Reloading still costs a lot..

spooksar said:
Can you point me in the direction of 505 Gibbs surplus ammo, I'd like to try some, how about 7 MM Remington Magnum, or any of the Weatherby cartridges.
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Try buying 100+ year old surplus that they haven't made in 50+ years and see what it costs you to reload. It becomes necessary or required to be able to fire some guns. Especially when some cartridges are more collectible unfired and worth a few $ each.
 
GunsNotPuns said:
At the moment I only reload .303 Brit and 6.5x50mm. On the former I save a bit on each round and on the later I save as much as 60% per round. More importantly I do it for availability -- commercial 6.5 Jap is rare and getting rarer.

I also do it to relax. That's worth more then the money spent.
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The relax part for me has always been an extremely important aspect as well. In addition to the satisfaction of rolling your own rounds, especially when they perform well. I actually used to buy oddball caliber rifles, at the time mostly military numbers, as an excuse TO handload.
 
kjohn said:
Whoa! You are making too much sense there!

I get a kick out of people who have given up hunting because "the bleeping licenses cost too much". The same guys think nothing of driving all over the country to go to a football game. But, as I said above, each to his/her own. :)
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Gun owners tend to be notorious cheap-a$$es. Other shining habits include unwillingness to pay for gunsmiths time, although people will eagerly pay for a plumber or car mechanic, and a desire to use and misuse shooting ranges for free. Maybe I'm getting old and snarly, but I run off the free loaders now. It costs me $100 year for club membership and range fees so why should I subsidize someone who won't pay, especially when they show up driving a nice shiny truck with takeout food from Tim Hortons. My stereotype cheap-a$$ is the non-member who shows up at the range with an SKS and a pail full of cheap Chicom ammo looking to blast away at dirt clods or anything else and then drives away leaving behind a pile of empties and various shot-up "targets" (I've even seen a child's doll used) and shot up burn barrels.

Reloading isn't cheap, but costs are relative to other things. You can get a pretty decent reloading setup or a swack of components for the price of a new computer or the latest e-toy.
If a person is a high volume or precision shooter reloading is the way to go.
 
jeanlikethis said:
Put all together: 0.22 + 0.035 + 0.4 + 0.1 = 0.76 / rd plus all the loading equipment and time....

Most surplus costs from 0.25/rd to 0.70/rd. shipped to your home. Commercial rounds shipped to your home by $1.5/rd
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I'll admit I didn't go through the five pages of responses, but... by your math you're telling me I can reload PREMIUM ammo (better than factory as I can tailor it to my specific rifle) for half the cost of factory ammo, and that surplus ammo is anywhere from 3x cheaper to about the same price for what will likely be less accurate, FMJ, and dirty.

What are you trying to tell us??? :confused:
 
Reloading is $$$ to start out will become cheaper... Because next batch you wont need to buy brass and primers. Since you already have that. So your next batch will be less then your first.
 
Powder at my Local Gun Stores is now in the 55.00/lb price range.

For my -06 cased rifles that around 46 cent per round, primers are around 8 cent each, and cup and core bullets are now around 55 cents each.

Thats like $1.09 per round so $21.80 for a 20 round box of ammo not including the cost of brass.

Wally world sells 30-06 winchester and federal ammo for like 23.00 per 20 round box.

If a guy was to sell once fired brass on the EE from the store bought new factory ammo it would make buy new factory ammo quite a bit less than reloading!

I'll still going to reload because its a fun hobby but a guy really isn't saving a lot by doing so.
 
Prairie Plinker said:
I'll admit I didn't go through the five pages of responses, but... by your math you're telling me I can reload PREMIUM ammo (better than factory as I can tailor it to my specific rifle) for half the cost of factory ammo, and that surplus ammo is anywhere from 3x cheaper to about the same price for what will likely be less accurate, FMJ, and dirty.

What are you trying to tell us??? :confused:
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I think the OP was saying that reloading is expensive and not something to do for cost savings alone. That is information I am glad to have pointed out for me!
 
Did he expect it be next to nothing? I mean nothing cheap but when your getting better ammo and basically bogo it works out to be better. You can make 2 quality rounds for the price of 1 store bought.
 
A serious accuracy devotee enjoys experimenting with various bullets, propellants, charge weights, seating depths, etc to get the best results and the only way to do this is by reloading. That's where the challenge and fun comes in. In other cases, like shooting an M1 Garand, MILSPEC .30-06 ammo is no longer generally available so reloading is the way to go for proper functionality as well as accuracy. It's very tough to find any military surplus ammo which will shoot better than 2 MOA, Internet groups aside, so good handloads will always do better. One important aspect is bullet selection. If you are going to pay for all of the components anyway, then pay a bit more for a premium/match grade bullet to get the best results.
 
hawk-i said:
Powder at my Local Gun Stores is now in the 55.00/lb price range .

For my -06 cased rifles that around 46 cent per round, primers are around 8 cent (that's $80 per 1000) each, and cup and core bullets are now around 55 cents each. Thats like $1.09 per round so $21.80 for a 20 round box of ammo not including the cost of brass.

Wally world sells 30-06 winchester and federal ammo for like 23.00 per 20 round box.

If a guy was to sell once fired brass on the EE from the store bought new factory ammo it would make buy new factory ammo quite a bit less than reloading!

I'll still going to reload because its a fun hobby but a guy really isn't saving a lot by doing so.
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It is High TIME to change your thief, I mean supplier!
 
diopter said:
More like the hikes are related to currency exchanges that are definitively not in our favor compared to the USD.
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Thats somewhat the reason but the further west you go the more powder costs...I somehow doubt it costs 15.00/lb to ship it west...unless they're shipping by taxi! :(
 
Fed-ex Website
0.5 kgs from Montreal to Vancover
3. Rates and Transit Times
Help


Amounts are shown in CAD
Select Delivery Date/Time Service Rates
In the shortest time possible. Call 1·800·Go·FedEx for availability and rate. FedEx Next Flight™
Delivery date unavailable FedEx First Overnight® 92.15
Mon Nov 23, 2015 by 12:00 PM FedEx Priority Overnight® 77.22
Mon Nov 23, 2015 by 5:00 PM FedEx Standard Overnight® 76.25
Tue Nov 24, 2015 by 5:00 PM FedEx 2Day® 73.43
Delivery date unavailable FedEx Economy® 65.56
 
diopter said:
Fed-ex Website
0.5 kgs from Montreal to Vancover
3. Rates and Transit Times
Help


Amounts are shown in CAD
Select Delivery Date/Time Service Rates
In the shortest time possible. Call 1·800·Go·FedEx for availability and rate. FedEx Next Flight™
Delivery date unavailable FedEx First Overnight® 92.15
Mon Nov 23, 2015 by 12:00 PM FedEx Priority Overnight® 77.22
Mon Nov 23, 2015 by 5:00 PM FedEx Standard Overnight® 76.25
Tue Nov 24, 2015 by 5:00 PM FedEx 2Day® 73.43
Delivery date unavailable FedEx Economy® 65.56
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These rates have absolutely nothing to do with wholesale supply of powder....dealers do not ship one pound fed/ex at a time.
 
jeanlikethis said:
A quick math:

1 pound of powder ($40) is 453 gm, if use 2.5gm for each load, this turned into: 180 rounds and $ 0.22/ rd
Primer: 1000 costs $35 and cost per round would be: $ 0.035/rd
Bullet: 100 costs $40, per round would be: $ 0.4/rd
Brass: assume $1 each and could be used for 10 times, so $ 0.1/rd

Put all together: 0.22 + 0.035 + 0.4 + 0.1 = 0.76 / rd plus all the loading equipment and time....

Most surplus costs from 0.25/rd to 0.70/rd. shipped to your home. Commercial rounds shipped to your home by $1.5/rd
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If you thought getting into the firearms scene was cheap and affordable, you were sadly mistaken. Nothing cheap in this world.
 
76 cents a round is cheap considering 308 ammo are now between 30 and 50 dollars for 20 rounds.
Or you could make pet loads with pistol powder/trail boss and cast bullet. That should cost you about 40 cents a round depending on the caliber.
 
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