Its about time I reload, a couple questions

[brentn]

I've been talking to a buddy of mine who has been reloading for years. His son got into some trouble with the police and because he was living with him, his and his sons firearms and licence's were taken away and he doesn't have a firearm anymore. Its been a year now and he has been telling me about presses, dies, resizing, etc, really interesting stuff, but he can't remember the pricing for powder primers etc.

I was just talking to him today and I don't have time to go to the local gun shops to check pricing until the weekend, I was hoping to get a sort of price quote here.

If I'm going to reload I would like to do 1000 rounds at a time. I have found a place that sells once fired brass for .223 for 40$ for 1000 cases. The best part is that they are cleaned an polished! I thought that was a pretty good deal.

So with that in mind, whats the LEAST expensive powder and primers to use? I really want to keep costs down, and as long as I can do MOA with my AR15 on cheap cheap reloads, I'm happy. So the next question would be how accurate are cheap loads?

So yea, just some popular powder recommendations for .223 that are very inexpensive, primers that are popular and inexpensive, and finally a recommendation on some FMJ bullets that are inexpensive. Probably the 55gr ones.

I appreciate your time, and I'm more looking for the brand names than a price, as the prices up here in canada land are usually much different. Buit if you want to spout off a price that you pay down there as a ballpark for me, it would be appreciated.

thanks!

 

[KaiserBen]

For a .223 powder, I use Ramshot TAC, though I've heard positive reports on Varget, BLC-2 and H335. TAC is by far the cheapest. Hornday 55gr FMJ-BT bullets are the cheapest I've seen.

 

[esheato]

Buy EVERYTHING in bulk from here Powder Valley.

 

[RustyFN]

I buy H335 and W748 powder. I get them for $11 to $12 per pound. I buy Magtech and Wolf primers. I get them for around $16 per 1,000. I have been buying Hornady 55 grain FMJ-BT for $58 per 1,000 from T and T reloading. I buy 55 grain tracers from Pat's reloading for $24 per 1,000.
Rusty

 

[fastattack]

In terms of cost of raw reloading materials, the cost of bullets is the biggest driver in the total cost per round. Don't worry about powder and primers. At my local shops, the average stuff is all around the same price anyway and when you figure total cost per round, its a wash. There is a big difference in powder however, especially for 223 when you run into things like compressed loads, so I suggest you buy powder that is suited for your needs, such as H335.
Good luck!

 

[brentn]

You guys are awesome! this is exactly the information that I'm looking for.

Is it cheap to buy ball powder, stuff they use in the military? I ask this because its dirty, its mass produced, and thus it must be cheap. Accurate enough for me too, or has this powder already been mentioned above?

The bullets seem to be the most difficult to come by, but depending on weight of 1000 55gr FMJBT I would def order them online.

 

[CU74]

I buy bullets on-line, primarily from Midway USA, but there are other good on-line sources so check around. Midway had a sale on blemished bullets a few weeks ago - the prices were "right". Powder and primers I buy from my local gun-pusher because the state sales taxes are cheaper than the HazMat and shipping charges from on-line dealers.

I have been fortunate in two respects. (1) Local gun-pusher hadn't bumped up his prices to reflect the January 01 increases, so I cleaned his shelves of UNIQUE and IMR4895 last week. (2) I don't have to buy brass (yet) - I started saving brass long before I started reloading.