Do you reload for your plinking rifles?

[longdayjake]

.223 as you can buy PMC for about $7.00 for 20 rounds.

That is 35 cents per round. You can make much better stuff for about half that price. Heck, I got my .223 down to about 3 cents apiece. Granted I get my bullets, primers, and casings for free. But even at the prices I sell bullets for they can be done for about 17-18 cents apiece. I could probably get them down to 1 cent apiece if I wanted to buy 100 lbs of surplus powder. I just don't have anywhere to put it.

 

[scythefwd]

Jake! What are you paying for powder??? How little are you using???

 

[jcwit]

I reload for every caliber I own approx 40 different ones, with the exception of rimfires of course.

I'm not Jake, but my cost for the powder I have is in the neighborhood of $8.00 to $15.00.
Primers are at $50.00 per 5,000.

The above prices enclude the haz/met fees. No longer available at those prices tho sorry to say.

I should add I also cast for most calibers also.

 

[FROGO207]

Oh yeah I reload for everything I shoot except rim-fire. The 7.62X39 is not cost effective to make plinking ammo for today but the hunting/accuracy loadings for it are a must. I reload a LOT of sizes from .22 Hornet to 500 NE. Those two in particular are REALLY worth reloading.

 

[longdayjake]

I have powders that I can get for $5-$9 per pound. I sell a lot of pulled bullets so you can probably guess how I get my pulled powder. I have sold so many millions of .223 bullets that I have more "extra" .223 bullets than I care to count. Every now and then someone gives me a thousand primed Lake City cases to try to convince me to carry them. So, all I pay for is powder and its way cheap for me. Just one of the perks of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars at a particular supplier for so many years.

The good news: If everything works out I will be stocking primed lake city cases and bulk powders soon.

The bad news: I have no time to load them or shoot them any more.

 

[kingmt]

I don't get any free stuff. I do pick up cases from the range & it cost me 8 cents to load a .223 with hard ball. 18 cents a piece for V-Max.

 

[levsmith]

I don't get any free stuff. I do pick up cases from the range & it cost me 8 cents to load a .223 with hard ball. 18 cents a piece for V-Max

Would you mind sharing a little info about your hard ball load? Powder and bullet mainly. And where do you get the bullets from? For 8 cents, you cant go wrong, since I dont need 1 moa accuracy for a plinker. Thanks

 

[Arkansas Paul]

I load everything but rimfire and shotshell.

 

[Eb1]

Reload for everything except .22 LR and 7.62x39. My favorites to load for are 30-30 and .44 Magnum. The 30-30 is a blast to load for because it is so versatile. Use mild loads of VV powder with a 125 grain Sierra for a 75 yard zero. That is a good plinking load as well as a real nice woods hunting load.
A 110 grain Speer HP with a Winchester case stuffed full of H335, and you have a blazing exploding varmint round out to 175 yards. You can go further, but the wind really makes the .30 cal HP out of the 30-30 drift.

 

[Shmackey]

now, if i could only figure out a practical way of making my own primers, i would be all set.

Don't say I never helped you out.

 

[kingmt]

I found some cheep powder that I knew nothing about & figured if nothing else it would make cheep firecrackers so I bought 2 jugs & found a new love. Once I knew what I had I tried to find more but it was long gone & I was told there would probably be no more. Any how it work out to about .7 cents a cartridge. The primer are Tula that I got a good deal on which came out to 1.5 cents a piece(I found you can get Wolf cheaper). The bullet I think is a M193 which I bought a few/K which came out to 5 cents(4.something).

 

[BigN]

223 ammo is cheap but the one I have will not shoot that great with any factory ammo. Only by reloading can I get any acceptable accuracy with it.

 

[dbarnhart]

>>Right now the things that are holding me back are picking up brass, cleaning, trimming to length. just seems like too much work if you have to trim and check length for every cartridge when I really dont use it for precision shooting, just a plinker.<<

I don't check every piece of brass every time. I prepare cases in batches. The last batch contained about 1700 cases. That batch will stay together and get shot, then thrown into a bucket until I've used used up that batch. I'll be able to reload that batch of cases 2-3 times before they need trimmed again.

When I'm ready to reload a batch, I'll spot-check a hundred or so. If I find a few that need trimmed, I will run them all through the trimmer. It takes no more time to run a case through the trimmer than it does to check it for length.

 

[CHALK22]

Yup, I reload for .223, very often in fact. My "plinking" ammo shoot under 1 MOA regularly. No if I can just cut down on the coffee.....

I wish you could reload rimfire! My range is FULL of that ish!

 

[RustyFN]

I think it's Lyman that has a max lenght guage that is really handy. It has a bunch of "cut outs" in it for various case lenghts. It's way faster than a caliper and won't change.

I've seen those, they look pretty cool. I just take my caliper and open it to max case length and lock them. Then any case that won't fit through gets trimmed. Very fast to check a loy of cases.

 

[RustyFN]

you must shoot the premium .22LR. What i shoot is about 3 cents per round.

It would be hard to beat that loading 223, I'm around 11 cents each. I can beat it loading cast bullets in pistol. My cost loading cast in pistol is 2.5 cents each.

 

[levsmith]

It would be hard to beat that loading 223, I'm around 11 cents each. I can beat it loading cast bullets in pistol. My cost loading cast in pistol is 2.5 cents each.

Would you mind giving me some of your load info? especially what bullets you are using. The cheapest i have found is 95 bucks plus shipping for 1000 Lake city M-193. Thats at least 9.5 cents per round just for the bullet

 

[jcwit]

Check here $70.00 a thousand

http://hi-techammo.com/

 

[RustyFN]

Would you mind giving me some of your load info? especially what bullets you are using. The cheapest i have found is 95 bucks plus shipping for 1000 Lake city M-193. Thats at least 9.5 cents per round just for the bullet

I cast my own bullets with free wheel weight lead. I still have around 1,600 pounds. Pistol bullets are free.
I pick up brass at the range and have at least 2,000 in each caliber, some calibers a lot more. Brass is free.
I go in with a couple of friends and buy in bulk. I have been loading for two years on $16 per 1K primers and have a good supply left.
Same with powder, I buy in bulk and have some $12 per pound powder still left. I'll be picking up a 8 pound bottle of H-335 from a friend Tuesday for $95.
When I bought bullets for my AR I found Hornady FMJ-BT for $57 shipped so I bought 3,000. I also have some pulled bullets I got that were $199 for 7,800.
I wait until I see a deal and then we max out a hazmat.

 

[jcwit]

Way to do it Rusty, did the same a few years ago, can't save funds by buying by the lb.

 

[RustyFN]

Way to do it Rusty, did the same a few years ago, can't save funds by buying by the lb.

Yea if you want to save it's the only way to go. I had to spend a little money up front but I haven't had to spend any more for two years and figure I won't have to spend much for 2 or 3 more years.

 

[levsmith]

Thanks for the replies guys. Also, thanks Rusty for the load info. I have family that lives near powder valley and I live a few hundred miles away but I can usually order something and pick it up while I'm around so I don't have to worry about hazmat fee's. My only problem is finding cheap bullets for plinking. Of course, now i need to find some brass too since I've been shooting steel cased junk. I think you guys have convinced me to start reloading for the AR.

 

[GLOOB]

I've seen those, they look pretty cool. I just take my caliper and open it to max case length and lock them. Then any case that won't fit through gets trimmed. Very fast to check a loy of cases.

Yeah, caliper jaws are tapered, too. So what's the difference, really?

I don't sort by # firings, because most of my brass was purchased used. The "once-fired" crimped military cases were 95% reamed, already, so I have no idea how many times they were actually fired.

I just sort by length. The ones that get trimmed/chamfered get set aside. Once all my cases have gone too long and been trimmed, then they'll all be in the same boat, so to speak. And then I'll start cycling through my entire lot of brass.

Lubing, trimming, chamfering, case gauging, and checking for web thinning adds a lot of steps to rifle reloading and is a big pain. It would be nice if you could save a lot of money, but the savings don't seem very much in 223, so far.

 

[RustyFN]

I think you guys have convinced me to start reloading for the AR.

levsmith you won't be sorry. Case prep is the main pain but if you shoot mild loads you can probably shoot three times before you have to trim again. If you have crimped primer pockets you will only have to swage them once then they are good until you lose them. I don't know about factory ammo because my AR has never shot any but with my handloads I can shoot three shot groups where you can touch them all with a dime and five shot groups where you can touch them all with a quarter at 100 yards. I'll take that any day.

 

[popper]

Get a case gauge if you are shooting AR, to prevent slam-fires. My reloads are more accurate and LESS $$ than factory 150's (.308). Blew a hole in the primer of a CTD FMJ reload. First time for everything. A strong ejector will cause neck dents in the brass, but otherwise brass life isn't bad.