Some Interesting Math on the Value of Once-Fired Brass

[dbarnhart]

I'm a bras-scrounger. I'm always on the lookout for good deals on 45ACP, 223, 308 brass. I find a lot on Craigslist and Backpage. Tonight I was thinking about what actually constitutes a 'good deal'.

I decided that a strategy for determining this 'good deal' price would be to take the price of ammunition with reloadable cases and back out what I pay for the 'expendable' components.

I can get 500 rounds of Serbian or Turkish 308 for about $247.

Backing out the cost of the other components for 500 rounds:

$66.50 bullets
$16.00 primers
$65.00 powder

The total for the expendables comes to $147.50

Which means that if I pay more for once-fired 308 brass than $100 per 500 ($20/100) then I am better off buying the ammunition.

Of course, this does not factor in the cost of my time, but it's a standard by which I judge the offering price of used brass.

 

[J_McLeod]

Interesting post. It's a good strategy.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Exactly why I never buy empty brass, new or used.

I prefer to empty them myself. It's more fun.

OK, I HAVE bought used brass on a couple of occasions. But the general rule I follow is to just buy good, reloadable ammunition whenever I need some empty brass.

I have done the math a number of times (it makes my head spin, but I have a little computer that is a willing and able slave to my arithmetic whims). Much of the time it is more reasonable than buying new brass and does relieve any question over whether the brass really IS once-fired.

Thanks for validating my obsession with counting beans.

Lost Sheep

 

[RhinoDefense]

Time spent pursuing a hobby is of no consequence.

Get the FFL and start to sell your ammo it becomes work.

 

[Canuck-IL]

That's a viable strategy only if the quality of the rounds to be fired are of no consequence. Personally, I have no interest in expending barrel life on misc surplus ammo just to acquire the cases.
/Bryan

 

[Gadzooks Mike]

I think you're missing something - RE-load. You can use the brass more than once. Multiply all of that by how many times you could reload the brass - 5? 10? Let's try just 5:

Commercial - $257 x 5 = $1235
Expendables - $147.50 x 5 = $737.50 Plus Brass (one time cost) $100 = $837.50

Looks to me like you save $400 by reloading, and the longer you can use the same brass, the more you save.

 

[dbarnhart]

I;m not trying to determine how much I'm saving by reloading. All I'm doing, Gadzooks Mike, is calculating the acquisition cost of the brass. I'm presuming that I will use the brass over and over, but I do have to acquire it in the first place.

 

[EddieNFL]

Makes sense if the loaded ammo you buy is what you want.

Be interesting to see a calculation for match grade ammo versus buying MT brass.

 

[mrbro]

You need to amortize the cost of the brass because it has a longer lifetime than the consumables. If you plan on getting no more than 5 reloadings from the brass, then divide the brass cost by 5 and add the result to the cost of the consumables, that will give you the true cost for comparison. The way you are doing it is fine if you consider the brass a consumable that will not be used again.

I do not consider the cost of the brass, as its useful life is difficult to determine. I calculate the per round cost and compare that to what is available on the open market. For example, I can load 30-06 168g MKs for about .41 per round using 1st quality bullets, .31 each using blems. Purchasing larger lots of powder and primers would drive the cost even lower. I can buy Greek surplus from the CMP for about .50 per round. While not apples to apples, it is a useful comparison. Comparing apples to apples would be the cost of Federal GMM at $1.90 per round (20 round box @ Midway), a significant savings.

We've stopped loading for my son's 8mm Mauser as the surplus ammo is so cheap and shoots well in his rifle.

 

[ReloaderFred]

You also have to factor in the scrap price of brass. I used to sell once fired brass for $2.00 a pound, plus shipping. This was after buying the brass from the local range/club, spending hours at a time sorting it and ending up with about 30% of unreloadable .22 rimfire, Berdan primed brass, or just questionable cases that I wouldn't sell or use myself.

Now the scrap price of brass is over $2.25 a pound in my area. I don't have to spend the hours sorting, etc. I can fish out what I want for my own use and take the rest directly to the scrap yard and receive more than I was getting less than a year ago for the same brass, minus the hours and hours of labor and the hassle of packaging and trips to the Post Office.

This doesn't really matter to those who are only factoring the cost of buying once fired brass, other than the fact that the price of that brass is on the rise, and it looks like it's going to keep rising. With the price of new brass stock for making cartridge cases remaining over $6.00 per pound, before it's turned into brass, ammunition and component prices are going to keep going up.

Hope this helps to understand it better.

Fred

 

[Gadzooks Mike]

I;m not trying to determine how much I'm saving by reloading. All I'm doing, Gadzooks Mike, is calculating the acquisition cost of the brass. I'm presuming that I will use the brass over and over, but I do have to acquire it in the first place.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry.

 

[ranger335v]

"Of course, this does not factor in the cost of my time, but it's a standard by which I judge the offering price of used brass."

Well, I suppose your math is right. That's not the way I appraise my reloading and costs but I doubt anyone gives a rats butt how I do it. ??

 

[Caliper_Mi]

I agree with your math. At a certain price point reloadable ammunition will cost less than starting with all the components yourself.

That is the same reason I haven't bought any brass for my g/f's 7mm Mauser. The new brass I see on Midway costs too muc, more economical to buy PPU ammunition with reloadable cases. Reloading those cases will cost less than buying more ammo, but we can get the brass cheaper as loaded ammunition...

 

[StaTiK]

deleted because apparently my logic skills have failed me after a long day.:banghead:

-StaTiK-

 

[bubbacrabb]

There are plenty of places to buy 308 brass cheaper than 20 dollars per 100. Heck I sell it local here all the time for 10 dollars per 100 for match brass. I still feel bad about the 270 dies bud. I got some free at the last minute. Sorry bud. Cant beat free though, got 3 sets of dies free that day

 

[MarkDozier]

I have a simple fool proof way to count brass cost. I get at the range when I r/o. Watch them and collect the new once fired brass
COST 0.00

 

[gamestalker]

Using 7mm rem. mag as an example, because it is one of my most used cartridges, I feel I'm really making out well, even with new brass which is often the case.
I generally get at least 12 cycles, and that is loading near maximum pressure loads with RL22. At .60 cents per round for new brass, .20 cents for powder, and .03 cents for primer, and then .25 cents for the bullet I'm still shooting top quality ammunition for around $10.60 per 20 round box, not a bad deal in my opinion. I don't have a problem with once fired brass per say, but for the high powered rifle I don't like to risk getting stuff that has been loaded several times. It isn't so much of an economic concern, with high pressure bottle neck cartridges like the 7 mag. it becomes a bit more of a safety concern considering the type of loads I like to shoot.
But I've said more than once that I didn't enter into this hobby for the economics it offer's, but rather the ability to shoot unobtainable quality with factory and knowing exactly to what standard it was created by, and then knowing I was the one who did it. A feeling of accomplishment in producing it continues to feed my interest and enjoyment in this hobby.

 

[dbarnhart]

>>There are plenty of places to buy 308 brass cheaper than 20 dollars per 100.<<

I agree. Ten or twelve dollars per hundred seems to be the going rate around here. My math simply validates that it's a fair price.

 

[Jasper1573]

I purchase once-fired military brass for around 18 cents per case. The mil surp brass is much heavier than any of the commercial stuff, providing at least as many, if not more, reloadings as commercial brass for about half the price. I also find that because the volume of the mil surp brass is less, due to case wall thickness, I get the advantage of higher velocity for the same amount of powder, thus saving not only on brass cost, but also on cost of powder as well.

Commercial ammo is too expensive to buy just for the brass casings, especially some of the match grade commerical ammo.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[MichaelK]

I can suggest a second way to calculate the cost. You can compare the cost of reloadable boxer primed ammunition to non-reloadable berdan primed ammo.

Was at a gun show this last weekend and figured this out in my head while shopping. A case of 200 rounds of German surplus 7.62X51 with a 147 grain FMJ was 84.99$. A case of 200 Winchester 7.62X51 with a 147 grain FMJ was 97.99, a difference of 13$. So, I bought 200 reloadable Winchester cases for 13$. That's assuming I retrieve each and every reloadable case after firing.