Well, I have not reloaded in years, and I must say the the cost of components has really gone up. I got away from bullet shooting when I went on the trapshooting circuit shooting 25000 rounds of 12ga a year. 35.00 for a pound of powder is unimaginable. I used to buy 8 pounds of green dot for 80.00. Shot was 8.00/bag for good hard shot. Now I see it at 43.00. Since I do not shoot as much any more I will stick with factory ammo, but as I recall the cost was greatly reduced by purchasing in quantity.

I can remember that I used t buy 100K primers, 100K wads, 200 pounds of powder, and 3 tons of lead at a time. That would get me 12ga trap loads at about 1.80/ box. No idea what it costs to reload 12ga now, but certainly more expensive for sure.

I used to work at developing loads beyond the scope of manuals. The fellows at Hercules powders were more than willing to help out. Give them a recipe of what you wanted to try with specific components and they would load up 10, run them through the crusher( test gun), and send you back max velocity, avg velocity, and pressure and tell you if that was a safe combination. Doubt anybody will do that for you now

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son