Here is a page from a book titled, The Art of Simple Living. It is written by a Buddhist monk. He talks about making a cup of coffee, over a fire, from scratch. To me it applies very much to reloading. It is why I reload. I reloaded long before I ever read that page, but that made it all clear for me. Sorry it came out sideways.

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Like many said, there are a lot of factors.

First off is sheer enjoyment. I enjoy loading and bullet casting too. Sometimes I think I shoot so I can cast and reload, not the other way around.

Like many, I've been reloading for decades. My equipment is amortized many times over. Yours will be too eventually, and you'll just pull farther ahead as the years go by.

Some things it doesn't always pay to reload. I can buy cheap 12 and 20 gauge shotshells by the flat, so I do. I use them for sporting clays with an auto, where I'll lose my hulls anyway. But my skeet loads are powderpuffs. You can't buy them, and if you could they wouldn't be cheap. Ditto 16 gauge skeet loads (non-existent) or ANY 28 or .410 shells. I save a ton loading those.

Finally, most seasoned reloaders get into a sort of routine. By carefully buying in bulk, it's almost as if my ammo is free. It's not really, but it seems like it is. I spend a few hundred bucks two or three times a year to replenish my stocks of components, and I have a virtually UNLIMITED ammo supply. My gun room shelves look like a gun store. I ALWAYS have ammo.

That's just my take. It's not just simple dollars and cents for me, it's a lifestyle.

Paper targets aren't to bad

Unless you buy the kind you can see

I'm already seeing this effect. I used to be happy if I had a couple boxes of ammo stockpiled. Now I have thousands of rounds and building.

Since the range I go to is outdoors I don't shoot as much in the winter. I intend to be very well stocked by the time the weather gets better.

Simply put I reload because I can't buy what I like to shoot.

Stu

Same here. Not counting rimfire I'm up to around 10k of factory ammo (most bought at rock bottom prices) but my reloading stocks are sufficient to load another 40k rounds - and I'm still buying.

I pray that there will come a day in just a few years when I fully retire. At that point I'll have more time and less income, and when that day comes I intend to be ale to load and shoot as often as I like for the rest of my life. To that end I intend to keep adding to my inventory, a little here and a little there, right up until I retire.

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Send lawyers, guns & money...

For me, reloading to save money is only a very small part of why I do it. I have only been reloading for 25 years so I definitely still have a lot to learn.

Last year I shot over 40k rounds of 9mm alone so there was definitely some economy of scale BUT all of these rounds were developed for my competition guns to function flawlessly, make power factor, shoot accurately, and keep me supplied with as much ammo as I needed.

I can't buy this ammo anywhere. WWB doesn't work 100%, won't reliably run striker fired guns 100%, is not even a little bit accurate, and doesn't make power factor. Anything hot enough to run the gun yet shoot soft, will shoot inside of 2" at 40 yards, and make power factor is insanely expensive at that level of consumption. So I get the satisfaction of having developed my own load that fits all of my criteria and shooting it A LOT.

5.56mm is the same story. My loads work flawlessly in MY rifles and shoot extremely accurately. Cheap .223 is everywhere but I can't buy exactly what I want so I get to make it on my reloading press.

Then we get into precision rifles ...

So it is not and should not be about the money. In the big picture, money is a factor and economics can be proven. But when the satisfaction meter gets pegged at 11, there is no amount of money that can compare to that.

Just my $0.02

When I got into reloading it was mostly about the money. We had a business shooting pigeons.. I was the reloading tool. When Win came out with the AA shell the world was different place...before it was paper shells. over the course of 10 years I loaded approx 1500 shells a week just for that business mostly trap type loads. So it was to save money...then I found out I could load better duck loads and rifle loads some handgun too. What someone said already was you could roll your own cheaper and make more accurate rifle rounds with better bullets. World sure is different today but still worth loading your own for better cheaper ammo. After way more than a million rounds...do I enjoy reloading? Well no not really but I do enjoy the shooting for less money too!

I use a brass catcher on my AR-15s, and for other semi-autos I use this From Caldwell. It's not perfect but it catches most of it, provided its placed fairly close to the firearm, and it mounts easily on a tripod. It has a 1/4-20 threaded hole on one end to allow it to overhang the table and a 1/4-20 hole in the middle if your tripod is too small to balance it if it's offset on the end hole when raised to a standing height.

I don't use it much at the club range, but I do use it at my personal range as it's pretty heavily vegetated and brass is hard to find.

Don't know about the brass catcher but wouldn't mind having a Mini 14 or Mini 30. Every one I've ever had just seemed to slip away

Jevons paradox.

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I've still got it made.

That's interesting. I had looked into the rail mounted brass catcher for my AR15 but the reviews were less than stellar with some saying the hot brass melted holes in it rather quickly.

I didn't know they made that bigger cage that could be used with pistols but it seems like it would be a little cumbersome to position properly each time we changed which pistol we are shooting.

So I'll probably stick to spreading my cheap tarp and be content with missing a few cases now and then. A slightly bigger tarp might work better.