Is reloading really worth it

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

Sorry I guess I'm not entitled to an opinion.

You are certainly entitled to an opinion, but when you are claiming that reloaders aren't being honest about things, you definitely should be able to back up those statements with facts.

Perhaps you can post the math and lets see how it lines up with people experience.

 

[blarby]

I've done the math several times, and am not convinced it's more economical to reload

Well I have, and I'm convinced it is.

I simply cant buy rifle ammunition in the quality I make it.

I cant buy pistol ammunition at anywhere near what it costs me to make it myself, and thats using a single stage press.

Its very simple : it either is, or is not, worth it to you.

If it isn't, dont do it.

If it is, keep doing it.

The day I can walk into wally world, and pick up a pack of 20 cartridges that puts a 4 shot group together like the one shown below- I will sell all of my reloading equipment here, and be done with it.

I believe completely that its worth it.

When you find a box of shells off the shelf that shoots groups like this, lemme know.

 

[cfullgraf]

The value of time at the reloading bench is a constant source of debate during all the "is reloading worth it" threads.

It seems that the folks who do not want to reload, justify themselves in part because they add in some hourly rate for their time. Some folks even add in the depreciation of the their reloading gear.

Folks who like to reload say the time is recreational anyway and costs no money. The equipment is merely a cost of enjoying the hobby, like a fishing boat, set of golf clubs, a swim club membership, or NFL Sunday ticket on DirecTV, etc.

As said by many, it comes down to how you value your time and being honest about it will win more points on both side of the debate than flat out statements that the other side is wrong for such and such reason.

Yes, a home reloader could never compete with commercial loaders because he could not recoup the value of his time spent.

Yes, reloading involves some expenditure of time and capital that some shooters are not willing to invest.

Yes, a home reloader saves money over most commercial ammunition because the sum of components cost less than than factory ammunition.

Yes, the home reloader can make better ammunition than the bargain priced surplus/"former comm block" stuff at a competitive price.

Opinions matter and count but remember to add that "this is the method that works for me" (or something similar) and realize that others will disagree.

The idea is to point out alternatives to those sitting on the fence wishing to be educated. Then they can make an educated decision.

I used to do all my own car repairs including major repairs such as clutch replacements and engine overhauls. My repairs cost less out of pocket and were better than I could pay for at some mechanic's shop. Now a days, i do not care to spend the time so I repair my cars with my check book.

Do I fault the guy who repairs his own cars? NO.

Do i accept that it costs me more out of pocket money to have my cars repairs? YES.

It is all how i value my time. It is the same with reloading.

 

[cpileri]

it has non-monetary benefits

If I can add to the custom-ammo thought:
SOmetimes i "save" money; sometimes i get non-monetary benefits.

Once, i wanted some 8mm Mauser loaded w barnes TSX bullets to hunt with. At the time, the Vortex ammo line was not available and I found a manufacturer that would do it for abt $80 plus shipping for 20 rounds. For that price, I bought new brass, dies and bullets annd loaded them myself. Annd i can make more later.

On the non-money side: i wanted to get some new female shooters engaged in the sport, kids around 10-12 years old. they all wanted to try a 12ga shotgun. Hmm... Federal came out with those pink plastic shells for breast cancer awareness so i shot a few and reloaded the pink shells with powder-puff loads. Now I had a nice pink shell i could tempt them with. They LOVED it and actually using my equipment reloaded the shell themselves and wrote their name on it with a sharpie marker.

You cant put a value on that!

C-

 

[Onward Allusion]

1SOW
<SNIP>This whole topic is actually a little silly. If you enjoy a hobby (or two or three), have the time and money for it/them, then by all means go for it. If you don't, then do whatever turns your crank., even if it's "Time=Money".

I would have to agree. It is a hobby (reloading) and should be "to each their own". I think each die hard reloader or non-reloader can and will provide justifications until the cows come home.

 

[jmorris]

If your goal is to save money, sell all or your centerfire guns and just shoot .22's.

If you want to shoot more centerfire than you have been for the same amount of cash, while doing something with your spare time, it's worth it.

 

[guyfromohio]

Blarby...... CCI Blazer Aluminum. $8.99/50. How much for the equipment?

 

[Certaindeaf]

^
That's pretty cheap for .44 magnum.

 

[hardheart]

Time is money for anyone who earns a wage or is charged a fee based on time - hourly, weekly, etc.

Time is also valuable. Anything that is limited has value. No one is immortal, or can delay any and all deadlines to their convenience.

I believe that it is more a statement that if someone reloads only to save money and not because they enjoy the actual act of of reloading, then it becomes a comparison of what else they could be doing with the time spent reloading versus the money saved by reloading. Doing something for financial consideration with no particular enjoyment sounds like work, and not all that enjoyable work. And in the case of reloading, it is physical labor where you are paying all the equipment and consumable costs. Buying factory loaded or components both leaves you with less money than you start with.

With reloading, you exchange your free time for some of that money - so the value consideration is what else can you do with that free time, versus what you can do with the particular amount of money you are saving. Plus you consider the time you have to invest at the beginning to break even on the cost of the reloading equipment.

Either way, the bullet exits the barrel pretty quick, so how long a magazine full of rounds lasts doesn't change and is a pretty small amount of time relative to other things. If you have a predetermined goal of certain rounds fired per range trip, and range trips per year, then the money saved is not going to equal more rounds fired in a year. if you shoot a thousand rounds a year, then you shoot a thousand a year. It could cost you $1000, 500, 250, 100, 50, whatever. You could shoot for fun, for SD practice, hunting practice, for precision, etc.

If your other expenses are well covered by your lifestyle and occupation, then saving money by spending time in front of the reloading bench might really not be worth it.

I haven't started reloading yet, and these are the things I am really thinking about. I do my own auto and home repairs because I am frugal, my dad taught me how, and I like being able to do things. I also research a lot of things to understand the world around me. I have read up on firearms operation and now reloading, so I would like to think I can do it and it would be financially sound. But, the savings are not huge for the amount of shooting I do over a period of time (as opposed to a bigger enthusiast or a competition shooter, who also has other financial considerations)

And it isn't a question of what is your time worth because of what you make per hour. If you are doing this in your off time, then it doesn't affect your wage earning. The question is likely more about how much you value a nickel compared to the 5 minutes you spent saving it when you could have been napping, playing with the dog, or reading.

Time is valuable, and people value it differently.

 

[CraigC]

I simply cant buy rifle ammunition in the quality I make it.

I cant buy pistol ammunition at anywhere near what it costs me to make it myself, and thats using a single stage press.

Another point to be made is that folks are usually comparing handloads to the absolute cheapest crap they can buy that still goes bang. I'm not a "precision handloader" (whatever that means) and I don't weigh every charge but I guarantee you that my handloads are better than most factory loads and at least on par with the premium stuff. So when comparing prices and "doing the math", I don't compare my handloads to cheap crap. Even if I do, it still adds up to a huge savings.

I shoot a lot of .38Spl, which can be bought cheap but I also shoot a lot of .38-40, .44Spl, .44Mag and .45Colt. Which cannot be bought cheap. An extreme example would be the .38WCF. The cheapest ammo I can buy is Black Hills cowboy stuff, which is $37/50rds and near about useless for anything but plinking. I've never chronographed it but it's listed at 800fps for sixguns and that will probably yield 1000fps in rifles. The old standby Winchester silver box 180gr JSP is a whopping $73 for 50rds!!! I can handload them with 180gr RNFP's for $8/50rds or a 180gr Gold Dot (100x better than the anemic and outdated Winchester factory load which runs 1160fps out of rifles) for $17/50rds. Which makes for 1200fps in revolvers and 1475-1550fps in rifles. Both loads shoot into an inch at 50yds from my Uberti 1873 Deluxe Sporting Rifle.

So how does your math do with a savings of $29 for cast and $56 for premium jacketed loads??? That's for EVERY 50RDS FIRED! That's a big difference and pays for your equipment in a hurry. I highly value my time but I'm sorry, I'm making a VERY comfortable living but could never make enough money to justify spending $73 a box on crappy factory ammo that does not do what I need it to. Not when I can spend an hour rolling my own with better components, to better performance and at a higher level of quality PLUS saving $112 in the process.

I crank out .44Mag on a Dillon 650. The production rate coupled with the high price of loaded ammo makes for a huge savings. I can crank out 400rds in an hour without breaking a sweat. Cheapest crap I can buy is Fiocchi at $32/50rds or Winchester white box at $42/50rds. I load them for the same $8/50rds. So in one hour, I save $96-$136 producing a premium quality load. If we were to compare it to ammo of similar quality, let's look at Buffalo Bore ammo at roughly $80/50rds. Where I would save at least $288/hr.

I'll let 'leadcounsel' watch as I do the math......then let's figure on several hundred rounds a month. Let's say those 400rds last me a month, so I'm spending one hour of my time to save $288 a month. That's 12hrs a year to save $3456. Over the twelve years I've been handloading, which spans back to when I was making $10/hr, that's 144hrs to save $41,472. Bearing in mind that it also entails a whopping single trip to the gun show to stock up on powder and primers and perhaps a couple orders of cast bullets. Not exactly a monumental undertaking.

Blarby...... CCI Blazer Aluminum. $8.99/50. How much for the equipment?

I'd love to know at what magical place one can walk in and buy CCI Blazer at nine bucks per fifty rounds. When I talk prices, I talk every day, current pricing. Not some wildly exaggerated, buy a lottery ticket today, kind of lucky day price.

 

[JohnM]

Course it ain't.
Just ask some of the experts who've been here.
Ignore the fact they've never reloaded themselves.
Every second of their day seems so valuable I can't imagine how they could even waste any of it to come here and tell us we're wasting ours.

 

[giggitygiggity]

Yes it is. If you buy in bulk, it will cost you about 1/2 to 3/4 of what it costs for the equivalent factory ammo to include Wolf in most cases.

 

[cfullgraf]

Time is money for anyone who earns a wage or is charged a fee based on time - hourly, weekly, etc.

I got paid by the year. If it took me more hours to do the same job, my hourly rate went down.

 

[fehhkk]

For my .223 Remington reloads, total cost per 1000 rounds = $232.75
(8lbs H335 powder at $182 shipped, buying 2000 primers locally at $35.00 + 9.5% tax, and 1000 bullets at $112 shipped)

Federal XM193 1000 rounds bulk = $406 shipped
http://www.luckygunner.com/federal-223-ammo-for-sale-223rem55fmjbtae-1000

Savings = $174.01 (or 43% savings over buying commercial ammo)

My reloading press already paid for itself after 3000 rounds

I think that speaks for itself!

 

[CraigC]

I got paid by the year. If it took me more hours to do the same job, my hourly rate went down.

I get paid by the contract so if it takes longer to do my job, my hourly rate goes down. So the quicker I'm able to get my work done, not only do I make more money per hour worked, I make more time to do things like handloading.

 

[tding]

Did anyone mention that it is just fun to make things (legal) that go bang?

 

[BigN]

I'm not sure if dollarwise it's worth it or if it's cheaper but reloading is satisfying and "worth it" in so many more ways than saving money. I just enjoy doing it and experimenting with this bullet or that powder. For me, it has little or nothing to do with money. Besides, when I've perfected accurate loads for a particular caliber I have, I have an excuse to get another rifle to start experimenting with one I don't have

 

[ROGER4314]

Being retired, there's plenty of time. I never put my reloading on a financial basis because it's fun! Saying that and doing that are two different things, however so I took steps to make the hobby work for me.

First, a friend came over to help me clean out my spare bedroom. Then came the reloading bench with two Dillon RL550 presses and numerous caliber conversions. Cartridges that aren't set up for the 550 presses are done on an RCBS Rock Chucker.

Now, reloading is done in a climate controlled, well lighted and spacious room. I have a stereo in there and put on Classical music as I work. I reload while seated in a huge, comfortable, leather office chair in air conditioned or heated comfort. It's nice and it's a perfect rainy day activity!

I changed my system of ammo storage. I keep 200 rounds of any ammo needed. After a range trip, I load enough to restore that 200 rounds. If I didn't put that limit on my reloading, I'd anchor myself in front of the press and load until the supplies were gone. That's work, not play! I also got away from having large stocks of ammo stored around here.

With the RL550's, one is set up for large primers and one for small primers. Conversion for calibers is very easy with replaceable tool heads.

Recently, I traded for all the equipment needed to get back into bullet casting/sizing. That's fun, too and it doesn't matter one bit how cheaply cast bullets can be purchased elsewhere. It's all for my personal enjoyment.

There's another benefit to reloading. The friend who helped me clear out my back bedroom reloads for 12 gauge shotgun shells. We'll go to the range and bust clay pigeons with him supplying the ammo. Later, we move to the pistol range and I pop for the ammo. It works great!

Flash

 

[blarby]

@ guy :

Not bad, lemme see it @ 200 yards, not 20 feet, then we can talk Those dots on mine are from distance 7mm rifle, not CQ pistol. And shot by my wife, I may add........

I still make 44's for about $7.50/ 100, which is half of your blazer aluminum- about $4 for 45's... The reloading equipment for 45 cost me less than $60, if you include about a 5th of the press cost, which is how many calibers I loaded at the time I started doin 45.

Every second of their day seems so valuable I can't imagine how they could even waste any of it to come here and tell us we're wasting ours.

Lolz, another nose/milk moment- love it !

 

[GLOOB]

Sorry I guess I'm not entitled to an opinion. No need for the personal attack Jorg. Jorg, the difference is formulas and components vs. completed ammo.

100 primers and zero powder = no ammo.

100 9mm and zero 45ACP = no shooting your 1911. And if you wait for the deals and buy in bulk, you can end up with lots of ammo you don't shoot. I have tons of 9x18 factory ammo resulting from a brief infatuation with a particular handgun that just now collects dust.

If you look at the other side of the coin, you can use powders/primer/lead for multiple calibers. Reloading, particularly if you cast, can simplify your time balancing inventory. Heck, even if you run out of lead, you can recast bullets to different calibers if need be. I've been feeding my casting pot with some commercial 45 SWC that don't feed in my Glock, whenever I want to add some flux. Since I started casting and shooting more lead, I no longer worry about stocking any caliber specific things except gas checks for rifles and maybe a box or two of quality jacketed bullets where warranted. Got powder, got primers, and I'm good to go. There's no fear of running out of ammo in any one caliber, even if I'm down to my last bullet. I've discovered most SRP can be used in pistol. And vice versa for light loads. LPP works for low pressure cast rifle loads, too, in a pinch. And there are a lot of flexible powers (Unique, Red Dot, Trailboss, etc) that can get a cast bullet moving out of just about anything, with just about any alloy, with or without gas checks. Even if that great sale price on jacketed ammo/bullets doesn't come around when I need it, I can keep on shooting.

 

[guyfromohio]

Blarby.... make that 25 feet, not 20. Golly.

And I was teasing as I knew you get my sarcasm. I really do think I'm going to get that press.

 

[jmorris]

My all time best has been 1000, 230 grain 45 acp rounds for $18.

 

[blarby]

Oh, I got it alright Personally, I think they should outlaw that aluminum stuff like they did lead waterfowl shot. Its a pollutant- no one picks it up.

 

[jcwit]

Some of these characters must just about have a heart attack if they have a flat tire on the way to work!

I can't imagine getting this worked up over every hour, minute, second of every day. Some folks really need to get a life and stop and smell a rose now and then. If they don't one day they'll wake up and it will be all over and then all you need is 3' x 6' chunk of real estate or a small urn. And no one will care.

 

[Still Shooting]

Reloading as an Integral Part of "Tuning"

I am now 66 years old, and still need to work for a living. That entails (usually) travel to and from clients, and that's about 15hrs each way if the client is on the Left Coast - 8 or so if on the East Coast or in Midwest. For four days a week, I sleep in a hotel somewhere. When I come home, I pay bills, fix what broke at home or on the car, plant and tend the vegetable garden, and SHOOT. I have been into handguns, and out of that - loaded .45ACP, 9mm, .357, and .380. Now I just do rifles.

At night, when everything quiets down at home, I reload. It relaxes me, and I can put aside client crises, project problems, etc., and focus on something that gives me pleasure. I don't dislike reloading; in fact, a good-looking box of .257 Roberts rounds, or a new load for my wife's .243 satisfies a sense of accomplishment. I can go to the range anytime I want between 9AM and sunset, and make holes in paper.

But my real turn-on is extracting the most possible accuracy and reliability out of every centerfire rifle I own, which is now 12 rifles. This includes my Dad's and Granddad's Remington Model 14 in .30 Rem, and my other Granddad's Winchester '07 in .351WSL (both no longer manufactured, except as a custom load). I also load for a .303 Brit.

I have a 6.5x55 Swede (M93), my wife's .243, my .270, and my 7mmWSM all shooting at 1/2moa, and as of day before yesterday my .257 Bob turned in a 1/4moa group (where I had it in the early 1980's). The process is iterative: find the most accurate load for each bullet weight I typically shoot, then tune the rifle (cartridge L.O.A., barrel bedding, action bedding, trigger pull, etc.) with the load to achieve the desired accuracy. It pays off when hunting, and it lets me know at the range when I am shooting well, and when I shoot not-so-well.

I started reloading when I was 16, and while I took a 21 year break when marriage, kids, and career made it impossible to spend the time, I have come back to it and for the past 4 years have enjoyed reloading and shooting more than ever.

Do I save money? -Absolutely, given the range and number of calibers I reload. Do I care? -Not really. I do it for other reasons.