What's my TIME worth, loading? (Monetizing your time at your press)

There have been a few posts asking about the cost of reloading and if reloading is worth it, financially (ignoring the education, sensitivity, quality, customization, accuracy, availability and independence benefits).

I know many loaders adamantly do not count their time as part of their loading costs. To those loaders, I ask, please do not address this. It will only clutter the thread. If you want to discuss it, please start another thread. This thread is 1) just for curiosity and 2) for those who do put a dollar value on their time.


Say you invest $500 in a loading bench on which you are able to load 100 rounds per hour. (I have done this, so I know you can, too.)

Then you buy enough components to load 2,000 rounds of 38 Special/.357 Magnum ammunition.

That would be 3 lbs powder, 2,000 primers, 2,000 premium plated bullets, and 200 once fired ases (you may already have these on hand from your prior shooting, but I am including them as a cost anyway).

Prices I have found on the internet and in my local gun store.

214.00 bullets (2,000)
70.00 primers (2,000)
56.00 powder (2 lbs)
160.00 brass (400, to be re-used 5 times, which is quite conservative)

Total investment, Tools: $500 Components: $500. $1,000 plus 20 hours of your time at the press for 2,000 rounds.

Equivalent in retail ammunition at $25 per 50 round box, 2,000 rounds.

But you have received nothing monetarily for your 20 hours operating the press.


But, let's take it to 4,000 rounds

Total investment $1,500 and 40 hours of your time for 4,000 rounds

Equivalent in retail ammunition at $25 per 50 round box, 4,000 rounds is $2,000. You have just "paid" yourself the $500 you saved by reloading for 40 hours of your time. $12.50 per hour.


Now, let's take it to 6,000 rounds.

Total investment $2,000 and 60 hours of your time for 6,000 rounds

Equivalent in retail ammunition at $25 per 50 round box, 6,000 rounds is $3,000. You have just "paid" yourself the $1,000 you saved by reloading for 40 hours of your time. $16.67 per hour.


Now, let's take it to 8,000 rounds.

Total investment $2,500 and 80 hours of your time for 8,000 rounds

Equivalent in retail ammunition at $25 per 50 round box, 8,000 rounds is $4,000. You have just "paid" yourself the $1500 you saved by reloading for 40 hours of your time. $18.75 per hour.

If you have different prices for your tools or components, you can send them to me and I can plug them into my spreadhsheet (which right now is too clunky to publish). If there is enough interest I can clean it up and share.

I would need 8 elements: (plus some information from you)
Cost of your loading setup
Number of times your brass can be (or will be) reloaded
cost of your brass
cost of your primers
cost of your powder in one of two ways,
(1)Cost of powder for round or
(2)Cost of powder per pound and an estimate of your powder "spillage" and your charge weight.
Amount of time to load your typical session's production, to include ALL TIME SPENT. Setup and teardown, separating brass, cleaning, inspecting, boxing, labelling, EVERYTHING.
Over-the-counter cost of the most comparable ammunition you can buy

The extra information from you is for my own curiosity: What equipment are you using and do yo do batch processing, continuous, or a mix of both. Your typical processing session.

I know some loaders don't load start-to-finish (like prepping and priming all their cases for weeks and then completing the loading later). For those loaders, my spreadsheet is not yet up to the task. Sorry.

Enjoy this for what it is, a curiosity.

Lost Sheep

kreidel said:

If you are going to account for your time you forgot about time and gas to buy the componets or the time you spent on your computer ordering. You can throw in R&D time, cleanup time, etc.

Click to expand...

I did not count the gas, figuring it to be a wash. For the rest of it, I hope that my phrase

Amount of time to load your typical session's production, to include ALL TIME SPENT. Setup and teardown, separating brass, cleaning, inspecting, boxing, labelling, EVERYTHING.

Click to expand...

would prompt anyone who wants to include that time in the calculation will include it.

I actually did not consider those elements, but anyone who wants to include them should add them in (pro-rated to the round count, of course).

Thanks for helping edit my calculations.

Lost Sheep

oneounceload said:

reloading set up cost - paid for over 35 years ago, but was under $100 then

Number of times reloaded - 15+ for 38

Brass cost is zero - already have all I need and scrounge if more needed

last time I bought SP primers, they cost me $15/1000

Cost of powder per pound is $110/8 or less than $13/lb. Use 4.5 grains per round

I use a single stage press so reloading 100 from beginning to end is right about an hour to being in a bag

Click to expand...

I left out that I need your cost for comparable commercially loaded ammunition. I used $25 per 50 round box for this calculation.

You left out the cost of the slugs, so I used $107 per 1,000. Probably higher than your cost, but it's what I got quoted from Berry's.

Note that since my primary audience was people contemplating becoming loaders, it is future costs that are more relevant.

Here's your results. You were ahead of the cost curve right from the beginning (at the 272nd round - you broke even on the tools cost on #271.)
Round Hourly
Total pay rate
1000 26.89
2000 31.89
3000 33.56
4000 34.39
5000 34.89
eventually reaching $36.89 per hour when your round count reaches infinity or you run out of those cheap primers, whichever comes first.

Based on $25 per 50 round box for purchased ammo for comparison
$107 per thousand for bullets
$15 per thousand primers
$13.75 per lb for powder
3% spillage of powder
4.5 grains per round
15 uses per cartridge case
$0 cartridge case cost


Gosh, you are fast. There is no way I could do 100 per hour on my single stage including filling primer tube, setting up my scale, all those little things.

Thanks for volunteering to be my first victim, er, test calculation.
Lost Sheep

Josh45 said:

Powder by LB - $20 ( 4.2-4.4 Gr )
Primers - $35 per K
Brass - Free ( )
Bullets - $75 per 500 ( 230 Gr FMJ RN )
About an hour or so for 100 rounds. Im slow because I usually tend to look for a load and then set everything up. I take my time and do not rush this. Using a Turret.

Click to expand...

I need your cost of comparable commercial ammo and your number of reloads per case in order to perform the calculations.

Lost Sheep