The break-even point for me has gotten even easier lately than it was a year ago. Even though the availability and selection of powders is much better now than a year ago, for some reason the price on powders has gone UP not down around here.
The way I calculate the minimum order to break even is as follows:
HazMat= $25.
For Hodgdon powder, the local price is $25/lb. Powder Valley cost is $19/lb. Therefore it would take about 4 lb of Hodgdon powder to break even if that's all I ordered.
For Alliant powders (a couple of my rifles are picky about that
) the local price is a whopping $29/lb. Powder Valley price is $19/lb. So just 3 lbs on an order means I have SAVED $5.
Primers are about $5/1000 for CCI cheaper there. For Winchester primers it's about $10/1000 cheaper at PV.
The answer is it doesn't take much powder at all to buy from PV. Obviously, it saves more the bigger the order, so I always wait until I am nearing the end of my supply for one particular powder. Buying 20 lbs of powder and 5000 primers for my rifles is nice. My budget doesn't always permit that though.
For pistols, it's not as big a deal for me. I shoot revolvers only so I don't go through the ammo like some folks do. For some calibers I can get 1000 rds out of 1 lb of powder. But even my biggest rounds still yield about 350 rds out of a pound. It's a whole different ballgame for the rifles though where 1 lb of powder only gets you 100 shots.