Most people get into reloading to save money on ammo. They listen to their friend who reloads tell them it only costs them .25 to reload a .223 round. When they are paying over .35 per round. Or worse they hear their friend say “hey I just picked up 1000 9mm bullets for $65”.
This leads people to see how reloading to save money is going to equal thousands of dollars over the years. The problem is it doesn’t always work that way. It’s not that easy, and of course, cheaper ammo means you shot more.
The Cost of start-up
The biggest cost people forget when they think of reloading to save money is the cost of equipment. Even the cheap single stage Lee kits like the LEE Challenger Kit are $120. Of course, most people buy kits from Hornaday like the Lock n Load Classic Press Kit for around $300. These are cheap kits compared to the $500 or more for a progressive press.
These kits don’t include the caliber specific dies or shell holders. That will run you another $30-50 dollars. You can buy a lot of ammo for $250 to $550 dollars.
Of course, if you are an avid shooter that shoots 500 rounds a week, you can eat up that much money pretty quickly. Thus even if you save $50 ever thousand rounds it won’t take long to recoup the cost of equipment. However, equipment isn’t your only cost of reloading.
The Cost of Your Time
Unless you have all the time in the world, your time costs you money. With the time you spend reloading you could be doing things that earn you money. How much can you make working? Figure it can take a few hours to reload a hundred rounds of ammo. Unless you buy a progressive press then your time is less but your equipment cost is higher.
Plus Hidden Costs
On top of the upfront cost of equipment and time, there are hidden costs to reloading. Like reloading manuals so you can find your load data.
There’s the cost of brass. Almost no one thinks about it. Most people figure they will save the brass they shoot and reload it. However, eventually brass wears out. You lose some. If you’re lucky you find some also. Eventually, you will want to reload more than the brass you have. You end up buying brass one way or another.
Then there is the fact that since your ammo is cheaper to reload you will shoot more. Why not? You enjoy shooting. Getting more ammo for the same money means you can shoot more. It becomes a big circle. You shot more so you can reload, you reload so you can shot. Next thing you know you are spending all your spare time and money either at the range or reloading at home.
Of course, don’t forget eventually you’ll need a space to store all your reloading stuff. This means you’ll end up with a room in your house just for guns and reloading equipment. Sounds pretty cool. Your own “man cave” for guns. However, that’s just one more cost you didn’t think about when you decided to take up reloading to save yourself money.
Actual Cost Per Round, How Much Do You Save
If the cost of equipment hasn’t turned you off yet. Let’s look at what you will pay per round on a couple of common calibers. This is, of course, ignoring equipment costs, and brass costs.
9mm
Let’s start with 9mm. Using 4.7 grains of Titegroup powder. Berry’s Plated 115 GR RN bullets from Cabela’s. Primers brand doesn’t matter most of them are close to 3.99 a box of 100 or $34.00 for 1000. If you exclude the cost of brass. It will cost you about $0.15 per round to reload. Better yet around $8 for 50. Whereas a normal box of 50 9mm shells will cost you $10. Of course, if you buy in bulk of around 1000 rounds at a time you can get that price down to $160.00 per 1000. Which would be about $0.16 per round, for the cheapest bulk ammo you can get. Not a whole lot of savings.
.223/5.56
How about .223/5.56 rifle ammo? If you use 27 grains of BL-C(2) powder. With Hornaday 55gr FMJ-BT bullets at $47 for a box of 500. Same cost of $3.99 a box of primers. You get $0.23 per round. Better known as $4.60 a box of 20. Most places sell a box of 20 .223 ammo for about $7. This is a savings. However, if you don’t mind shooting steel cased ammo Lucky Gunner has Wolf ammo starting at $110 for 500 rounds. That equals about $0.21 per round. If your whole goal is to save money yet again you aren’t saving any.
30-06
So, where can you save money? How about hunting ammo? We will go with 30-06. A very common hunting round. We’ll use the same BL-C(2) powder only 50 grains this time. Hornaday SST 165 gr bullets. Guess what the price per round is? It’s $0.58 or $12 per box of 20. Unless you find an amazing deal, a box of 20 30-06 hunting ammo starts at $20 and goes up from there. This means you are saving at least $9 a box of hunting ammo. The only downside is most hunters don’t shoot more than a couple boxes of ammo a year.
Places to get cheap components
If you get into reloading to save money, you need to look for the best deals on components. It’s clear from the previous examples you can’t just go into your local Cabela’s or sporting goods store and save money. Spending time searching the internet can turn up some really good deals on bullets.
Places like Chey-Cast bullets sell handgun bullets for a good price and offer free shipping on orders of over $100. The free shipping is an amazing value. In fact, you need to always consider shipping when buying online. Many times the shipping will push the cost to more than the cost of what you can get locally.
If you want to make your life easy you can always use AmmoSeek. They do all the searching for you and give you a list of cost per bullet on multiple websites. Plus prices on ammo and brass. They maybe not have every deal listed and of course, and you can find better deals if you spend some time looking. However, it’s quick and easy to find good deals on reloading components.
You can always make your life easy and just go over and buy from Wes Sage. He always has a fair price and amazingly quick shipping. For those who don’t already have brass, he runs deals where you get the bullets and brass as a package. These deals will save you time and money.
Don’t Buy Powder or Primers online
If your goal is reloading to save money avoid buying primers and powder online. It’s required by law that sellers charge you a hazardous materials fee for shipping them. This fee is about $25. Which means if you find somewhere that gives you “free shipping” and save $5 on a pound of powder. You will still spend $20 or more on powder than if you bought it locally. Because of the Hazardous material fee.
Of course some times you can find a big deal on primers. It is possible to add the hazardous shipping fee into the cost and save money on primers if you buy enough primers for the right deal. The downside if you will end up buying around 10,000 primers to save money. So either get a few friends to go in with you or understand you’ll end up with a potential lifetime supply of primers.
Cheap Reloads versus Match Grade Ammo
The one thing to consider when you look at the cost of reloading versus buying ammo is the quality of the ammo you make. Cheap ammo is never as consistent as what you will reload. Many times the variation of powder weight can be up to half a grain in cheap factory ammo. I’ve never known a reloader that excepts even a .2 grain variation in their reloads. This means you are getting much better quality ammo for the same price.
The fact is to buy ammo of the same quality as reloaded ammo, you’d have to buy Match Grade ammo. When you compare the cost of match grade ammo with the cost of reloaded ammo you will notice a huge cost savings.
Conclusion
If your only goal is reloading to save money, don’t bother. You’ll never save enough to justify the hobby of reloading. However, if you want to shoot ammo that is tailored to your gun, for the price of cheap bulk ammo. Please start reloading. You will never regret reloading ammo as long as you know why you are doing it. Reloading is not about saving money. That may be a benefit if you shot enough. The benefit to reloading is that you get a better quality ammo, at a price that makes you shoot more often. It’s really a win, win situation because people who reload enjoy it almost as much as shooting it.