Do people really pay this much for ammo?

[gray wolf]

Some guy on another forum was bragging about getting a 1,000 rounds of 45 ACP for $345.00. I hated to do it but I posted that I reload a 1,000 rounds for about 40 bucks.
OK could be 45 bucks. I guess there are still some folks making good money out there.
Well God bless them, But wow $345.00.

[AnthonyB]

Bruce:
That is a very well reasoned and easy to understand response. My approach differs, but I think we are both arriving in the same place - ammo we trust explicitly.
I am a big fan of cast HP bullets. By varying alloys and HP cavity size, I can guarantee a 358431 will expand from a J-frame or hold together at 357 Mag velocity. My testing in wet newsprint (several years ago, and I'm sure jacketed bullets are better now) showed them to perform better than factory ammo. Lyman Devastators in 45 ACP would expand like a Nosler Partition, shearing off petals as the nose expanded and the base continued to penetrate. I carry those in warm weather, and switch to the BD45 or RCBS 45-230CM in winter.
I would likely follow your approach if I didn't enjoy the cast HP so much.
Tony

[shooterg]

The Federal 550 packs at WM are $19.92 out the door here as of yesterday.

[Buckshot]

..............It's been so long since I've bought factory centerfire I've pretty well lost any reference except to what I recall it was when I WOULD buy a couple boxes to take to the range. And that'd be Rem green/yellow box 30-'06 150gr C-L's for $10.99 and 30-30's at $9.29.

To think that in late 2006 I bought 2 cases of Winchester Dynapoint 22LR's for $96.30 per case. Last I saw at Midway they were all of $27/brick. That's darn near triple the price in just over 3 years.

................Buckshot

[Geraldo]

Sticker shock version 2.0...

I traded for an Encore barrel for which I have no ammo, brass, etc. Being rather impatient I'd like to shoot it, so I stop at a local shop to see what I can find. No dies or brass, so I check out their factory ammo, which starts at $33 for twenty rounds

After the chest pain stops, I decide I can be pretty patient at those prices. I drive home, go to Midway's site, find dies, brass, and a couple other things I need, and when adding a $10 off promotion code I'm out the door for not much more than the one box of ammo at the shop.

[excavman]

About 10-12 years ago I loaded 2000 rds of 45 ACP for a friend, all cast boolits. I had plenty of free ww's and spend $8 on a bar of solder. The primers cost me $12 a carton and 2 lbs of Unique was $15. That comes to $47 for 2000 rds. Go figure up what it would cost today for the same thing. It's still cheaper than factory by a long ways. The only factory stuff I buy is 22's.

Larry

[DLCTEX]

I heard a Gander Mountain ad on radio yesterday advertising their 223 ammo "200 round box for only $99.99", WOW!

[Ed Barrett]

I reloaded some .416 Rem rounds for a friend of mine who goes to Africa every year. I bought 100 cases, a box of barnes 400 grain solids and a box of barnes HP's, I used Varget for the powder. I told him to save the brass and that they could be reloaded several times. Where he hunts you are allowed to bring 50 rounds in per person. When he came back, he called me and asked me over for drinks and to see some pictures of his hunt. He took a Cape buffalo with one shoot with a solid and an eland an a bunch of camp meat with the hollow points. I asked him if he saved the brass and he said yess he had 16 pieces. He wanted me to buy another hundred of brass and bullets and load him up another hundred for next year. Seems the Professional Hunter was shooting a CZ .416 Rem mag too. and he offered him what was left of the loaded rounds. The PH was so happy he refused a tip. Here in the States .416 Rem's are anywhere from $92.00 to $150.00 for a box of 20, In Africa they are much higher when you can get them.
The next year he went out with the same hunter a tipped him the same way. So soime of my reloads are half way around the world, I only wish I could have some of them cast from wheel weights.

[Thumbcocker]

Maybe a little far afield but Bruce's reference to his wife's defensive shoot involving cb's and a moose sure has me curious about details.

[Adam10mm]

Some guy on another forum was bragging about getting a 1,000 rounds of 45 ACP for $345.00. I hated to do it but I posted that I reload a 1,000 rounds for about 40 bucks.
OK could be 45 bucks. I guess there are still some folks making good money out there.
Well God bless them, But wow $345.00.

Wasn't me but my FMJ .45 ammo is priced close to that. $17.57/50 runs $351.40 to a case. Lead is $15.47/50 or $309.40/K; although with buying a case they get free shipping which runs me around $50 per case or so. I mostly sell to local gun shops, so take 20% off those prices for the dealer discount. For delivery, I drive it free inside a 2hr radius.

One thing a lot of guys forget is overhead. I've never done this before, but I'll post some figures on my end. Many of you know I'm a home based FFL. My overhead is almost non-existant (and when I get things squared up, things will be better). You pay more for your car than I pay overhead for my business.

So, buying fired brass from a guy who buys it in bulk 800lb lots runs me $50/K, plated bullets run about $103 delivered, then primers factory direct are $17/K and powder runs me about $16 per case. Packaging is just shy of $5 using white boxes loose pack and Avery labels for marking. I rubber stamp the date on the box for the lot number. Total cost is $201 per case.

So, $351 retail out of an investment of $201 is $150 gross profit per case. But, wait, there's more. Manufacturers have to pay FET on the ammo they make, so at the retail direct side of things, the rule is the taxable sale is 75% of the sale price taxed at 11%. Confused. Easy. 351*.75=263.25 which is the taxable sale amount (think of it as adjusted gross income like on your personal tax form). Now take 11% of that 263.25 and FET due on that sale is $28.96. That comes off the top; 150-28.96= $121.04 net after FET.

So then I have my overhead to deal with before it's bottom line profit. Insurance is $175/mo, website is $12.50/mo ($150/yr), don't have a business phone anymore, I don't pay for advertising, utilities are home based paid with personal income, as is mortgage (yet the business can deduct its portion of that which is used solely for business purpose). All packaging, ink, paper, etc is factored into COGS which is in the product cost. Soooo, yeah, that's it. My business costs me less than $200 to operate. Fancy that. Using the fancy formula for break even (overhead divided by profit margin) I only need to sell a couple cases a month to break even with overhead.

Now using the dealer pricing at a 20% discount, FET is applied to the actual sale price IF the manufacturer does no wholesale sales (sells to someone who sells to someone else that will sell it at retail). So my dealer price on .45 FMJ ammo is $281.12, FET due on that is $30.92 (I pay more FET on dealer sales than I do retail sales-go figure). On a dealer sale I make only $49.20 net profit after FET.

So retail is $121.04 and dealer is $49.20 profit after FET. Quite a difference. Now people think "you've got a Dillon 1050 loading 1,000 rounds an hour making $120 per hour!!!" but that can't be farther from the truth. Real world loading on the press is maybe 750-800 rounds per hour being smooth and consistent. Sure a bullet feeder would speed things up a bit maybe getting the magic "1,000 rph". But what people don't realize is the additional labor in bringing the raw materials to a finished product ready for sale presentation. Brass cleaning, brass inspection, component setup, powder charge verification before and during loading, primer tube filling, case feeder filling, inspection after loading, inspection during packaging, folding boxes, labeling boxes, recording lot information in the log book. All that takes time.

I got suckered into thinking I would be making $100/hr plus doing this. In reality as a one man operation (with some help from a local friend of mine), to eliminate labor costs, it takes a solid 2-2.5 hours from start to finish. So now that retail sale is really $48/hr and dealer is a pathetic $19.60/hr and that's BEFORE bills are paid. The more volume the more time and the more overhead, not necessarily more profit.

That's why in my sig line I put "everything looks good on paper".

Seems on the surface there's money there instantly, but it's not. It takes time and business knowledge. Now with automated equipment running 3 cases per hour consistently sure the numbers might look good but you now have a $30,000 machine to pay interest on plus utilities for it and maintenance. They are expensive to buy, expensive to maintain, and expensive to feed.

[azcruiser]

Went to one of my local BM gun stores and they wanted $50.00 for 1000 Fed LG Rifle primers.
Told me good luck if you think you can get them cheaper . Went to a pawn shop that has guns and stuff got 1000 LG Rifle Win for $27.00

[azcruiser]

Have a 1050 myself plus 2 xl650s- and 3 550bs and a few SDB'S Would take a lot of money to run them all for a 40hr work week. It's like the guys who want a MINI gun 3000 rounds of 308 win a min do the math on that in todays prices out of my league

[DeepSouth]

GM reminds me of going to a gunshow,alot of overpriced stuff.

[gerrycan]

Hey Freak,thanks for that run-down.I load a few calibres for others [just to get them started] and as I am working I ask "why am I dong this at this price $10/20 ?'.As you point out,you undertake this enterprise without enough thought at your peril.Gerry

[Adam10mm]

And I cover a lot of this stuff in my book. Putting the finishing touches it then looking for a publisher.

Funny thing is my dealer customers make more money off my ammo than I do selling to them. I take a huge cut and make $49 per case of .45. I asked what margin they run on ammo and they said 20%; sure I can live with that discount no problem (hard lesson). So I sell at $14.06/bx figuring a 20% markup will match my retail at $17.57/bx. Nope. $18.99/box and it flies off the shelf in less than a week. How the hell are they getting $1.50 more per box than my retail online price? They make almost $5/box gross profit and I'm making only $2.45/box selling to them at dealer price? That's twice as much money as I make. First indication this is a volume business.

But it's priced low enough that they will buy from me at my price and have margin to sell at their price. Greed would make me raise my price to get a piece of the action, but it's smart not to touch it. Where a manufacturer like me can increase margin is on the cost. If the price is locked in, reducing the cost will increase profits. I found a place that has brass for half what I'm paying now so I'm going to milk that cow and make an extra $25 per case just by buying cheaper material.

[82nd airborne]

walmart here has 550 for 15.99, and did all the way thru the ammo scare. supposedly one of the only ww's that had them. they had an entire isle with nothing but bricks of rem golden bullets. i didnt think it would last so i bought AlOT

[Rockydog]

I was on vacation shooting prairie dogs last week and didn't get my 12 guage reloading done for trap this week. Stopped at the local hardware store. Winchester promo loads were $9.99 a box of 25. Win AAs were $11.99. At this rate they won't have to take our guns away. Joe Average will not be able to afford to shoot and the industry will collapse. RD

[BruceB]

Maybe a little far afield but Bruce's reference to his wife's defensive shoot involving cb's and a moose sure has me curious about details.

Just do a search for "karen moose" and you'll find the story (The Day Karen Met The Moose). It's been related many times, but she turned in quite a performance under stress and it's worth another airing.

I've been away from the Board for ten days or so; sorry for the delay.