To load or not to load...9mm

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I can get 9mm ammo for $8 per box of 50 locally. That includes tax. Would take about 2 hours for case prep and to load 50 rounds. I'd rather spend the 2 hours shooting than loading to save $2.
 
So at 20¢/ round compared to about 12¢/ round, I'm not sure I should go in to loading 9mm. I use a Lee LCT turret press and can produce about 125 rounds per hour. I figure I can load 9mm for about 12¢/rd; that only saves me about 8¢/rd, or about $10/hr. I'm also loading 44 special at about 14¢/round, but on that caliber, I'm saving 46¢/ round, or about $57/hr. I hate to pay $10-$12/box of ammo for 9mm, but according to basic economic principles, I should be focusing on loading 44 spl; any time I spend reloading 9mm is an economic loss.

I look at it a little differently. To me reloading is a rainy-day hobby. If its nasty outside or I just don’t feel like going anywhere I go out to my little workshop and prep brass or load if I am low on ammo. If I am running low on pistol ammo and I want to go shoot something, I use factory.
 
So it looks like Federal dropped their aluminum cased 9mm (i.e. cheap) ammo. Does anyone else make a cheap ($7-8/box of 50) 9mm 115grn FMJ? The next best things I can find are Magtech and Winchester NATO at $10/box and Blazer Brass at $11/box. (I'm gun shy about steel cased ammo so avoiding it.)

So at 20¢/ round compared to about 12¢/ round, I'm not sure I should go in to loading 9mm. I use a Lee LCT turret press and can produce about 125 rounds per hour. I figure I can load 9mm for about 12¢/rd; that only saves me about 8¢/rd, or about $10/hr. I'm also loading 44 special at about 14¢/round, but on that caliber, I'm saving 46¢/ round, or about $57/hr. I hate to pay $10-$12/box of ammo for 9mm, but according to basic economic principles, I should be focusing on loading 44 spl; any time I spend reloading 9mm is an economic loss.

Scenario 1: I'm doing this purely as a cost cutting strategy, I don't need hyper-accurate ammo, and that I'm not reloading for the joy and/or sake of reloading in and of itself, what do you guys think? Should I even gear up to reload for 9mm?

Scenario 2: Massive ammo shortages. Should I gear up to reload 9mm not as a cost cutting measure but as a hedge against market fluctuations/hyper-inflation? And if the answer yes, why wouldn't I just buy as much loaded ammo right now as I possibly can afford?
I’m in here late and haven’t read it all, but I will add S&B to the cheap available ammo list. Have you looked on www.ammoseek.com? You should find a lot of stuff for $8.50 or less a box, delivered.
 
Ammo Board has 1000 Fiocchi for $162.50 with free shipping. I’m assuming it is boxed, not bulk. And of course not reloaded. You can get cheaper reloaded. Try FedArm. Their reloaded stuff is pretty good. Just watch out for the shipping cost.
 
I can get 9mm ammo for $8 per box of 50 locally. That includes tax. Would take about 2 hours for case prep and to load 50 rounds. I'd rather spend the 2 hours shooting than loading to save $2.

What's this case prep you talk about? I clean 9mm brass and load it. The only reason I clean it is to get the dirt and sand off so I don't scratch my brass.

I can run around 500 per hour on my Dillon 650.
 
I'm loading 9mm but I will also buy them when the price is right. I've not been reloading long, so I needed the brass anyway. I picked up 10 boxes of Blazer when they went on sale for $8.99 Just because I needed the brass at the time. I try to reload on crappy weather weekends and stock up for spring and summer plinking. I guess if you have several other calibers to load, then I can see the point in not loading 9's.
 
9mm Winchester White Box at Walmart
500 for $85 - 10% rebate = 15.3 cpr (if you can find it)
200 for $35.54 - 10% rebate = 16 cpr
100 for $17.97 - 10% rebate = 16.2 cpr
 
I bought my last two cases of 9mm for 14¢ per round after rebates and free shipping. One case was Federal American Eagle 115 gr, the other was WWB 115 gr. I'm on the mailing lists of most of the major ammo / firearms sellers and when there's a good sale I stock up. I agree with the idea that you should have some components on hand for a rough ammo market, but as long as I'm getting decent stuff for not much more than it costs me to reload I'm taking advantage of it.
 
I load 9mm because I like the loads I worked up better than any cheap commercial ammo. I'm retired, so cost of labor is really not a factor. My cost is under .13 per round... and I use the Acme HiTek coated bullets, too.

I will always have ammo to shoot and I keep my components stocked up when there are sales.

I also use a LCT and find the rhythm of the press easy to manage with the Inline Precision attachments. 200 per hour is a good number for me and if I really needed more speed, I guess I would sell my LCT and find a way to purchase a Dillon. But... so far I'm just fine.
 
Actually, and I should have made this clear in the beginning, I can't buy any ammo online because I live in Alaska, and no one will ship ammo here-at least not to individuals/residences.
So, you may really need to consider loading 9mm, especially if prices tick upward a bit.
 
So, you may really need to consider loading 9mm, especially if prices tick upward a bit.

Agreed. The equation could change. I stated earlier that this is driven by...well, essentially I'm in the ammo futures market. I'm speculating, except that I have no intent to resell for a profit.
 
Just to be clear, my original question was essentially that about economic efficiency and opportunity cost.

Certainly, it's cheaper to reload 9mm than to buy it off the shelf. (That is likely to be true of almost any caliber.)

But every time I pull the handle on the reloading press, I have a decision to make: am I going to save 8¢ or 46¢? For every decision I make, I forgo the next best thing. My concern (pretty much resolved at this point) wasn't about the cash value of my time. At least not directly.
 
I do what Prowler53 does.
I load it, but I'll sure pick up a few boxes if I see a good price on it.
Nothing wrong with doing both, depending on prices and circumstances.
 
I'm convinced (and given price trends I may be able to test my conviction sometime in the future) I would load 9mm even if it cost MORE than buying it. I get that high of a level of personal satisfaction out of both 1/ doing the actual loading and 2/ knowing that what I'm shooting is stuff I've "developed and crafted". I'm quite fortunate that, embodied in that approach, is the fact that 1/ if commercially loaded ammo is ever less than handloads I can afford to pay for handloads and 2/ I have the time in life (retired) to load 9mm. I very much recognize (because I was there once) that others may not be in either of those positions.

People have acknowledged in this thread that figuring in the cost of our time, in some peoples' opinions, can be a not-very-practical assessment. I believe we're rarely trading off actually paying work in order to load. Even when I was working I would load when I was already not at work. So loading represented a time where, if I weren't doing that, I'd have been doing some other non-paying activity; such as mowing the lawn, watching a movie, doing a project around the house. In all of those scenarios I wouldn't have been getting paid. Nor did I factor in the "cost of my time" for doing *those* things.

Do hunters calculate the cost-per-pound of the meat they harvest - including the time taken to prep for the hunt, sight in the rifle, etc. etc.? I haven't seen it done. They hunt because they enjoy it and it delivers benefits far beyond the meat itself. That's how I view loading: It provides benefits to me far beyond cost savings. I realize that may not be the case for all.

OR
 
Do hunters calculate the cost-per-pound of the meat they harvest - including the time taken to prep for the hunt, sight in the rifle, etc. etc.? I haven't seen it done. They hunt because they enjoy it and it delivers benefits far beyond the meat itself. That's how I view loading: It provides benefits to me far beyond cost savings. I realize that may not be the case for all.

OR

Cheapest meat is at Costco. Especially when I add in the cost of my Polaris Ranger. (How much steak could Ih ave bought with 14 grand LOL.) That said, game meat really is a better, more healthy product for me and my family. But I get your point. When the salmon are running, we drop everything and drive 300 miles round trip to catch our 30 fish. Those are the most expensive fish I've ever caught or eaten. ust the fuel in the truck alone makes it a losing proposition.

I reload my hunting cartridges because A.) It produces a far superior product. (In this regrard only, I would agree with the notion of comparing handloads to premium ammo) and B.) with the cost of premium hunting ammo (Barnes X etc) it is far cheaper. So it's a win-win.

But if all I need 9mm ammo to do is ring a 10" steel plate at 20 yards? I'm at a point where "good enough" is...well...good enough.
 
Actually, and I should have made this clear in the beginning, I can't buy any ammo online because I live in Alaska, and no one will ship ammo here-at least not to individuals/residences.
Do you have a problem buying the components in Alaska, or having them shipped there?
 
Actually, and I should have made this clear in the beginning, I can't buy any ammo online because I live in Alaska, and no one will ship ammo here-at least not to individuals/residences.

I guess I don't understand the question then? You state you can get Win WB for $10. Where do you find that so cheap in Alaska??.
How do you get reloading components if no one will UPS or FedEX to you?? Alaska is a HUGE State and from what I know stuff is extremely expensive, So you get components or boxes of ammo at a local store for about the same price as online??
If you buy powder/.primers local how much do they cost??
 
Do you have a problem buying the components in Alaska, or having them shipped there?

I guess I don't understand the question then? You state you can get Win WB for $10. Where do you find that so cheap in Alaska??.
How do you get reloading components if no one will UPS or FedEX to you?? Alaska is a HUGE State and from what I know stuff is extremely expensive, So you get components or boxes of ammo at a local store for about the same price as online??
If you buy powder/.primers local how much do they cost??

I buy everything from either Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse, or a couple of LGS, depending on price and availability. These businesses have truck loads of palletized freight shipped up on the barge that leaves Seattle 3 times per week. None of this stuff comes in by plane or truck. Blazer Brass 115 grn 9mm is $11/box at Cabela's (Just bought 12 boxes last night - all that was available.) Sportsman's sells 8# jugs of Clays for $180. CCI primers run $36-$40 per 1k count box, depending on what size I'm buying, at Cabela's and the LGS. (LGS is actually cheaper on primers than the box stores.) Starline 44 Spl brass (I almost never buy brass) runs about $32/100. Often times...many times...there may be no stock of a particular item anywhere in Anchorage, and that can last for weeks, but that scenario isn't limited to ammo and reloading components.
 
If you are happy with off the shelf stuff and the price is right, there is nothing wrong with it.

I quit loading 9mm myself for about a decade before I started back in order to gain a competitive advantage.
 
If you are torn between buying factory ammo or reloading for yourself, there is a middle choice that may suit you better. There are several certified reloaders around the country that sell in 1000 round bulk lots, but since it's reloaded it's less expensive.

I highly recommend Georgia Arms and Atlanta Arms.
 
General pricing....generally.

Primer .03 each
Powder .02 each round
Bullet .10 each round
Case .05 each round cleaned and ready to load?

Total cost without equipment for something pretty good, is about 20 cents per round. If you recycle the brass or pick up range brass, then your making premium ammo for $7.50 for 50. Thats premium. you can get bullets cheaper, at like .06 cents, making it closer to $6 for 50.

The thing is, the $6 ammo is more accurate than the premium $20 a box stuff "generally".
 
It all depends upon if reloading is an enjoyable activity or not.

I enjoy reloading as a hobby unto itself so I have the equipment to reload every cartridge for guns that are chambered in them. I have dies and equipment to load something north of 30 different cartridges.

In the case of something like 9x19, the availability of various bargain ammunition seems to be hit or miss over time and the various winds of supply and demand. At least with my reloads, I find suitable components available and I buy in bulk. Then, I can duplicate the same load every time I have a reloading run.

For "generic" cartridges like 9x19, I'll do a major reloading run to replace my supply over a period of several days or a week. I may not do another run for 6 months to a year or or so.

In reality, the individual needs to look at all the factors and decide if they want to reload or buy bargain ammunition for commonly available cartridges like 9x19.
 
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