How can you reload for 3 or 4 cents a round?

[Skeet 028]

^This Exactly

30-30, 35 rem, 357 sig and a whole host of other calibers that have been almost extinct during this current panic, if I need any, just setup the press, check the pet loads spreadsheet and crank away.

Rosewood

The above is for real.I have a Rem pump in 35 Rem. Don't need ammo cause I'm able to make plenty. I recently put a box of 35 Rem in an auction. Sold for 65 dollars...What?? Two years or so ago it was selling for under 20 bucks. Things are ridiculous.A friend just bought a Rem M-14 in the caliber and needed ammo I sent him dies bullets and brass...he loves shooting it. Reload and you can always find a way to shoot.Some things ARE hard to find brass for these days.Thank goodness we have Starline.

 

[rosewood]

Other thing to consider. When you reload, the primers, powder and bullets typically work across multiple cartridges. So you don't need lots of a given cartridge, you can load up with what you need as long as you have the brass for it.

Rosewood

 

[glenwolde]

I'd reload even if it didn't save me money. But I just went to a reloading calculator and used $130/1,000 for primers, $50/lb for powder, $125/1,000 for (cast) bullets and it comes to under $15 for 50 with a 6.0 gr charge weight. Brass cost I count as $0.

That's still going to save you money in most cases, and especially if you have a big-bore revolver. I like to shoot mid-range .41 Magnum. That's prohibitively expensive without reloading. The bulk of my shooting is .38 Special. That factory ammo is not as cheap as it used to be. The .38 Special used to be like the 9mm is now. Not anymore.

One thing I rarely see mentioned is consistency of range fodder. I have quite literally been shooting the same .38 load for 40+ years. I don't have to worry about variable quality of factory ammo, different bullet weights, performance variations, availability, blah blah blah. To me, that's really been the biggest advantage. Of course when I was young I didn't realize it was going to work out that way.

 

[GypsmJim]

But how much did your gear cost?

When I first started, my TOTAL cost was $9.95. I already had a hammer. Twenty years later I upgraded to a press and other ancillary equipment, but the initial ten bucks was really all that was needed.

Five years later I invested another ten bucks for a mold, plus 2 bucks for a Salvation Army iron pot. I already had the propane bottle and "torch".

The funny part was back then I had little time and it took longer to cast and make the ammo. Now that I have all the time in the world, my multiple presses make things go real fast.

The bottom line, though, is that 22 bucks allowed me to turn out $0.04 rounds. Can I still do that today? Sure! We all saw it coming. 3 cent primers and 19 dollar powder was readily available if you foresaw the future.

 

[GypsmJim]

Most of my components were purchased 4-5 years ago before the current nonsense started.
I've picked up bucketfuls of range brass - free for the taking.
I've got a ton of bullets that I bought 4-5 cents each
I've got pounds and pounds of powder bought for $15-$16 a pound
I've got thousands of primers I got for $20-$25 per thousand
On that basis I can load pretty much any pistol cartridge for less than 10 cents a round.
But 3-4 cents each isn't possible for me.

Your bottleneck is the bullet cost. Back when you bought those cheap primers and powder, lead was also real cheap, and sometimes even free.

When the lead "problem" was becoming evident, I acquired over 700 pounds of lead for about 100 bucks. Figuring a 158 gr. .357 SWC, that amounts to over 31,000 boolits. At three tens of a penny per round I don't even add that into my cost calculation.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I keep going back to the start of this forever shortage. The panic buyers spent anything they had to to buy ammo and components. They showed the manufacturers how much they were willing to pay so now they have no reason to bring prices down. The panic buyers caused all or us to suffer exorbitant prices with no end in sight.

While I have A LOT of components bought before the crunch unfortunately I don't have enough to last the rest of my life like some other do. I'm only 66 and hopefully will be shooting for at least another 20 years so at some point I will have no choice but to purchase components. I shudder at the thought. (I never paid more than $25/k for primers or $22/lb for powder)

It is what it is but we don't have to like it, do we?

 

[LostintheOzone]

I knew somebody would say they were loading .223 for less than 10 cents a round at todays prices for components.......and just like that, it happened.

 

[LostintheOzone]

When I first began loading seventeen years ago, I kept up with everything down to the penny just to get an idea of the possibilities of any financial advantage to this new hobby.

The amount of savings from my first batch of 2,000 rounds of 180 gr. FMJ .40 cal, compared to buying it off the shelf, paid for my first Dillon 550. I stopped counting rounds on that press years and years ago when I hit 50,000 rounds. All that gear has paid for itself many times over.

For me, though, it's not about saving money which I believe absolutely occurs when casting is included. I had a group of guys who would come to my range and shoot with me every Saturday. This was in '07. As the ammo shortage of '08 began to develop, I watched my group of shooting friends disappear one by one, because they couldn't find ammo and wanted to hold onto what they had on hand. The only exception was one guy who also reloaded. We kept meeting up and kept having fun.

For me, it's about the availability of ammo and not being at the mercy of elections, worldwide supply chain problems, pandemics, inflated ammo prices, etc.

I agree with all of that. That's the reason I load. I'm not under any illusions however about the cost as many here seem to be. All of those things you mention also drive up the cost of components. Unless one buys in bulk and takes advantage of lower prices in times that I haven't seen in 3-4 years, we're all at the mercy of manufacturers and retailers for the price the day you buy it.

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

So, I'm guessing that all of you casters are getting free fuel to melt the lead for the bullets that you're casting? Seems to me that either electricity or propane/natural gas all cost money the last time I checked anyway. Unless you're cooking that lead using chopped wood, there is a cost. There is also a cost to clean your brass, no matter how little you clean it. That's not counting any extra lighting that you use to get the job done or fuel to pick up components.
I'm just pointing out that there are hidden costs that are not being properly presented and find it impossible, with those added costs included, to load a round of any kind for 4¢ per.

Who cares about the cost of a little gas or electricity. For the last 2 years. My little bullet factory has produced all the shotgun shells I need. All the centerfire handgun and rifle ammo I need.......When the store shelves were empty. Mine were full. Still are......So why quible over a few cents?

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

The Ant goes out shooting............The Grasshopper has no ammo.

 

[GypsmJim]

I knew somebody would say they were loading .223 for less than 10 cents a round at todays prices for components.......and just like that, it happened.

Primers today are about 10 cents alone, so it ain't gonna happen. I didn't read every thread in great detail, but I don't recall anyone using the phrase "at today's prices".

I DID say that I'm reloading .223 for 5 cents a round, and that's true. But my components date back to March 2020. That's when it was obvious to anyone skilled in the hobby that if we didn't stock up today we were going to wait a long time.

As to the "energy" to cast boolits, I use an electric melter and I usually cast between Hunting season and Christmas. I pick a day I have nothing else pressing and I do a marathon job. Usually several thousand at a time. I don't see a big jump in my electric bill, so I guess it's negligible.

As I previously posted, my boolit lead cost is about $0.003 / round, so I don't even add boolits into my overall cost estimate.

 

[BC38]

So, I'm guessing that all of you casters are getting free fuel to melt the lead for the bullets that you're casting? Seems to me that either electricity or propane/natural gas all cost money the last time I checked anyway. Unless you're cooking that lead using chopped wood, there is a cost. There is also a cost to clean your brass, no matter how little you clean it. That's not counting any extra lighting that you use to get the job done or fuel to pick up components.
I'm just pointing out that there are hidden costs that are not being properly presented and find it impossible, with those added costs included, to load a round of any kind for 4¢ per.

You're talking about about 1/10th's of a penny per round.
Those costs are too insignificant to even be worth trying to quantify.
Do you want to try to measure the "cost" of my time to pick up range brass too - in your efforts to argue that reloading isn't "worth it"?
Seems like a sour grapes argument to me...

 

[scott1970]

Who in the world would factor in the cost of electricity from having lights on while reloading? Why not include the cost of the food eaten which provided the physical stamina to work the press? Or the cost of the clothes worn while casting to keep from getting burned. Silliness. Amusing to read, but absurd silliness.

 

[BC38]

Who in the world would factor in the cost of electricity from having lights on while reloading? Why not include the cost of the food eaten which provided the physical stamina to work the press? Or the cost of the clothes worn while casting to keep from getting burned. Silliness. Amusing to read, but absurd silliness.

Exactly. At some point it becomes a case of "picking the fly feces out of the pepper" - e.g. becoming so focused on the minutia that you ignore or miss seeing the big picture....

 

[GypsmJim]

Exactly. At some point it becomes a case of "picking the fly feces out of the pepper" - e.g. becoming so focused on the minutia that you ignore or miss seeing the big picture....

I had a relative that worked in the laboratory in a flour mill. One of his daily tests was to determine parts per million rat feces in the bagged flour.

Thing about that next time you eat a slice of bread.

 

[buz0044]

Primers

Thanks to my father who hoarded everything from powder, primers and brass to lead I've been in pretty good shape however checking my inventory it looks like primers will run out first. I got to looking at prices and thinking about things and my observation may stand to be corrected. When I look at the prices on my old boxes it appears that for a very long time 1K of primers cost about the same as a 500 round brick of decent 22 LR ammo. That no longer seems to be the proportion. Does that mean that primer prices have room to fall once the current demand subsides? Rimfire prices have been coming down, is that a market indicator?
I need a crystal ball. For now I'll keep casting and loading for everything I own.

 

[Drm50]

When I last bought primers they were $12 to $15 depending where you bought them. Haven’t bought but a couple boxes of .375 bullets in last 10yrs. Got hordes of bullets bought when stores were going under and at auctions. I shoot mostly cast anyway, except in HV rifles. Cast them DIY.
I have bought powder. I don’t deal with Cabelas and was getting their gift cards and never using them. Decided to use them before something happened and bought all powder with them.

 

[GypsmJim]

Now that I think about it, I paid $149 for my .45 Colt "200th Year" Blackhawk, and $295 for my mint 1954 Pre-27, so I guess 10 cent primers ain't so bad after all.

I'll just spend more of my kid's inheritance.

 

[ddixie884]

load for .04 per rnd

It seems that whenever the subject of reloading costs comes up someone will claim that because they cast their own bullets they can reload for about 3 or 4 cents per round (usually in reference to pistol ammo). That's really great but, how? Even if I was given my bullets for free and I was only doing 9mm I can't come close to that. If you got your lead for free and were given your molds, sizing press and dies, lube etc. Powder and primers (even at the prices of a couple years ago) are going to cost more than a nickel per round. Not saying it can't be done, I would just like to know how. Obviously, after a period of time your equipment will have paid for itself but what about the rest?

Go back to the mid 70s get free WWs at the tire store cast and lube your own bullets, brass from the range or friends and primers for 10 bucks a K and Unique powder for 10 bucks a lb. That is how I did it.........

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

Go back to the mid 70s get free WWs at the tire store cast and lube your own bullets, brass from the range or friends and primers for 10 bucks a K and Unique powder for 10 bucks a lb. That is how I did it.........

My tire store still gives me free WW's.