At what price - stop buying/start reloading 9mm?

I base mine on time and effort. Since I have plenty of time indoors during the winter here in Ohio I tend to do most of my reloading then. Even when prices are low for 9mm I feel I get better accuracy with my reloads so I stick to it.

I'm tooling up for it now. I have been stashing brass for a while and I figure $160/1000 prices aren't coming back anytime soon.

Of course the availability of components is another matter.

I've also been considering just not shooting 9mm and not dealing with it at all.

I started reloading 9mm last year when I started shooting competitively.
I know it doesn't save me a lot, but it just feels wasteful to burn through all that brand new ammo and not reuse the cases.

I held off for a while but ended up starting last year when new ammo was still $160 a case. Originally I was planning on developing some loads in case the ammo got high or scarce. Ended up just buying a bunch in bulk to get the cost down and kept on loading it. Came at a good time because I started shooting in matches and now we have the high prices. It makes it more worth while when I don’t have to buy brass. Just not a whole lot of anything found at the local range. But I have a lot of off time and I enjoying loading so I still save money either way.

9MM is the caliber/cartridge I reload and shoot the most, not counting 22LR. I load around 3-5K rounds a year. Typically around 50% is 9MM. So, yeah I load it.

I reload 9mm and it make a lot of sense when you are loading hollow points. I also reload 9mm in FMJ but do not have as much money there but since I am already reloading for the caliber why not do FMJ as well.

If there was a cheap 9mm ammo that shot as well as my reloads and I could get it at a moments notice . I'd buy it but that unicorn has left the building . I'm in CA and with the new ammo background checks and it hard to always find the same stuff on sale . I'd rather reload it .

I started reloading 9mm as my first. It's easy, never had any issues and I was loading hollopoints for cheaper than I could get plinking ammo from Walmart. It's always been about learning to build high quality ammunition. I could never afford to shoot top tier rounds from the store but I can build them. 5 boxes of federal gold metal match 223 or 308 would wipe me out. Build the best ammunition I can no mater the caliber, minus lead practice bullets which I am figuring out.

A year ago I would have said no. Because I was loading on a single stage press at that time.

After the upgrade to a Dillon, I spend less time loading and more shooting. So now with the less time factored in and quality ammo I can produce, i load alot of it.

I have a 5 gal bucket of brass to go with all the rest I need just in case. I long ago stopped bothering to roll it. After they allowed us to start buying in mail order it just go too cheap. Now as for panics I have always kept plenty on hand just for that. So never have to pay scalper price. If some panic lasted long enough for me to run low I would start cranking some out again.

I cast my own bullets so I can load 9mm pretty cheap.

Economics don't enter into my decision to reload 9mm. I have the benefit of much available free time and the fact that I enjoy the loading process - even on a single stage. The benefit of loading it is having accurate ammo that carries with it a pride of being manufactured by me......and by chance I happen to save a little $.

p404445 said:

I started reloading 9mm last year when I started shooting competitively.
I know it doesn't save me a lot, but it just feels wasteful to burn through all that brand new ammo and not reuse the cases.

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When I started shooting USPSA in the 90s, I tested various factory ammunition and decided on S&B or PMC for greater accuracy over others.

Then seasoned match shooters told me to reload to reduce my group size. After testing different powders, powders I settled with shrank my group size by 40% and I could control the "recoil impulse" (only has to meet power factor) to get back on sights more quickly for faster double taps.

No price point would ever get me to reload 9mm because if factory 9mm became so expensive I would buy a progressive and load .40/10mm and probably never shoot 9mm again.

Started with 9mm, stayed with 9mm. I load and shoot more of it than all others combined. Getting smarter these days and buying large quantities of projectiles. I already had 1000s of cases as I’d been saving for years toward this eventual goal.

Started out as many do...producing something perhaps “as good as” factory range fodder. Do something long enough and often enough and I think you get good at it. It’s also nice that no one else seems to be reloading around here. So I’m constantly adding to my already too large supply of 9mm cases.

I have a friend who loves shooting my guns, so she ;likes to buy me components. I cast my own bullets and powder coat as well, so I am literally loading 9mm for the cost of the electricity to run the lead pot and the toaster oven, so figure what, $.25 per thousand?

Cost is one thing...availability is another. Right now, I can't buy factory 9mm for love or money. Well, not quite, but pretty close. I started loading 9mm right at the beginning of this whole mess and glad I did. I had kept a fair amount of brass just in case, and glad I did. But, to the question of cost, now that I have the dies and components, 9mm would have to get back down to under 20 cents a round before I bought factory again. That being said, I have a 6 cavity mold on order, and if that works out, I should be able to produce rounds for about 10 cents a round. But I would still buy some factory if it were between 15 and 20 cents a round

The last time I bought a box of 9MM it was Blaser Brass for $3.25 at wallyworld. I shot 38 SPL for many years and happily reloaded for that. Around 1985 I traded/purchased into a huge pile of reloading gear. One of the items was a set of Lee 9MM dies. I kept them and shortly after found a deal on a police trade in 9MM and purchased it. Now I own half a dozen of them and a couple 5 gallon buckets of range brass. I can reload lead rounds that are more accurate than anything I can buy so it makes sense to me to do it. YMMV

I load all mine nomatter what, sometime I get curious about some kind of ammo so I will buy one box but that's about it.
I have the equipment so I use it.

I don't see it ever being worth the effort for me to load for 9mm. I'm retired and can work one day/week and earn enough to buy more 9mm ammo than I could load in the same amount of time. And that would be assuming all of my components were free. Pay for bullets, powder and primers and I'm way ahead just buying loaded ammo.

When the price of loaded ammo goes up, so does the price of components. When loaded ammo is in short supply so are components. The key is to have either enough loaded ammo, or components available to get through shortages. I'm covered.

The way things are going, I will feel even lucky to be able to own a firearm. It is getting ridiculous to even try to find 9mm and at what time will powder and bullets even be available? I am already looking to invest in a few Grand to buy a PCP rig in 357 or other big bore caliber and small caliber to like 22 to have any enjoyment that might be there.

I use to reload, stopped reloading a few years back. A post on this forum got me thinking and I am now investing as well as much I can on reloading supplies for 9mm.

I reload everything I shoot except .22LR. Being retired has its advantages.
My current cost is .13 per round for 9mm. I have not seen prices that low on commercial ammo in forever. Yes, it takes a while loading on an LCT but not terribly long--I can load 100 cases in about 30 minutes. Accuracy is really good and recoil is low for what I shoot. No complaints here!

Before the pandemic the wife and I shot 2000-2800 rounds of 9mm each month.

Reloading has allowed for stellar accuracy for cheaper than new prices. Buy in bulk, reload on a progressive so on my good days I'll churn out 1500 rounds in a day depending on arm pulling session.

9mm is my most reloaded cartridge by far