cost per round figures

[duckndawg]

ok fellas i have a question about figuring costs. primers, jword bullets, and brass cost is easy enough to figure out. now as far as powder how do you figure cost per round? say the powder costs you 25 bucks for a pound, the load uses 39.1 grains per load, and with 7000 grains to a pound how do you break it down to per round cost?
ThanksDawg

[Echo]

7000/39.1= 179, so there are 179 loads in one pound. $25 per pound/179 loads =14 cents per load.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

25.00 divided by 7000= 0.00357 per grain. .00357 x 39.1= about 14 cents

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Ya didn't beat me by much ECHO. Gotta type faster

[km101]

OK, just simple math. Load is 39.1 grains. Divide 7,000 by 39.1 = 179 loads per pound. $25 per pound of powder. $25 divided by 179 = $0.1396, or rounded to $0.14/per load.

My calculator is dead, so I had to do this with pencil and paper. I think that's right, but it's been a long time, so check the math!

Hope this helps!
KM

Wow, in the time it took me to do it on paper, three people with calculators beat me to it!

[duckndawg]

ok simple enough thanks felles

[RoyEllis]

7000gr/lb divided by charge wt=X
Y(powder cost/lb) divided by X (# of charges per lb)=cost per shot

EG above...7000/39.1=179 charges, 25.00/179=$00.1396648 per shot

[RoyEllis]

[smilie=b:Some of ya'll type fast!

[theperfessor]

No matter how you (correctly) figure it, it's still cheaper than factory ammo...

[dtknowles]

Dude, you don't have a calculator on your computer or phone, what do you mean your calculator is dead. You could always used excel if you have that.


Tim


OK, just simple math. Load is 39.1 grains. Divide 7,000 by 39.1 = 179 loads per pound. $25 per pound of powder. $25 divided by 179 = $0.1396, or rounded to $0.14/per load.

My calculator is dead, so I had to do this with pencil and paper. I think that's right, but it's been a long time, so check the math!

Hope this helps!
KM

Wow, in the time it took me to do it on paper, three people with calculators beat me to it!

[bhn22]

This is the funniest post in a long time. All one minute apart, all with the same answer. At least you know the answers perfectly reliable.

[fouronesix]

That's pretty simple math... then add molds, plus custom molds, a couple of different sizers, a few types of lube, different trial and error powders, a few types of trial and error bullets, two or three extra specialty dies, at least 3 or more reloading data manuals, a few odd lots of primers as they are the only ones available during a components crunch, specialty reloading tools, upgraded press, upgraded powder trickler, powder scale, powder measure or two, one or two or more melters, a ladle, uncertain availability of lead so many different alloys of lead, a big melter pot and burner, mold handles, ingot molds, then when a good combination of components is discovered in a particular load... bulk buy of powder, primers, brass that would last a couple of lifetimes just in case the crunch gets worse or the manufacturers drop the one component that works best, etc. and so on. :) see the actuarial cost of this box of 20 cartridges is only about $187.52 or about $9.38 per round.

[grumman581]

$25

lb

39.1 gr



lb

7000 gr

load



Cancel out units and you get gr/load as a result.

I usually go with cost per 50 rounds (for handgun ammo) or per 20 (for rifle ammo) so that it directly compares with what I am avoiding purchasing.

[grumman581]

That's pretty simple math... then add molds, plus custom molds, a couple of different sizers, a few types of lube, different trial and error powders, a few types of trial and error bullets, two or three extra specialty dies, at least 3 or more reloading data manuals, a few odd lots of primers as they are the only ones available during a components crunch, specialty reloading tools, upgraded press, upgraded powder trickler, powder scale, powder measure or two, one or two or more melters, a ladle, uncertain availability of lead so many different alloys of lead, a big melter pot and burner, mold handles, ingot molds, then when a good combination of components is discovered in a particular load... bulk buy of powder, primers, brass that would last a couple of lifetimes just in case the crunch gets worse or the manufacturers drop the one component that works best, etc. and so on. :) see the actuarial cost of this box of 20 cartridges is only about $187.52 or about $9.38 per round.

Capital expenditures come from a different charge code than consumables.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Hey fouronesix... you forget we get to sell all this fine equipment in the future. The tools of our trade only go up in value. Plus when eveyone else is out of things to launch I am still plugging away with a 50-95 or whatever "odd caliber" as my sons are so fond of saying. That is priceless !
Mike in Peru

[Goatwhiskers]

Well, let's see: We'll divide 7000 by 39.1, that yields 179.02 loads per pound of powder. Then we'll divide $25/lb by 179.02 which gives us 13.96 or in round figures 14 cents per round for powder. Calculated on my long range precision digital mini-computer purchased at Sam Walton's nightmare. GW

Any errors are due to the cheap chinese calculator.

[DRNurse1]

That's pretty simple math... then add molds, plus custom molds, a couple of different sizers, a few types of lube, different trial and error powders, a few types of trial and error bullets, two or three extra specialty dies, at least 3 or more reloading data manuals, a few odd lots of primers as they are the only ones available during a components crunch, specialty reloading tools, upgraded press, upgraded powder trickler, powder scale, powder measure or two, one or two or more melters, a ladle, uncertain availability of lead so many different alloys of lead, a big melter pot and burner, mold handles, ingot molds, then when a good combination of components is discovered in a particular load... bulk buy of powder, primers, brass that would last a couple of lifetimes just in case the crunch gets worse or the manufacturers drop the one component that works best, etc. and so on. :) see the actuarial cost of this box of 20 cartridges is only about $187.52 or about $9.38 per round.

Four one six: You are mixing capital and per item expenses. My FiL bought his Star Reloading Press in 1960-ish for around $100 and has reloaded about 5,000,000 rounds by his count. Even if you calculate the cost of the reloading press in current dollars, it works out to less than $0.01 per 100 rounds loaded. Most of us calculate the price of things we expend with building our cartridges: powder, primer and lead alloy and either amortize our equipment over years or treat it well and sell it for more than we paid making the capital cost of the equipment near zero per round. We also volunteer our time.

Now, if you are trying to compare our loads to commercial, you need to consider the the costs of doing business like building, insurance, equipment, labor/employees and their associated costs, packaging, production, advertising and shipping,... you know, the headache stuff.

That is why we volunteer our labor and take care of our equipment, and re use as much of our cartridge as we can (picking up our brass, mining the berms, recycling the rimfire and damaged brass, et cetera>>it is therapy and also can put food on the table.

Right now, the defensive rounds I am carrying cost me the most by my calculation of the nonrecoverable expenses about $0.11 per round. My current competition rounds are a little less than $0.02 per round now but the next batch will use new powder and primers so that will double to $0.04 per round (pistol calibers only). The rimfire costs are .... well crazy.

So toss the spread sheet/ balance sheet aside for this hobby and remember you are not paying some psychiatrist $250(or more) per hour for your therapy and, occasionally, putting inexpensive meals on your table.

[MtGun44]

Great example of using math for a real world practical application.

This is a perfect example of why I gave LOTS of WORD PROBLEMS as homework when I
was teaching math. The students would always complain, saying word problems are "too hard".

My reply was always, "Nobody is EVER going to walk up to you in life and ask what, 25 divided
by 7000. It is highly likely that someday you will need to use math to figure out something, usually
associated with money, and it will be A WORD PROBLEM!"

I'm pretty sure most students think of mathematics as a complex method for torturing children
rather than as a useful set of tools to learn to use so that you can make your life run
more smoothly when you grow up.

Bill

[FISH4BUGS]

I don't even want to think about the total capital investment in a collection of my Hensley & Gibbs moulds and all the other reloading equipment like Dillon 550, Star sizer, dies, other moulds, and all the little doo dads we casters and reloaders seem to accumulate. They are in my will and are being left to my son.
I think I paid anywhere from $125-300 for most of the H&G's. Mostly towards the $125 end. Four cavity minimum. production is important. The H&G's will always hold their value and can produce an item that one can use for trade. I have traded many cast bullets for brass and other items over the years. I even trade 9mm cast bullet reloads for vegetables with a local organic farmer.
I shoot machineguns and cast for all the submachinegun calibers. Shooting in volume the cost per round is interesting to know but not crucial to me. I'm not sure how to figure it anyway. The 2000+ lbs of lead I have collected over the years probably cost me next to nothing. A friend sold his tire shop and told me to take all I wanted in ww's. I think i wound up with well over 2000 lbs wheel weights.
The 250 lbs of linotype to harden ww's was traded for. Primers are always bought in lots of 10-20,000 and last for years. Ditto with powder. 8lb jugs (usually 2 at a time).
So how do you calculate the cost? Really only the cost of powder and primer. I bought 20,000 9mm brass when they were $10 per thousand shipped. 45's were cheap also. 38/357 380 and 44 brass were all bought years ago. 223 and 308 milsurp brass were traded for or bought years ago when they were relatively cheap.
Capital costs are the price you pay to play. That's the way I see it. I don't think I could amortize the capital costs over the tens of thousands of rounds that I have loaded and shot over the years.
As one poster said....it is cheaper than paying therapists to unwrap the snakes in your head. Good soothing therapy....smelting, alloying, making ingots, case trimming, chamfering, deburring, swaging, casting, resizing, reloading, shooting, then starting it all over again, all with the radio and heater going in the shed. Winters are long here in New Hampshire. Cast and load in winter, shoot in spring summer and fall.
Cost per round? Hardly ever consider it. Kind of like when I was lobstering, the cost of lobster was probably $30 a lb. That was after a blown outboard, bait, traps, lost gear, repairs, fuel, etc. That didn't even take into consideration the cost of the boat and the insurance.
That's why they call it a "hobby".

[Finster101]

One of the few times on this forum that this many people will agree AND come up with the same results! LOL

[Digger]

Figuring the cost is fairly straight forward but ..... the one question I have .... say you have bought a thousand once fired what ever ....initial cost is 15 cents a shell .... how would you ratio the cost next time fired , same shell , .... once again ,,,, and again ?
Just curious ...

[Echo]

14 cents per round and that's just for the powder. Seems expensive to me.
Now add primer 4 cents, boolit 10 cents, lube $?.
Set aside the initial brass cost.

Conservatively .28 cents each shot.

Still way cheaper than commercial...

[duckndawg]

how about .05 for primer .14 for powder and .25 for bullet makes it .44 not including brass cost. to me brass cost is moot after the first load on it.

[Hogdaddy]

Handloading Cost Calculator - Handload

Google^^^^^^^^^^^cause I don't know how to post link ; )
H/D

[RayinNH]

Here ya' go hogdaddy. http://www.handloads.com/calc/loadingCosts.asp

[fastfire]

Let's see......... I got into this to save money?

But it's fun;-)

[starmac]

The last couple of years cost is irrelevant compared to availability as far as I'm concerned. lol

I keep seeing post from many that they can load cheaper than 22 rimfire, even recently I have not paid over 26 bucks for a brick of 500 or 525 a round, and primers are now running 37 to 50 here depending on brand, so I don't see it as possible unless you can't get any 22 ammo.

[starmac]

Pretty much Bill, though most things go back more than 13 years, and a lot of areas the wages have not even thought about keeping up with the things we have to have. lol

[Ickisrulz]

Figuring the cost is fairly straight forward but ..... the one question I have .... say you have bought a thousand once fired what ever ....initial cost is 15 cents a shell .... how would you ratio the cost next time fired , same shell , .... once again ,,,, and again ?
Just curious ...


I supposed you'd have to know how many times you can use that case before it is no longer serviceable.

[starmac]

I supposed you'd have to know how many times you can use that case before it is no longer serviceable.

When you think it is on it's last leg, just put it in the swap and sell as once fired. lol

[TXGunNut]

I try to ignore capital costs, comparatively cheap hobby even when you consider the 18 X 21 Lead Shed slowly going up in my backyard.

[theperfessor]

The OP specified that the charge weight was 39.1 grs. This puts it in the rifle category. I don't know of any rifle round that is less than $0.60 a round for a commercial product. Load that same rifle round with 13 grs Red Dot and the powder charge costs less than a nickel.

Most of the pistol rounds I shoot use powder charges in the 3 to 7 gr range. Bet that's the same way with a lot of folks. I can get full performance in 9mm with 7 grs of Blue Dot, that's a thousand rounds per pound. So powder costs me about $0.025 to $0.03 a round. Add the bullet and primer and I'm still under $8/100 rounds. Where can you buy 9mm ammo for that price?

I think the savings is probably the greatest for handgunners simply because of the volume of ammo involved.

[starmac]

45 Colts become 45 Schofield, 44 magnum to 44 special then 44 Russian, 50-70 to 56 Spencer, 45-70 to 45-60. Somethings good can live forever.

Good point and another reason for rolling your own. There a lot of older calibers that can't be had at any price, and some new ones too. I have a 308 me that apparently there is no outlet for factory ammo for, and as far as I know that round is less than 10 years old.

[georgerkahn]

Strange in that I have not noted a mention of primers or brass expense. Maybe I didn't see posts where they were mentioned -- I'm sorry if this be the case. But, I just bought a box of primers for $37.00 at a gun show -- so, that's 3.7 cents per round. I try and get six firings out of most brass, so -- if you consider Starline 45acp brass from Midway, that's about $26.00/100, or 26 cents each. Divided by 6 equals 4 1/3 cents per use. I lose enough brass which gets swallowed by the grass at range, and mess up enough cases to realistically raise the ante to a nickel a shot cost for the brass. Mind you, again, this is .45acp. I use about 4.4 grains of Bullseye which gives me the potential for ~1,590 shots, which works out for me just under two cents. Adding these all up, we now have 5 cents worth of brass plus 3.7 cents worth of primer plus 2 cents worth of powder. I use Ideal lube on brass, plus wear and tear on equipment can easily be another 0.3 cents -- giving a grand total of eleven cents per shot, less of course the boolit. A Lyman #452460 mould casts about a 200 grain boolit -- hence, there are roughly 35 of these possible per pound. Rotometals purveys Lyman #2 alloy at $15.95/ 5lbs, and assuming one buys sufficient quantity, this includes s/h. $15.95 divided by 5 = $3.19/lb., divided again by 35 = a hair more than 9.1 cents per boolit. Adding .9 for electricity or propane and boolit lube -- I think ten cents is a fair number. Adding our 11 cents for all 'cept the boolit now gives a total of 21 cents per round. Now, one can cut the cost by: using lighter boolits; getting more shots per case; making one's one alloy with WWs, plumbers lead, etc. (For me, my best deal is at 35 cents per pound for scrap WWs, but you add Marvelux, sawdust,maybe some tin, and then there's the boolit lube...)

Hey -- I'm not much of a mathematician -- maybe (probably?) I screwed up here somewhere... but I do my OCD reloading, as well as casting boolits to make a product better than mass produced, so I expect not to save lots of $$$ -- except for the obsolete calibers I load... BUT, like that MasterCard commercial, the pride and satisfaction of a really fine all-by-me load... is priceless!!!
geo

[dragon813gt]

When you think it is on it's last leg, just put it in the swap and sell as once fired. lol

Unfortunately this is what some people do. Happened to me recently. It wasn't advertised as once fired. But you could see the rings above the case heads. I tossed most of them upon initial inspection w/ a paper clip. Makes me leery of buying any used brass except military from now on.

[starmac]

Unfortunately this is what some people do. Happened to me recently. It wasn't advertised as once fired. But you could see the rings above the case heads. I tossed most of them upon initial inspection w/ a paper clip. Makes me leery of buying any used brass except military from now on.

Hate to hear that, I really was just kidding.

[duckndawg]

I didnt want to cause a mess, I'm showing a friend how to reload for his rifle and I have all the supplies, just wanting to make sure he or I dont get screwed in the deal. as far as my loading I dont worry about the cost as much cuz its for me and I know its cheaper than new.

[FISH4BUGS]

I didnt want to cause a mess, I'm showing a friend how to reload for his rifle and I have all the supplies, just wanting to make sure he or I dont get screwed in the deal. as far as my loading I dont worry about the cost as much cuz its for me and I know its cheaper than new.

No mess whatsoever - it is an interesting discussion. Apparently there are many ways to compute per round cost. Some people include the brass cost and some people include the cast bullet cost. What do you do when the TON of wheel weights didn't cost anything but fuel to get to the garage and back plus and bloody fingers digging them out of storage barrels?
Some people like me don't think about it. They just cast, size, reload and shoot.
Shooting full auto eats up a LOT of ammo.....probably better that I don't think about it. Better to think about how to make the time to do all this stuff in addition to taking care of the house, yard and garden and making a living.

[grumman581]

Just got in a shipment of primers the other day. For 30K of primers (SP and SR), it worked out to $26 per 1K after hazmat and shipping.

I think the last time I bought primers they were $16 per 1K.

[popper]

I just use Bumpo's alloy cal (exel) and put powder/primer costs in another column, add in lead cost and get exact/100 $$. When prices go up, change a value and all is correct. Actually a column for each load/powder/cal.

[km101]

Dude, you don't have a calculator on your computer or phone, what do you mean your calculator is dead. You could always used excel if you have that.


Tim

I'm old fashioned! I use my phone for phone calls! Not as a calculator, browser, game pad, etc. And it would take me longer to bring up the app on my computer than to figure it on paper.