True cost of reloading

[jpdavis423]

First reloaded round: $750 - $1,000 - progressive press, dies, components scales, etc.

Second reloaded round: $0.10 (with brass scrounged from range)

Jeff

 

[Dave R]

If you buy used reloading gear (garage sale, buddy or mom & pop shop that sells used gear) your capital outlay does not have to be much.

And I'm here to tell you, the savings really add up.

I shoot the same amount I ever did, for about half the cost.
I was $100 into reloading gear when I turned out my first round (I bought used, and had a powder scale given to me)

But, I do have to agree that the enjoyment vastly outweighs the cost savings. Reloading makes ALL shooting more enjoyable. And it makes ALL my guns more accurate. That's pretty darn valuable.

 

[Crosshair]

I could probably work an extra hour of overtime at my job and use that money to buy more ammo than I could reload in an hour.

Except you don't have to pay the 15% Social Security tax on that labor. Then there is income tax. Nor the other costs paid by your employer.

Reusing your brass results in significant cost savings. It is also environmentally friendly.

Not to mention I can reload ammunition in my pajamas listening to music. If I want a break I just walk 30' to the recliner and watch some TV.

I often get my press setup on the weekend and go down for half an hour every day during the week and just load ammo until I get tired of it and go do something else.

 

[PCJim]

Reloading is an enjoyable hobby just like others have said. Every hobby has it's costs, radio controlled boats / planes, street cars, fishing boats, etc, etc. I very much enjoy knowing that "I" made what I shoot.

Like others, consulting work could easily pay for factory rounds instead of investing my time and labor into the effort. But, I'm also the kind of person who will paint my own house rather than hire a painter, buy the miter saw and install wood trim rather than hire a carpenter, change my car's oil and brake pads rather than go to a mechanic. It's simply the satisfaction that I did it myself. You can't place a price on that.

 

[darkgael]

$

Amortize. Amortize. Amortize.
Once you have been reloading for a while, equipment doesn't figure in. Brass accumulates...and lasts. Powder and bullets and primers in bulk keep the bottom line small.
And the ammo.....custom made.
Pete

 

[Crosshair]

Powder and bullets and primers in bulk keep the bottom line small.

The UPS guy hates delivering to my house.

 

[markshere2]

Another couple of points.....

By independently producing my ammo, I am resistant to Government meddling in the shooting sports ( taxation / prohibition / serializing of ammo, etc).

My boys ( Men now) can load and shoot for almost nothing.

The equipment doesn't wear out, so it's a lifetime investment.

When they bring chicas home, we go out back and pop off a few rounds, and new shooters get made!!

I usually have a primer tool and a box O brass near the kitchen table, so the girls get to learn how to seat primers, then we go to the reloading bench and make a few rounds. then we go shoot them - That's a BIG hit!

Boolit casting is another way of establishing independence. What's more fun than converting a bucket O dirty wheel weights into boolits? Only sex shooting, and eating I tell ya!

 

[TMUSCLE1]

I can't wait to reload. That being said, I forget my exact total, but with the ammount I plan to reload in my first year, with the savings in ammo it will pay off the basic equipment.

 

[medalguy]

I'm with Crosshair. I shoot 'till I run out, then load 'till I'm tired, go do something else for a while, then go load some more. To me it's enjoyable, much more than mowing the yard or something else I don't enjoy.

Besides, looking at your equipment as an investment is very true. A friend of mine recently bought a few thousand rounds of military .30-06 with crimpoed primers to reload. I offered to remove the crimp in my Dillon swager, but he wanted to do it himself. He purchased a Dillon swager for about $90, swaged all his brass, then sold the swager on eBay for $86. Net cost to swage 2200 rounds: $4. Not bad. A good investment.

 

[snuffy]

Cost savings are likely not real because of the time involved. If you, like me, consider your time worth money - reloading will probably never pay off financially.

To make that argument, you'd have to have somebody standing by you every waking hour, handing you money. But he'd stop handing you $ if you were reloading!

Then, otherwise you can't do anything that DON'T cost money! Try hard to find that thing. Ah, sit and watch TV? Nope, unless you still have a roof top antenna, you've got cable or satellite, that cost has to be entered. Watch a dvd? Nope, rent or buying one costs. Read a book?. Nope, where did the book come from?

Reloading is definitely a cost saver, and has cost. Some reload out of necessity, others consider it a hobby, like I do. Any hobby has costs, ya gist has ta step up to da plate and pays yer bucks!

 

[chris in va]

I just started reloading myself, having completed 500 rounds of 9mm last week. Not posessing a fat wallet I went with the Lee Hand Press and got most of my other equipment on clearance or Ebay (scale, calipers, dies etc).

So far so good, reloading gear has run me less than $200, if that. Now to just concentrate on components...

PS I'm already having withdrawals and find reloading very theraputic. Just sit in front of the TV and watch a movie while I decap and prime.

 

[BigJimP]

Our leisure time is valuable - but trying to come up with a cost per hour as labor makes no sense to me. Even if I make $ 100 an hour in my profession / when I go to the range and shoot for 3 hours - do I add $ 300 to the cost of my range fees, etc .....as the actual cost of my shooting hobby, heck no. Adding $ 100 an hour to our time at home reloading makes just as much sense...

We all have demands on our time .... but you fit your loading time into those days or hours - just like you do cleaning your guns, taking care of your shooting or hunting equipment.

The cost of your equipment and components is the best comparison we can make.

 

[Dragon55]

As has been alluded to maybe a fair comparison might be if.....

You contracted for 300 rds with 10 different recipes/combinations ............ or......... you simply made them yourself.

You can find that 'near perfect' combination for a particular gun much cheaper yourself than trying to buy iterations of factory ammo or paying a reloader to do it.

 

[Russ5924]

I keep track one year on how much it cost for me to fish and the cost per pound. I think it came out to about $300 a pound after figuring the new boat in. I have never tried to figure out something I enjoy since. Just can't put a price on enjoying yourself

 

[bignz]

+1 on what Russ said.

To clarify my point. I think cost savings are the easiest to dispute reason commonly used to justify reloading. The two reasons I see for this are 1) the "time is money" argument that many of you didn't like. Maybe I shouldn't have said time is money, but time does have value to me. Time with friends, family, being entertained in non-reloading ways. These are real costs that I consider when I get home at 5pm and am not seen again that evening (which happens rarely but has been known to happen). And 2) reloading very likely makes us shoot more than we would otherwise. If you have the components to make 5k you will likely use them faster than if you were trying to shoot 5k rounds one box of factory ammo at a time. Why? because it's cheaper to shoot 5k reloads...BUT when you make your cost saving argument you are assuming you would have shot 5000 of the more expensive factory rounds. I bet we would shoot what our budget allows which would be less than 5k factory but cost just about as much as our reloads. So I wouldn't say it saves me money, it allows me to shoot more for the price I can afford.

AGAIN THIS IS A HOBBY I LOVE AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO. I"M NOT DISPUTING THE CRAFT, just making an argument about justifications I am comfortable using - and cost savings is not one I like to make.

 

[PBjafa]

Reloading doesn't really save you money, it just makes you shoot more.

Hahaha
Yes, that's what I found too.

 

[rjrivero]

My time isn't worth anything. So, reloading saves me money. Honestly, I get to prep brass at work, just swaged some 500 military crimped .223 tonight alone, so I'm getting paid to reload.

 

[sc928porsche]

There are several reasons to reload. Everyone says cost, and that can be a legitimate factor, however items like 30-30 and 223 require a lot of reloading to offset the initial set up. Where it really pays off is if you are reloading Weatherby or other expensive cartridges.
Another reason to reload is performance. You can exceed factory ammunition accuracy and balistics easily.
Finally, its almost as much fun as it is shooting the reloads. If you consider how much time it takes and convert it to entertainment then you save just that much more. Example: Reloading 3 hours, cost $0. 3 hours at the local watering hole $30 or more.

Oh yes, and once you have your setup, you can easily change to reload another cartridge by just purchacing the dies. Presses etc will not have to be repurchaced.
I could go on in more detail, but I dont think that it is necessary.

 

[SKULLANDCROSSBONES65]

G'day. Nobody has mentioned the real estate value yet. Or the cost of heating/cooling the room. What about the power for lighting?

Cost was what was stopping me for many years. The set up cost would have got me the same amount of ammo that I had used in the previous 12 years.

 

[freonr22]

if any one wants this excel spread sheet (borrowed from thr maybe? i dunno) emai/pm me ill be happy to email it to you.

kinda neat

paul@pcmechsupply.com

www.pcmechanicalsupply.com

im not sure how to display it, but the link works