Getting into reloading

whitetailwoodsarcher

whitetailwoodsarcher

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Me and my dad were having a conversation about how much I shoot and he said he dosnt know why I don’t reload. So got me thinking about it. It would be pretty nice to load up some ammo for myself. Now I don’t know anything about the equipment, powders and tools I need. I’m going to be reloading mostly 308 for my precision rifle. With match ammo being 2-3 bucks a shot what would I be able to reload for? Also what are all the things I need to get to be set up? Is it worth it to even get into it? I shoot anywhere from 400-800 rounds a month. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated!
 
Costs for components, expendables, have gone up like everything else. Sometimes it's not even cost, but lack of availability.

Hardware, presses and tools, often come in kits and packages. While conveniently giving you basic tools, it's simply a starting point. To think your going to use everything in one manufacturers line is ridiculous. It's a giant rabbit hole, chasing precision speed, and convenience.

I always thought of finished cartridges being half to two/thirds the cost of factory ammo. Your initial expenditures for tools and expendables will make it more expensive than factory ammo. Use of those tools over years, and thousands of rounds eventually spreads that cost to a rounding error of zero per round.

Find someone who you shoot with or is local to mentor you. Reloading itself is simple.
 
I load 6.5 CM for roughly $1.10 per round using match components, so 308 I could see being similar. Easy to price out your bullet, powder, and primer and about 10ish times to use average pc of brass as a quick check to what it would cost you before your time, and equipment. Then factor in the equipment you would need. Press, dies, scale, etc as fixed costs to recoup in the savings. You don't need all the tools to start getting good ammo, and you can slowly grow from the min requirements. Garvin, Ultimate reloader on the tube has great video's with press comparisons, and on the reloading processes as well. Great way to start.

You do need to shoot a bit before seeing any actual returns if you are just starting out, but it is doable depending on the amount you shoot. I tripled or quadrupled my shooting amount since reloading, but it is something I enjoy, and have time to tinker on the press. With already prepped brass, you will need about an hour to reload 50 rounds on a single press, beam scale, so factor that.

The 308 you can get brass with small rifle primer pockets, and that would be the way to go. Primers and availability is the biggest issue right now, with the small rifle primers easier to find and more plentiful still. Lapua makes the SR, "palma" brass, but I don't know of availability as I don't shoot 308. Starline, Alpha, Peterson should make SR brass as well.

Pistol primers are still fairly easy to get as well, 44 mag, 38 spec if you have those.

You can look at Hodgdon load data site to see comparable powders to the bullets weights, to get an idea of amounts of powders, and types you can use. 7000 grains roughly to a lb, so you can easily factor powder per round costs that way.

400 rounds per month is worth it to reload for and see savings eventually after the tools purchases. Bonus is you get to "tune" your ammo to your rifle and play with numerable variances to dial things in.

Rough price, I didn't look into specifics, and more of a layout.

Bullet: 167 gr lapua scenar: $649/1000; so $0.65 per.
powder: Varget. 44.5 grains. Book calls for 45 gr max. $75/ lb, so roughly 157 rounds or $0.48 each.
brass: lapua $139/ 100 pcs. $1.39 each pc by 10 reloads is $0.14 each reload.
primer: Fed 205 small rifle match; $190/ 1000: $0.19 each.

So quick math puts you $1.46 per round, plus your time, plus all the equipment to reload.

$1000-$1500 would get you a good budget to get set up with "good" equipment, so after roughly 700-1000 rounds you have saved to pay for the "start" up equipment. We know it never ends there, as there are rabbit holes to run down and things to always add to the "kits" to make it easier, more accurate, quicker at reloading.

Now depending on the factory bullet you shoot now, sometimes they do show the powder that they use, so that is a start as well, and you could always pull one and weight the amount of powder in there to get you a rough start, and fine tune from there.

So a quick short answer is you better get going on learning what to purchase and how to reload, as yea you would save in the short term!! Welcome to the rabbit hole!!


Me, I did a bunch of research ahead of time and purchased "better" equipment from the start, and not any of the available kits. Forster press, RCBS M1000 beam scale, whidden dies, just to name a few. Are they necessary for match ammo, no, but I know they are better than some of the rest. Can you load match ammo with others, RCBS, LEE, Redding, etc, yes. Just watch a few "Ultimate Reloader" vids and decide yourself what you want to spend on.
 
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At 400-800 rounds a month, you'll definitely save money after you recover from the initial costs of purchasing the required equipment. The only input I can provide on the subject, since I don't load for rifle, is to avoid kits/packages like the plague. After thorough research, I would target individual items for purchase. This will help you avoid buying items you'll later regret. I would also buy used. There's a lot of gently used equipment available out there.
 
What degree of precision do you require?

Some well known PRS shooters load on progressive Dillon 550, which is what I also use. It is not terribly expensive and makes it easy to crank a few hundred rounds in one sitting. Currently loading 6.5CM, .223, and 9mm. Excellent point above re: small primer brass. Small primers are much easier to find.
 
whitetailwoodsarcher said:
Me and my dad were having a conversation about how much I shoot and he said he dosnt know why I don’t reload. So got me thinking about it. It would be pretty nice to load up some ammo for myself. Now I don’t know anything about the equipment, powders and tools I need. I’m going to be reloading mostly 308 for my precision rifle. With match ammo being 2-3 bucks a shot what would I be able to reload for? Also what are all the things I need to get to be set up? Is it worth it to even get into it? I shoot anywhere from 400-800 rounds a month. Any advice or info would be greatly appreciated!
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You will be able to do the consumables math where-ever you are - you will need bullets, powder, primer and case to reload - need all to fit to each other - no point to get a bunch of small rifle primers and have large rifle primer cases - or vice versa. Always a "hunt" for what is best powder / best powder load in YOUR rifle - factories do not tell you exactly what they use - is probable they are using mixes of powder that are not available to the home hand loader. Typically, what works VERY WELL in another guy's outfit, might or might not make a difference in your outfit - your brand of cases, primers, bullets, powder and your barrel and the receiver's bedding and the condition of each of the receiver and barrel (and scope and rings), and so on... Bullets will vary how they perform in your barrel - some kinds are quite sensitive to seating depth within the case, or the "jump" that you set to your lands - is worth to read up how to know that - Woodleigh manual and Nosler Manual tell you how to do so (measure to your lands - set your bullet "jump") using wood dowels and your cleaning rod.

I have been helping a local younger CGN'r to learn to reload - he has been using my tooling as he purchases his own. I would think at the start, you might be very satisfied to make stuff that goes "bang" - some hundreds or thousands of rounds later, you can work towards 5 shot 100 yard groups in the "teens" - Do not expect to be there, when you start out.

As others have mentioned or will mention - about no end to reloading tooling - some of us started with the old time "whack a mole" Lee Loader kit - then got a press, then got a scale, then got a "better" scale, then got a powder measure, then went through several case length trim things, then various chamfering devices, and so on. There are at least 5 or 6 major makers, all with full time marketing people, trying to get you to buy their gizmo - and there will be some people who did so, and become terrific ad persons for that thing, even though there are much cheaper alternatives. Much is made today of the information available on Internet - which there is, if you can sort through the B.S. and Know-Nothing posters. Always best to have an experienced mentor, if possible. If not, I would suggest first purchase - maybe first two or three purchases - should be proper loading manuals from powder makers or bullet makers - not so much for their recipes, as for the HOW TO RELOAD portions of those books. As mentioned elsewhere, is not very likely that you will use the same brand tools for all purposes - you will likely prefer one brand version for a task, versus another brand's version - but all will "get it done".

Even the notion of "experienced mentor" can have nuances - I know a guy who has been using the same loading of IMR 4350 in his 30-06 for at least 35 years - no reason to this point for him to change. The same batch is used by his brothers and brothers -in-law - all seem perfectly content with their "cheap" shells that buddy loads up for them. On other hand, will be some who have worked up safe loads in dozens of different rifles and for different cartridges. Both will claim to be "experienced" re-loaders.
 
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For me reloading is mandatory. I think it’s fun to blast off 50 rounds of 45/70 or .375 H&h at a time and even though the reloading startup is expensive, I’ve shot thousands and thousands of centerfire rounds in my life and it would be 10% of that if I shot factory. I still have put out way more money than what 10% of shooting factory would have been, but I get to shoot what ever I want. I look for deals and gather for the future.
 
Right now primers are the hard thing to get, and you will shoot a brick and a bit every 2 months!! Used equipment is fairly easy to find and cheaper! I just did the math on 30-06 150gr ballistic tip and starting load for powders for a low recoil load for my niece and it came up to about $35/20 so about 1/2 price or factory ammo… so saving there is for sure but I do shoot more so in the end I end up shooting more so I end up spending more on shooting!
 
whitetailwoodsarcher said:
I shoot anywhere from 400-800 rounds a month.
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I couldn't imagine shooting blaster-grade ammo at that pace and not reloading, let alone match ammo.

Sierra Matchking bullets are going to cost you about 80¢ each, powder maybe 50¢. Normally everything else is much less, but currently large rifle primers are hard to find and about 40¢ if you do, so if you end up paying that you are looking at a saving of about a dollar a cartridge. You could pay for some good kit in a couple months even at that rate.

Currently, finding those primers will be your biggest barrier to entry. Note that prior to hysterical overreaction to COVID destroying the social, economic, and cultural fibre of civilization, primers of multiple types and brands were easy to find in every gun store for 4-6 cents each. Hopefully we return to something like that someday.
 
Buy a copy of the latest Lyman and Lee load manuals and read the first sections on the loading process, that should give you a bunch of good starting info. Plus you’ll want a couple manuals to reference load data, there’s a couple decent reloading kits out there regardless of what apt of people will say about them. I’ve bought 2 different press kits and with the exception of one beam scale and a chamfer/debur tool in one of them I use everything in the kits, there will be other individual items you will eventually use but you’ll get the majority of it in a good press kit.

I’ve always found this guy’s videos to be about as straight forward as it gets, very easy to understand the process. He illustrates the point that you don’t need a whole lot of gear to load accurate ammo. Makes a lot of sense in conjunction with the the amount of info in the load manuals that might seem overwhelming or dry. I always found seeing the process to be the best way to learn it, then the book makes complete sense.

 
Don't listen to these guys about going down a rabbit hole, it is a huge bottomless cave that you are entering. Like many others when I started reloading I bought a LEE kit, with dies for something like $69 or $89 USD. Then bought a Dillon 550, but found it would not throw the powder I wanted to use (IMR 4895-Varget) as accurately as I would like. Sold the Dillon and bought a Hornady powder thrower, slightly better accuracy on desired charge. Then bought a RCBS digital scale, much faster than the balance beam. Then came along a Redding Big Boss press, way better than the LEE, still have it and use it for some operation. Then the Accu-rite scale that will weigh to .02 gr. Then a RCBS Chargemaster to throw the powder and the Accu-rite scale to reweigh each charge. Then a Forester Co-ax press and another Chargemaster.
With other tools some things made the process faster, while others tools made things slower (power trickler added about 15 minutes to load 50 rounds)
Cleaning brass started with an RCBS vibratory tumbler then a Lyman, then a ultrasonic then Frankford steel pin tumbler.
Case trimming went from a manual Hornady to a Gracey power trimmer (works like an electric pencil sharpener)

So around and around it goes, once you start reloading to costs never end.
 
go out into the wilderness and purchase all of the primers, powder, and bullets you need, then buy your reloading equipment. primers are especially hard to source right now and some powders are impossible to find. if you can't find the components now there isn't much point in buying the equipment. if you do manage to find components, start watching websites like this one and ####### for good deals on used reloading equipment, some people are bailing out of the sport due to age or financial reasons.
 
Time is the biggest factor, time to learn, time to prep, time to load, time at the range to test, revisit to re test, again and again
Once the recipe is dialed it can be faster, until some component changes then hit re-start
There are services available to build you a custom load for your rifle, then its just a matter of following the recipe...... when you have time

early Lee kits were designed for building hunting-grade ammo at the cabin or on the tailgate, the reloading rabbit-hole is where the precision/performance leads to.
 
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