brass. Depending on your profession, you might even be able to account for your time spent in years like 2020-2021. The problem is when you're NOT loading in volume, but buy equipment like you are. That's when your amortization never really saves you. And there's no point in loading in volume if you don't shoot in volume.

If you're willing to be cheap on equipment and treat your time like it's free, you can probably save a bunch of money doing precision rifle reloads even if your volume is a couple hundred a year. But you'd need to be disciplined about not buying stuff, and that's hard with cool stuff like Giraud trimmers and Chargemasters on the market... and fancy reloading dies... and expensive presses...

erwos said:

You can absolutely save money loading 9mm in volume. Even with a sweet setup like a 750. Even with paying painful prices for SPPs. Even when accounting for the scrap price of your brass. Depending on your profession, you might even be able to account for your time spent in years like 2020-2021. The problem is when you're NOT loading in volume, but buy equipment like you are. That's when your amortization never really saves you. And there's no point in loading in volume if you don't shoot in volume.

If you're willing to be cheap on equipment and treat your time like it's free, you can probably save a bunch of money doing precision rifle reloads even if your volume is a couple hundred a year. But you'd need to be disciplined about not buying stuff, and that's hard with cool stuff like Giraud trimmers and Chargemasters on the market... and fancy reloading dies... and expensive presses...

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I’ve mostly lucked out in that respect. Some day I might spend stupid money. But right now I have a Lyman T-mag press and powder dropper as hand-me-downs from my wife’s uncle. I bought a lee Classic turret and lee APP press. That was about $300. 15 die sets for 13 calibers (I got a cheap used Redding 38/357 set when I already had a Hornady 38/357. It was stupid cheap). About $450 (mostly lee and Hornady). 13 lee turrets for the press, about $150.

A couple Lee auto drums and associated charging dies about $150.

Miscellaneous other dies (mostly lee FCDs for most calibers). Swapped out a couple does from die sets where someone else’s die worked better. Maybe $200.

Accessories for my Lee APP and Classic turret are probably another $150.

Lyman xpress case trimmer and a 6.5G bushing (came with bushing for all my other calibers) $140.

I had a hand-me-down case tumbler.

Inline fabrication rail system and accessories about $200.

Heck, rolling stool for my reloading bench $50 (I am not including the reloading bench, because I use that at least as much for gun smithing stuff and general storage and organization of gun stuff).

I’d bet I spent $400 on other stuff not included like a Franklin scale, Franklin hand primer, a couple sets of calipers, case gauges, etc.

That brings me to $2190. That’s probably an over estimate, but also buy I might be a couple of hundred load. Moving forward there really isn’t any reloading equipment I can think of that I want or need. Some year I’ll likely get new stuff. Because, fun? I guess?

Other then developing new loads, I focus on reloading in bulk, uncommonly. By that I mean I’ll sit down and load 300-500 rounds of 9mm in a day or two, depending on my time. That’ll last me 6 months at least the way I shoot. Then a week or three later I’ll load a couple hundred 45acp. Same deal, that’s maybe 6 months of shooting. Then I’ll load a couple hundred 223. Maybe 100 rounds of 30 carbine because the same.

Rounds I don’t shoot as much of I’ll load 100-200 rounds of it and that might last me the year. So with 13 calibers (not including 12ga, .410 and 22lr which I don’t load for) I am probably bulk reloading 20 times a year at my current rate. Some calibers I am reloading twice a year. Others once a year.

And I might be reloading for two or three calibers in a weekend or week. Then maybe not for 2-6 weeks.

I still have loads for .30-06 M2 ball and .308/7.62x51 I need to work up. Once done, I’ll have loads for every caliber I reload for. But I still need to work up several loads for some calibers that I haven’t loaded. I mean, I don’t have a 115gr or 124gr XTP loading worked up. I am working up a blasting .308/7.62x51 load. But I also need to work up 165gr GD hunting load, and 150gr Hornady SP and SST loads. And 175 SMK, etc. plenty of others.

I’ve certainly slowed down in working up new loads the last 6 months compared to the 2 years before it as I started reloading. But I am hoping moving forward I can work up a new load a month at least in the warm months. That’ll probably keep me busy a couple of years before I have developed loads for all of the components I plan to match up. I am sure I’ll be working up new loads occasionally if I need to change out a component or trying to tweak something for best accuracy. For instance my 120gr gold dot 6.5 Grendel load has its best accuracy node at 28gr of CF223 and ~2200fps. Max load (~2430fps) wasn’t bad accuracy, but it was only about 1.2MOA vs .4MOA for the softer load. I plan to use it for hunting, so I’ll take the small accuracy hit since I’ll mostly be shooting at 30-100yds. Maybe there is a chance I might have a Hail Mary 300yd shot down some logging road or something, but I doubt it.

But I wouldn’t mind chasing improved accuracy around max load. Tweak COAL a little. Try tweaking powder charges by a tenth grain right around max load. Maybe try magnum primers rather than CCI standard rifle primers (yes I know to work back up when changing primers). Etc. I’d probably need to load 10 rounds at each change just to be really sure the changes were leading to the results I am observing. That’s probably 150-200 rounds to be SURE I am maximizing the potential. I am not sitting down to do that in an afternoon. And heck, I am not sure I have more than about 220 gold dots left. So I’d need to track down some more. But I also might find one small change leads to a very positive result and decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze to chase even better accuracy (I am hoping the primer swap will generate the positive results I am looking for).