With the affordable price of bulk .223, is anyone reloading it?

Thanks for thre replies it was just something for future reference, I was curious since the other day someone mentioned only getting 4 or 5 reloads out of .303 brass in his Enfield.
 
Well, I re-use the brass
The primers are $35 for 1000
A $27 can of powder will give 250+ rounds
$16.99 for 100 rounds of Varmageddon

0.035
0.108
0.170

That's 31.3c per round. Cheaper than any factory ammo and I'm not stuck with FMJ and I know the charges are highly consistent...
 
Thanks for thre replies it was just something for future reference, I was curious since the other day someone mentioned only getting 4 or 5 reloads out of .303 brass in his Enfield.
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Neck sizing Lapua brass fired in a precision chamber, isn't the same as using cheaper brass in an oversize chamber in a surplus rifle.
 
I haven't hit a ceiling on reloading my brass. I have over 500 rounds so shooting through those and then reloading 8-9 times or more seems pretty unrealistic. It will take a while.

I only have a bolt gun in 223 and I shoot it at long range so shooting isn't very quick.
 
woobie said:
Thanks for thre replies it was just something for future reference, I was curious since the other day someone mentioned only getting 4 or 5 reloads out of .303 brass in his Enfield.
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Enfields are known to be hard on brass for some reason.

A quick look at my logs show I got 9 reloads out of a batch of R-P in an AR before feeling the need to retire it, that same batch had seen several loadings for a bolt action before that. That means it could of been loaded again, but it was looking rough so I scrapped or archived it.

I know I've gotten over 20 out of a bolt action, but my logs don't go back that far. I got another batch, only shot in that same AR that is still going strong at 5 reloads, so we'll see. That particular gun is not that old, so I've yet to retire a batch of brass that is unique to it. I don't have batch logs for my older AR's that I shoot volume plinking loads out of.
 
If I shot only for fun at paper, or used a AR-15 I would probably be happy with only buying bulk FMJ.
I do 98% of my shooting at varmints however and I hate using FMJ's on gophers! So I reload with vmax or varmaggedon and get more explosive results! I will occasionally buy FMJ's for the brass, I use them for breaking up a slab of sandstone on a far away hill!
 
My approximate cost breakdown per thousand 55 grain FMJ is as follows:

Bullets: $140
Primers: $32
WC 735 powder: $58
Brass: $10 ($100/1,000 for once-fired and estimate 10 uses per case)
Subtotal: $240
With 5% GST: $252

In comparison, the Norinco .223 is available locally in Calgary for $499/1600 (Canada Ammo has a better price, but is out of stock), which works out to $311.88/1000, plus 5% GST, for a total of $327.47/1000. At this price, it would be cost-effective to buy the case of Norinco .223 off the bat and save the cases for reloading if one did not already have a good supply of .223 brass on hand. One could also recover some of the cost by selling the brass and continuing to buy the Norinco factory ammo, but, as I mentioned above, I would not count on long-term availability at this price.

As for the time factor, I do my reloading on a Dillon 550 and do not consider it excessively time-consuming.
 
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