Just finished a box of loads I want to try. Got less than 2 dollars in everything.

Brass was free range pick ups. Powder bought cheap in bulk years ago. Cast bullets from free wheel weights. And primers for less than a penny a piece (I've had them a long time).

It would be more at today's prices, but not that much.

I have had to go back to shooting my revolvers more now that I can't get large pistol primers. The upside is I don't have to chase my brass, just dump it in my range bag.

Glad the price was good for you but when you say it would be more at today's prices but not much you're wrong for the vast majority of shooters.

Primers, if you can get them, are more like 4 cents, even light loads of powder are a few cents and lots of people don't have access to free wheel weights, tire stores recycle them.

So, for most people, the price is more like $5-6 a box minimum. Don

Still better than $30 a box

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Still Running Against the Wind

Yes indeed and that is why I reload for all but one of my guns and I'm waiting for dies for that one.

I was just making the point that the OP was using a best possible accumulation of good deals that isn't representative of what most of us deal with.

I've tried several places to see if I could get wheel weights and they won't sell them, they recycle them and virgin lead or alloy is costly enough to make it not worth my while to cast my own slugs. Don

A 3 dollar spread with today's prices still isn't much, IMHO.

Free lead is available from a variety of sources. What is available local to me is likely different than what is available to someone else, but it is there if one looks hard enough.

What people are paying today for components will look like a smokin bargain in 20 years. My components were acquired 20 years ago, and I paid market price for what I bought. Even cast bullets were dirt cheap then as compared to now. I expect the same price inflation (or worse) in the coming years.

I am currently loading .45 Colt from a store of new brass from Starline. I think I paid $82 per thousand for 2K pieces. The bullets I am using cost me about $35 per K at gun shows. The primers are marked $12.50 per K, and the 1 lb can of Unique has a $13.45 tag on it. That figures to about $13.00 per hundred, just allowing for one use of the brass, and using bought cast bullets. I started buying up this stuff during the "first Clinton primer scare" in 1993 and 1994. Primers had jumped from about $8.00 in a just a few months, and I thought I was really getting ripped off.

I would advise people to really stock up when and if prices stabilize or go down a little. I doubt seriously if prices will ever be much lower than they are now. I would guess that primers won't go below $18-$20 again. It might seem like you are getting ripped off, but you will never likely get components much cheaper.

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Georgia On My Mind

One thing I always do is take my ammo to the range in my plastic slip top boxes (the kind midway and other suppliers sell).

It identifies me as a reloader, and about twice a year folks offer me their brass when they are done shooting.

Out in the real world, not everyone reloads.

Everyone that is someone does though!

Don't believe me? Think I am being high-minded? Over inflated ego?

Do a little test. Go to the range like m1 does. Take your little plastic boxes, just like the ones I use too, start a conversation with someone that has factory ammo. Let it slip that you have between $2 and $5 in cost for each box of reloads you have and complain about it, just a little.

YOU WILL GET AN EAR-FULL! In fact, you may get a solicitation to expand your reloading a bit, for them!

At that point, you have just become somebody!

(Tongue in cheek, friends!)

All joking aside, if you want free, or nearly free lead, you can find it. You may have to drive a ways, which may be counter productive, but it is available. I would think a move would be in order if you can't find free lead in your local!

If I buy lead @ $1/lb, my cost per 50 is still only $2.23. $1/lb is high too. Look on ebay.

7000gr per pound, 160gr per bullet means I can get almost 44 bullets per pound. @ $1/lb the 160gr bullet is 2 cents each or $20 per 1000. If I load 230gr bullets they go to 3 cents each or $30 per 1000. That would mean that my 45ACP target rounds cost about $2.83/50.

Bullseye @ $15/lb @ 4.5gr
Wolf LPP @ $17/1000
$30/1000 for bullets.
Brass, free, about 1000 loadings and still going strong!

Go here to figure it out:
http://www.handloads.com/calc/loadingCosts.asp

I'm loading some 38 Specials using Wolf primers I bought back in the Good Old Days for $18 a thousand. The Good Old Days of October, 2008 that is

I cannot believe how much has changed in half a year.

And what is really scary if you think about. Today is the good ol days of tomorrow.. A year from now we may be saying, "gee remember when we could reload our own ammo and actually have guns to shoot? Sorry to be a drag but if things are this bad now and this expensive who is going to be able to shoot? Just got a Natchez e mail flier. $20 for WWB 9 mm 50 rds, $25 .380 WWB. The .380 is gone of course. Crazy!!

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Still Running Against the Wind

If I use a jacketed bullet I can load a box of 50 .357 Magnum rounds for under $8 at current prices. Lead .38 Special rounds will cost my $4.06/50. Add $1 to a box of lead .357 Magnum because of the additional powder used.

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Freedom is never free!!
SWCA #3437

Using commercial bullets, recycled brass, primers bought in bulk last summer and powder bought last December, my cost runs $5 to $7 depending on caliber and choice of bullets. Still much cheaper than todays prices.

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Big bang, much smash'em.

This last weekend I was looking through some of my old American Rifleman mags. and in April 1961 B.E. Hodgdon had a 50 pound keg of 4831 F.O.B. from Kansas for 20.95 I know it was surplus powder but what a buy. When you look at the old magazines its like going to The Big Rock Candy Mountain. In april 61 I was making 1.15 an hour I only shot .22's and not to many.

+1

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SWCA#2208
KK4EMO