wv109323
01-09-2012, 08:46 PM
Long 5 1/2 pages
Should I Reload??
As ammo costs have skyrocketed over the last 5 years this question comes up from time to time. This article will try to apply some modern day pricing and evaluate this question. There is no doubt that you can reduce your shooting costs by reloading. But when does it make economical sense to invest into reloading equipment and start loading your own ammo. This article will use pricing that is available to everyone from sources available to the common person. I will round off prices and will for the most part ignore shipping. For the most part shipping will be the same if you order bullets or if you order loaded ammo. I will not include sales tax nor will I use “on-sale” or discontinued or dealer pricing in my evaluation.
Another thing that I will not enter into my evaluation is the time required to reload. I will give you approximate times to reload given amounts of ammo and you will need to decide if “it is worth your time” to reload. To reload a hundred rounds of pistol ammo with a single stage press should be completed in two hours. To complete a hundred rounds of pistol ammo on a progressive press would be 15-20 minutes. Let me add rifle in here also. To load one hundred Rifle rounds with a single stage press could be up to four hours. Rifle is a little more complex. Two things that I do with rifle ammo is I weight each powder charge and rifle brass will “stretch” and occasionally will need to be trimmed. It would not be uncommon to spend as much as six hours on one hundred rounds of rifle ammo if the brass required trimming.
First, Let me add a note on myself so that you will get some perspective on my knowledge and experience of shooting and reloading. I have shot NRA Bullseye Conventional Pistol for some 30 years and have shot a lot of NRA Hunters Pistol Silhouette and NRA Rifle Silhouette. I obtained a Master Class in Conventional Pistol and “AAA” classification in Silhouette. I have twice earned the “President’s Hundred” at Camp Perry in about eight trips to the National Championships. I did not say that to boast but to say I can reload and you can reload ammunition that is competitive at the national level. I will also say that I used reloaded ammo except where factory loaded ammo is required by the rules.
Let’s first look at the most popular reloaded cartridge or the cartridge that sales the most reloading dies, The .38 Special/.357 Magnum. I am going to quote at least two levels of equipment to get to reload your own. I will quote a” economical” grade equipment and a “top of the line” equipment. I will not get into debate of Brand A versus Brand B but rather I will try to give the “low dollar” versus “high dollar” to give you an idea of the range of available equipment. Here is the break down to get started for your first pistol caliber with a single stage press:
You will need a single stage press, Reloading manual, a set of powder scales, powder funnel, reloading tray, deburring tool, powder measure, dies, and a shell holder. It is also very nice to have a system to prime your cases without handling each primer by hand.
The Lee Combination kit includes the above for $91.00 (kit) +32.99 (Carbide Dies and shell holder) + 21.00 reloading manual + 25.00 shipping or about $180.00.
The RCBS kit does not include the items to handle primers but does include a reloading manual. Their kit with the “Rockchucker” press 270.00 + 40.00 Carbide Dies + 6.00 Shell Holder. To add an automatic Priming tool is another 69.00.Shipping is also 25.00.This totals up to 410.00
Components needed to load for this caliber are:
Brass at 19.00 per hundred
Primers at 32.00 per thousand
Powder at 28.00 per pound
Bullets: Jacketed 125 gn. At 15.00 per hundred
Cast Boolits at 68.00 per thousand
Let me add a note here on the component prices. To mail order primers and powder a Hazardous Material charge must be included. With this charge it is more economical for the initial reloader to purchase his primers and powder locally. The primer and powder prices are adjusted to be bought locally.
To get to a total for 357 Magnum for one hundred rounds would be:
19.00 brass + 3.20 Primers +2.00 Powder +15.00 per hundred jacketed bullets or $39.20 for 2 boxes of fifty or one hundred rounds. By buying new brass and assembling the components you are neck and neck with new ammo prices. New ammo with jacketed bullets was 19.00 -20.00 per box of fifty. With this scenario loading and buying new ammo is even with no return on your investment of your reloading equipment. You would be saving shipping costs on the new ammo and that is about it.
Next with going to a lead cast bullet and keeping with new brass the cost drop to: 19.00 Brass + 3.20 Primers + 2.00 Powder + 6.80 Bullets. The new total is 31.00 per hundred. You would be saving about $8.00 per hundred or $4.00 per box. ( A rule of thumb in business is to recoup your investment within three years.) To get a return on your investment with the Lee Equipment you would need to reload 45 boxes or 2250 rounds of ammunition. To recover your investment over three years you would need to reload 15 boxes of .357 Magnum per year or 750 rounds per year.
With the RCBS equipment to recover the initial $410.00 with $4.00 per 50 rounds the numbers go to 103 boxes of 50 per year. This is 5150 rounds per year for three years. This is probably beyond most shooters appetite unless shooting and practicing in some form of competition.
The above numbers reflect that you are going to buy new brass for all ammo loaded. Let’s look at the numbers without new brass costs. You have bought new ammo and saved the brass in anticipation of reloading one day or family members have saved their fired brass for you. To reload for the .357 Magnum with a premium jacketed bullet the cost per hundred is now: 3.20 Primers + 2.00 Powder + 15.00 Jacketed bullets. The total for jacketed ammo per hundred is now $20.20 per hundred. The lead cast bullet ammo cost drop to $12.00 per hundred or $6.00 per box. The return on your investment is much improved over the same three year period.
For the premium Jacketed bullets you would need to reload around 750 rounds per year or 15 boxes of ammo per year to recoup your investment into the RCBS Equipment. With the Jacketed bullets and the Lee Equipment you would recoup the investment at 1000 rounds or 350 rounds per year or 7 boxes of ammo per year.
For the lead cast bullets you would recoup the money for the RCBS Equipment at 1620 rounds for the three years which works out to540 rounds per year or 11 boxes of ammo. With the lead cast bullets and the Lee Equipment you would need to 662 rounds over the three years or 220 rounds per year or 5 boxes of ammo.
The emphasis needs to be placed on the cost of brass and the cost of the bullet. In my example the brass and bullet represented 86% of the cost per round with the jacketed bullets. With the lead bullet the brass and the lead bullet represented 83% of the cost per round. It can not be overstated that for the beginner brass and bullets is everything.
At this point casting your own bullets will drastically reduce the above numbers. I am going to do another article on “Should I Cast My Own Bullets”
Also another point to consider is reloading for multiple calibers. To add a second pistol caliber all that is needed is a set of dies and a shell holder. This cost in my example is $46.00 for RCBS carbide dies and $30.00 for the Lee dies.
If shooting two pistol calibers say .357 and .44 Magnum the ratio of saving stays about the same. The above examples are for” Field “grade factory ammo. The lead bullet ammo would compete with factory loaded “promotional”. However with careful selection of components the reloaded ammo would be much more accurate than factory “promotional” ammo.
Let me also add that with reloading you can “tune” your loads to suit your firearm to achieve the best accuracy. With factory ammo your only choice is to find the ammo best suited for your firearm. Also many people feel that reloaded ammo is inferior to factory ammo. I think that can be cleared up using our military as an example. At the National Matches at Camp Perry the United States Marine Corp Pistol Team is using ammunition that is loaded at their Quantico ,Virginia Base. Recently the Marines have made the decision that all Marine rifle match and sniper ammo is handloaded at the same location. Granted the Marines use all new components (including new brass) but they feel their most accurate ammo is handloaded and not factory loaded.
I will add some others examples to consider. In today’s market there are many types of special factory ammo at premium prices. These include “Target Grade”, “Tactical Grade” or “Self-Defense”. This ammo can be reloaded at a fraction of the cost versus the new ammo.
Speer Gold Dot ammo for the .44 Magnum is priced at $23.60 for 20 rounds. That is $118.0 per hundred rounds of loaded ammo.
That ammo, using the same Speer bullet, can be reloaded for $3.20 Primers + $6.00 Powder + 26.00 Speer Gold Dot Bullets or $ 35.20 per hundred. That is a savings of $82.80 for a hundred rounds. Using this as an example to justify investing into reloading equipment it could be done in 300 rounds investing in the Lee equipment and 500 rounds with the RCBS equipment. This example does assume no costs for brass. Again once you start to reload you can start to rely on range pick –up, Family members and such for reloadable brass. Also I will mention there are numerous sellers of once fired brass.
Another example is Target Grade .45ACP Ammo. The present price for Federal Gold Ammo in .45 ACP is $43.99 for a box of 50 or $88.00 per hundred. This 185 grain jacketed ammo is the standard for Bullseye Pistol accuracy. Most all pistolsmiths will test newly built pistols with the Federal Gold .45 ACP or a known handload.
Ammo with comparable accuracy can be loaded today for: $3.20 Primers + $1.60 Powder + $8.00 Target Grade Cast 200 Grain bullet or $12.80 per hundred. The reloaded ammo with accuracy that can be used at the national level of competition is about 14.5 % of new. Again to put a plug in for casting your own bullets, you can probably reduce your cost to about 8% of new factory ammo. Again this number ignores the price of brass.
From my experience to stay at the top of your game and be very competitive in Bullseye Pistol you need to practice once a week and shoot one or two matches per month. This translates into about 400 to 800 rounds of .45 ACP per month. Also I will add to progress up through the classifications the same amount of practice and matches need to be fired. Shooting 800 rounds of .45 ACP per month the costs would look like this: 800 rounds of factory new is $704.00; 800 rounds of reloaded .45 ACP would be $102.40 (even less if you cast your own bullets). The understatement here is if you shoot Conventional Bullseye Pistol; reloading is not an option it is mandatory.
These numbers not only justify the Lee or RCBS equipment but would justify a progressive press within a month.
Let’s look at rifle ammo as a separate example. Rifle reloading requires another step so we need a little more equipment in addition to the single stage press. Bottleneck rifle cases will “stretch” when fired. The case will grow in length and if it goes unmonitored can cause a dangerous situation. To the above single stage press I am going to include the cost of a case trimmer and a set of calipers to measure the length of cases. A RCBS case trimmer was $90.00 + $40.00 calipers+15.00 shipping. Add this total of $145.00 to the single stage press and we have an investment of $555.00 (RCBS) or $325.00 Lee.
We will look at .223 ammo in a 55 FMJ and a 69 match bullet.
Ammo for the .223 is all over the board in today’s market. Ammo for the .223 with a 55 gr. FMJ bullet is around $400.00 per thousand + $20.00 shipping. Granted steel case ammo is less but the reloaded ammo will use brass cases. Federal Match ammo with a Sierra 69 Match bullet is listed at $28.21 for 20 rounds or $1410.90 + 20.00 shipping or $1430.90. We will look at one thousand rounds. Component costs are:
Brass: Remington Bulk $515.00 per 2 thousand or $258.00 per thousand
Bullets: Hornady 55gn. FMJ at $78.00 per thousand
Sierra 69gn. Match king at 178.00 per thousand
Powder: 3.6 lbs at $28.00 or $100.90 for 1000 rounds
Primers: $32.00 per thousand
For a thousand rounds of 55FMJ your costs would be: 258.00 Brass + $78.00 Bullets+ $100.90 Powder +32.00 Primers or $468.90 per thousands. By buying all components you can buy loaded ammo cheaper than you can buy the components and assemble them. Assume no brass costs and you have $210.90 per thousand. With no brass costs then you can recoup $210.00 per thousand. To recoup your initial investment on the RCBS Equipment you need to load 2650 rounds or about 900 rounds for three years. To recoup the Lee Equipment you need to load 1550 rounds or a little over 500 rounds per year to break even on your investment.
For a thousand rounds of .223 Remington Match ammo the cost would be: $258.00 Brass+ $178.00 Sierra Match Bullets + $100.90 Powder + 32.00 Primers or $568.90 per thousand. Compare the price of loaded match ammo $1410.90 and you would recoup $842.00 in your first thousand rounds of loading ammo.
By supplying your own brass the cost per 1000 rounds of match ammo becomes: $178.00 Bullets + $100.90 Powder + $32.00 Primers or $310.90 per thousand. With this example you would recoup $1100.00 on your first thousand rounds of match rifle ammo. Again let me emphasis that reloaded ammo would not in any way be inferior to the factory loaded ammunition, but with a little experimentation I would expect you could exceed the factory ammo’s accuracy. With this example the reloaded ammo for the .223 Remington would be about 22% of factory new. To add a second rifle caliber an investment of $25.00 to $40.00 is all that is needed. Just FYI I did the math on the .308 Winchester and Match Grade Ammo can be loaded for about 27% of new match ammo. The cost per thousand was $477.00 with a match grade bullet.
Let me conclude with a few remarks. I used only a few options to reload. The combinations and equipment to reload are endless. From the above if you are a causal shooter it may not make dollars and sense to reload. This holds true if you shoot only one caliber and do not require maximum accuracy from your ammo. However if you are entering a shooting discipline or competition I think it is obvious that you must reload. Also if you are entering a shooting discipline then a progressive press is a given. I hope I have given you enough information to make a decision whether you should enter into reloading your own ammunition. These numbers and costs are representative of what is readily available. I have mentioned the importance of obtaining once fired brass and the possibility of casting your own bullets. Further costs can be reduced by using surplus military powder. Also at major competitions vendors are present selling reloading components at prices that beat buying locally.
I would also ask that you do more research into the safety aspect of reloading before you actually reload. There are numerous web sites and books that will get you started. I have been around the shooting sports and most shooters are more than willing to help the beginner with reloading and shooting instruction.
I would also add that reloading is more popular now than ever. I don’t think
the hobby of reloading will die out any time soon.
.
Should I Reload??
As ammo costs have skyrocketed over the last 5 years this question comes up from time to time. This article will try to apply some modern day pricing and evaluate this question. There is no doubt that you can reduce your shooting costs by reloading. But when does it make economical sense to invest into reloading equipment and start loading your own ammo. This article will use pricing that is available to everyone from sources available to the common person. I will round off prices and will for the most part ignore shipping. For the most part shipping will be the same if you order bullets or if you order loaded ammo. I will not include sales tax nor will I use “on-sale” or discontinued or dealer pricing in my evaluation.
Another thing that I will not enter into my evaluation is the time required to reload. I will give you approximate times to reload given amounts of ammo and you will need to decide if “it is worth your time” to reload. To reload a hundred rounds of pistol ammo with a single stage press should be completed in two hours. To complete a hundred rounds of pistol ammo on a progressive press would be 15-20 minutes. Let me add rifle in here also. To load one hundred Rifle rounds with a single stage press could be up to four hours. Rifle is a little more complex. Two things that I do with rifle ammo is I weight each powder charge and rifle brass will “stretch” and occasionally will need to be trimmed. It would not be uncommon to spend as much as six hours on one hundred rounds of rifle ammo if the brass required trimming.
First, Let me add a note on myself so that you will get some perspective on my knowledge and experience of shooting and reloading. I have shot NRA Bullseye Conventional Pistol for some 30 years and have shot a lot of NRA Hunters Pistol Silhouette and NRA Rifle Silhouette. I obtained a Master Class in Conventional Pistol and “AAA” classification in Silhouette. I have twice earned the “President’s Hundred” at Camp Perry in about eight trips to the National Championships. I did not say that to boast but to say I can reload and you can reload ammunition that is competitive at the national level. I will also say that I used reloaded ammo except where factory loaded ammo is required by the rules.
Let’s first look at the most popular reloaded cartridge or the cartridge that sales the most reloading dies, The .38 Special/.357 Magnum. I am going to quote at least two levels of equipment to get to reload your own. I will quote a” economical” grade equipment and a “top of the line” equipment. I will not get into debate of Brand A versus Brand B but rather I will try to give the “low dollar” versus “high dollar” to give you an idea of the range of available equipment. Here is the break down to get started for your first pistol caliber with a single stage press:
You will need a single stage press, Reloading manual, a set of powder scales, powder funnel, reloading tray, deburring tool, powder measure, dies, and a shell holder. It is also very nice to have a system to prime your cases without handling each primer by hand.
The Lee Combination kit includes the above for $91.00 (kit) +32.99 (Carbide Dies and shell holder) + 21.00 reloading manual + 25.00 shipping or about $180.00.
The RCBS kit does not include the items to handle primers but does include a reloading manual. Their kit with the “Rockchucker” press 270.00 + 40.00 Carbide Dies + 6.00 Shell Holder. To add an automatic Priming tool is another 69.00.Shipping is also 25.00.This totals up to 410.00
Components needed to load for this caliber are:
Brass at 19.00 per hundred
Primers at 32.00 per thousand
Powder at 28.00 per pound
Bullets: Jacketed 125 gn. At 15.00 per hundred
Cast Boolits at 68.00 per thousand
Let me add a note here on the component prices. To mail order primers and powder a Hazardous Material charge must be included. With this charge it is more economical for the initial reloader to purchase his primers and powder locally. The primer and powder prices are adjusted to be bought locally.
To get to a total for 357 Magnum for one hundred rounds would be:
19.00 brass + 3.20 Primers +2.00 Powder +15.00 per hundred jacketed bullets or $39.20 for 2 boxes of fifty or one hundred rounds. By buying new brass and assembling the components you are neck and neck with new ammo prices. New ammo with jacketed bullets was 19.00 -20.00 per box of fifty. With this scenario loading and buying new ammo is even with no return on your investment of your reloading equipment. You would be saving shipping costs on the new ammo and that is about it.
Next with going to a lead cast bullet and keeping with new brass the cost drop to: 19.00 Brass + 3.20 Primers + 2.00 Powder + 6.80 Bullets. The new total is 31.00 per hundred. You would be saving about $8.00 per hundred or $4.00 per box. ( A rule of thumb in business is to recoup your investment within three years.) To get a return on your investment with the Lee Equipment you would need to reload 45 boxes or 2250 rounds of ammunition. To recover your investment over three years you would need to reload 15 boxes of .357 Magnum per year or 750 rounds per year.
With the RCBS equipment to recover the initial $410.00 with $4.00 per 50 rounds the numbers go to 103 boxes of 50 per year. This is 5150 rounds per year for three years. This is probably beyond most shooters appetite unless shooting and practicing in some form of competition.
The above numbers reflect that you are going to buy new brass for all ammo loaded. Let’s look at the numbers without new brass costs. You have bought new ammo and saved the brass in anticipation of reloading one day or family members have saved their fired brass for you. To reload for the .357 Magnum with a premium jacketed bullet the cost per hundred is now: 3.20 Primers + 2.00 Powder + 15.00 Jacketed bullets. The total for jacketed ammo per hundred is now $20.20 per hundred. The lead cast bullet ammo cost drop to $12.00 per hundred or $6.00 per box. The return on your investment is much improved over the same three year period.
For the premium Jacketed bullets you would need to reload around 750 rounds per year or 15 boxes of ammo per year to recoup your investment into the RCBS Equipment. With the Jacketed bullets and the Lee Equipment you would recoup the investment at 1000 rounds or 350 rounds per year or 7 boxes of ammo per year.
For the lead cast bullets you would recoup the money for the RCBS Equipment at 1620 rounds for the three years which works out to540 rounds per year or 11 boxes of ammo. With the lead cast bullets and the Lee Equipment you would need to 662 rounds over the three years or 220 rounds per year or 5 boxes of ammo.
The emphasis needs to be placed on the cost of brass and the cost of the bullet. In my example the brass and bullet represented 86% of the cost per round with the jacketed bullets. With the lead bullet the brass and the lead bullet represented 83% of the cost per round. It can not be overstated that for the beginner brass and bullets is everything.
At this point casting your own bullets will drastically reduce the above numbers. I am going to do another article on “Should I Cast My Own Bullets”
Also another point to consider is reloading for multiple calibers. To add a second pistol caliber all that is needed is a set of dies and a shell holder. This cost in my example is $46.00 for RCBS carbide dies and $30.00 for the Lee dies.
If shooting two pistol calibers say .357 and .44 Magnum the ratio of saving stays about the same. The above examples are for” Field “grade factory ammo. The lead bullet ammo would compete with factory loaded “promotional”. However with careful selection of components the reloaded ammo would be much more accurate than factory “promotional” ammo.
Let me also add that with reloading you can “tune” your loads to suit your firearm to achieve the best accuracy. With factory ammo your only choice is to find the ammo best suited for your firearm. Also many people feel that reloaded ammo is inferior to factory ammo. I think that can be cleared up using our military as an example. At the National Matches at Camp Perry the United States Marine Corp Pistol Team is using ammunition that is loaded at their Quantico ,Virginia Base. Recently the Marines have made the decision that all Marine rifle match and sniper ammo is handloaded at the same location. Granted the Marines use all new components (including new brass) but they feel their most accurate ammo is handloaded and not factory loaded.
I will add some others examples to consider. In today’s market there are many types of special factory ammo at premium prices. These include “Target Grade”, “Tactical Grade” or “Self-Defense”. This ammo can be reloaded at a fraction of the cost versus the new ammo.
Speer Gold Dot ammo for the .44 Magnum is priced at $23.60 for 20 rounds. That is $118.0 per hundred rounds of loaded ammo.
That ammo, using the same Speer bullet, can be reloaded for $3.20 Primers + $6.00 Powder + 26.00 Speer Gold Dot Bullets or $ 35.20 per hundred. That is a savings of $82.80 for a hundred rounds. Using this as an example to justify investing into reloading equipment it could be done in 300 rounds investing in the Lee equipment and 500 rounds with the RCBS equipment. This example does assume no costs for brass. Again once you start to reload you can start to rely on range pick –up, Family members and such for reloadable brass. Also I will mention there are numerous sellers of once fired brass.
Another example is Target Grade .45ACP Ammo. The present price for Federal Gold Ammo in .45 ACP is $43.99 for a box of 50 or $88.00 per hundred. This 185 grain jacketed ammo is the standard for Bullseye Pistol accuracy. Most all pistolsmiths will test newly built pistols with the Federal Gold .45 ACP or a known handload.
Ammo with comparable accuracy can be loaded today for: $3.20 Primers + $1.60 Powder + $8.00 Target Grade Cast 200 Grain bullet or $12.80 per hundred. The reloaded ammo with accuracy that can be used at the national level of competition is about 14.5 % of new. Again to put a plug in for casting your own bullets, you can probably reduce your cost to about 8% of new factory ammo. Again this number ignores the price of brass.
From my experience to stay at the top of your game and be very competitive in Bullseye Pistol you need to practice once a week and shoot one or two matches per month. This translates into about 400 to 800 rounds of .45 ACP per month. Also I will add to progress up through the classifications the same amount of practice and matches need to be fired. Shooting 800 rounds of .45 ACP per month the costs would look like this: 800 rounds of factory new is $704.00; 800 rounds of reloaded .45 ACP would be $102.40 (even less if you cast your own bullets). The understatement here is if you shoot Conventional Bullseye Pistol; reloading is not an option it is mandatory.
These numbers not only justify the Lee or RCBS equipment but would justify a progressive press within a month.
Let’s look at rifle ammo as a separate example. Rifle reloading requires another step so we need a little more equipment in addition to the single stage press. Bottleneck rifle cases will “stretch” when fired. The case will grow in length and if it goes unmonitored can cause a dangerous situation. To the above single stage press I am going to include the cost of a case trimmer and a set of calipers to measure the length of cases. A RCBS case trimmer was $90.00 + $40.00 calipers+15.00 shipping. Add this total of $145.00 to the single stage press and we have an investment of $555.00 (RCBS) or $325.00 Lee.
We will look at .223 ammo in a 55 FMJ and a 69 match bullet.
Ammo for the .223 is all over the board in today’s market. Ammo for the .223 with a 55 gr. FMJ bullet is around $400.00 per thousand + $20.00 shipping. Granted steel case ammo is less but the reloaded ammo will use brass cases. Federal Match ammo with a Sierra 69 Match bullet is listed at $28.21 for 20 rounds or $1410.90 + 20.00 shipping or $1430.90. We will look at one thousand rounds. Component costs are:
Brass: Remington Bulk $515.00 per 2 thousand or $258.00 per thousand
Bullets: Hornady 55gn. FMJ at $78.00 per thousand
Sierra 69gn. Match king at 178.00 per thousand
Powder: 3.6 lbs at $28.00 or $100.90 for 1000 rounds
Primers: $32.00 per thousand
For a thousand rounds of 55FMJ your costs would be: 258.00 Brass + $78.00 Bullets+ $100.90 Powder +32.00 Primers or $468.90 per thousands. By buying all components you can buy loaded ammo cheaper than you can buy the components and assemble them. Assume no brass costs and you have $210.90 per thousand. With no brass costs then you can recoup $210.00 per thousand. To recoup your initial investment on the RCBS Equipment you need to load 2650 rounds or about 900 rounds for three years. To recoup the Lee Equipment you need to load 1550 rounds or a little over 500 rounds per year to break even on your investment.
For a thousand rounds of .223 Remington Match ammo the cost would be: $258.00 Brass+ $178.00 Sierra Match Bullets + $100.90 Powder + 32.00 Primers or $568.90 per thousand. Compare the price of loaded match ammo $1410.90 and you would recoup $842.00 in your first thousand rounds of loading ammo.
By supplying your own brass the cost per 1000 rounds of match ammo becomes: $178.00 Bullets + $100.90 Powder + $32.00 Primers or $310.90 per thousand. With this example you would recoup $1100.00 on your first thousand rounds of match rifle ammo. Again let me emphasis that reloaded ammo would not in any way be inferior to the factory loaded ammunition, but with a little experimentation I would expect you could exceed the factory ammo’s accuracy. With this example the reloaded ammo for the .223 Remington would be about 22% of factory new. To add a second rifle caliber an investment of $25.00 to $40.00 is all that is needed. Just FYI I did the math on the .308 Winchester and Match Grade Ammo can be loaded for about 27% of new match ammo. The cost per thousand was $477.00 with a match grade bullet.
Let me conclude with a few remarks. I used only a few options to reload. The combinations and equipment to reload are endless. From the above if you are a causal shooter it may not make dollars and sense to reload. This holds true if you shoot only one caliber and do not require maximum accuracy from your ammo. However if you are entering a shooting discipline or competition I think it is obvious that you must reload. Also if you are entering a shooting discipline then a progressive press is a given. I hope I have given you enough information to make a decision whether you should enter into reloading your own ammunition. These numbers and costs are representative of what is readily available. I have mentioned the importance of obtaining once fired brass and the possibility of casting your own bullets. Further costs can be reduced by using surplus military powder. Also at major competitions vendors are present selling reloading components at prices that beat buying locally.
I would also ask that you do more research into the safety aspect of reloading before you actually reload. There are numerous web sites and books that will get you started. I have been around the shooting sports and most shooters are more than willing to help the beginner with reloading and shooting instruction.
I would also add that reloading is more popular now than ever. I don’t think
the hobby of reloading will die out any time soon.
.