The Cost of Reloading

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muncie21 said:
Think of it this way, 3 years of strippers and whiskey would have been far more than $2800. Just teasing. I find that I shoot more now that I started reloading, so in the end, I'm spending more $$ but having lots more fun doing it.
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I've already done that and you are 100% right , those were some wasted years .
 
muncie21 said:
Think of it this way, 3 years of strippers and whiskey would have been far more than $2800. Just teasing. I find that I shoot more now that I started reloading, so in the end, I'm spending more $$ but having lots more fun doing it.
First I'd like to wish the O.P. the best.
I don't regret a dime I've spent on Whiskey or Women.
I will never save a dime handloading either, again no regrets. I have better more accurate ammunition to shoot than I ever had before. It's a serious hobby but learning is fun and helps me by keeping my mind off of subjects that I cannot control, and most of the time can do nothing about. Even with my pension and Social Security money hitting the account it's easy for me to have too much month at the end of my money. If related to guns in any way I can certainly rationalize the expenditure to get it if I can. Get more accuracy out of your guns, have the best ammunition possible,barrels of fun yes.
Save money
Never will I save a dime,regret it, hell no
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Red Rick - congratulations on your retirement. Retiring at 57 is amazing. You will never be as rich and healthy ever again. You may need to watch your spending, but you have TIME.

I starting reloading around the same time as you. I have not added up the equipment totals. It is better that I not know. I may let the number slip to my wife.

I work a lot. I am currently traveling for a work and I am gone for 3+ weeks at a time. I have money an NO TIME, lots of $$$, and no time to spend money.

Enjoy your retirement and reinvent yourself. You have started a new career. Enjoy the freedom and enjoy every day.

Swanee
 
Reloading is a FUN hobby, and it allows for versatility in creation of loads and for the loading of obsolete calibers.

Unless you only reload very occasionally, reloading HAS to cost less than purchasing factory loaded ammunition. Ideally, one would purchase equipment quite slowly over time, like I did. Purchase second-hand at auctions, purchase on sale or clearance, etc. If you purchase all at once, you are likely to pay full retail and "I'm just not a retail kind of guy".

With regards to the OP, if you got a bonus three times a year, you had a very good job indeed! With how stagnant wages have been for at least a generation now, bonuses such as these should be commonplace! But they aren't. In my current position, they create an extensive job description and you break your neck to accomplish all that is required, and, there is no bonus in the end because they look at the extensive job description and justify no bonus because they claim all you did was "just doing your job". One last thing. I am obviously still working, but I have never understood why retiring means taking a pay cut? Shouldn't the reward for 30 or 40 years of continuous employment be, at the very least, maintenance of current wages at retirement? BTW, I think about and read about compensation and the employment situation in this country a lot and am appalled at what many in this country have to do to survive, but nothing will ever change because the 1% have power and utilize that to make record incomes at the expense of the other 99%.
 
The way I see it your biggest expense is getting the initial equipment/components to start to reload. Then all you do is add some fluff to it along with buying your consumables. Buying used/on sale/bulk is the way to go if you can afford the time to wait for it all to fall in place. I started piecing my stuff together when minimum wage was $ 1.50 HR and a box of good .22 LR cost around $.40. It would probably scare me to actually add up my cost for this hobby let alone what the firearms I own would cost now if I had to replace everything. BUT I did it only when I had the money to spare and while I am still working full time at a good job. I am in hopes when I retire shortly that all I have to do is maintain my consumables, but that new firearm I have no dies for tends to sneak into the safe every now and again though.:evil:
 
I found that I have spent $2800 on equipment since I started reloading in 2013 ( not including bullets , brass , powder and primers ) and $200 on shipping
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I agree with those who suggest that it should be viewed as a hobby and hang the cost. I've been reloading about the same amount of time, probably have spent at least that much, and although I'm not paying commercial prices to shoot more, I DO shoot MORE because of reloading than I did before, primarily because I want to get rid of my reloads so as to have brass to reload more.:):)

Look at it this way; if you took up golfing, that $3000 would have paid for a set of clubs and about 25 greens fees on many courses. You'd have only been able to golf less than once/month over those three years for the same price.....and that's not including clothing, beer on the 9th hole, and the many gifts to your spouse to quiet down criticism because you've been spending so many hours away. THAT'S the real savings of reloading....
 
Yeah , I agree I should look at it as a hobby and not a expense . I have never added up my hunting & fishing stuff .
 
I made an excel spreadsheet where I put the current prices of bullets and powders for each caliber that I reload. I am able to plug in the cost of each component and find how much I pay per round I make. Then I compare with store bought. ex. I can reload 223 V-max for 21 cents a round. Which is only about $4 a box but to buy that it would cost over $20. I wait till I see products go on clearance at MidwayUSA, Cabelas, etc. then I buy. I have found that I can usually reload for at least 1/2 the price of buying already made. If I can buy bulk bullets it goes down to 1/4 or less sometimes. I love finding how much money I saved by reloading and feel that my press and everything has been paid for in just a few short years.

It is a hobby and even if I broke even then it is a win. Like you said, you enjoy doing it and it keeps your mind sharp. That is the exact reason I do it. It is something fun and a hobby so even a bit of money spent is worth it.

Another great option is getting a part time job at a sporting good store. I worked at Cabelas while in college and that helped to save money to buy reloading parts at a discounted rate. If you got your foot in the door at a place even in another department, if they find you know about guns and reloading then they might allow you to transfer. I started in clothing at Cabelas and got to know the gun guys and when they found out I reload they approached me to transfer because they didn't know much about reloading and could use the knowledge to help customers. That 20 hours a week working part time would allow you to get out and would quickly pay for any hobby you want..
 
My old employer called me Monday and wants me to work part time as needed as a trainer . They said I could work on my schedule . They didn't know how long they would need me though . I would be training new machine operators and retraining bad operators ( if you can do such a thing , you can buy some people books and send them to school , but they still don't learn . )

I would like to work part time at a gun store , but the good ones are too far from me to justify my wear & tear on my truck and gas .

I have got about another $150 of reloading stuff in my cart at Midway now .
 
I will buy cheap Russian 308 when I find a sale and 1k rounds of 150gr. bullets. Pull the fmj and use their powder,primer, and steel case seating the 150 gr. bullet of my choice using my seat and crimp die. My PTR 91 is like a hungry kid it will chew them up and spit them out. The bullets are not cheap but its still cheaper and easier to do at the present time. Looking at spent cases I wouldnt be able to reload the brass it spits out anyway. I do have a brass stash and a 30•06 brass with a split neck is a cantidate for shorter cases starting with the 308. The scrap man gets scrap when I can not make a 243 case out of it. How can I load 9mm and save money when 1k loaded is cheaper than its parts.
 
I don't try to keep very much track of costs, I buy primers and powder in bulk in quantities of as much as I can get on one HazMat fee.

I've been retired almost four years, and have been shooting about 1500 (not counting .22lr) rounds a month at steel plates since well before I retired. Planning for my retirement I stocked up deep in bullets and components back circa 2004-6 when things were much less expensive that now (my best performing retirement asset :) ), and didn't reload much back then as I could buy Wolf 230gr FMJ for ~$120/1000 and 9mm Aluminum Blazer 115gr 9mm for like $80/1000 (I'd stocked those as deep as I had space for, along with .22lr)

Before the election I redid my inventory and found I'd been shooting a lot more 9mm than initially planned for so I ordered a couple years worth of 9mm 147gr coated and plated bullets. Restocked powder and primers as the idea had been to restock every year or two, but I fell way behind during the "shortage". As part of the inventory I discovered I had a lot more .40 bullets than I'd expected, I pretty much stopped reloading .40S&W when my Loadmaster priming system kept messing up and a primer detonated about five years ago.

Figure I'd reloaded about 3000 rounds on it before it started messing up more than I wanted to deal with. Tried to "rebuild" it with a "Gen 3" primer upgrade (~$30), that was good for about another 1500 rounds before it started screwing up the same way again, so I junked it. But since I paid about $230 for it back then, figuring I "saved" about $0.15/round over buying factory ammo, it had more than paid for itself ($0.15 X 4500 = $675). Since I still have about 6000 .40S&W bullets on hand (and a lot of guns to shoot them in, including an AR carbine and SBR) it was a no-brainer to order the conversion kit for my 9mm Dillon XL650 for a "quick change" to .40S&W for ~$200 as that still leaves me with ~$700 in savings with reloading vs. buying the cheapest factory ammo.

Overall, I don't figure I save any money, but I do get to shoot more and am "buffered" from market panics, although the primer & powder shortage did start to affect me. Its great to see some nice sales on powder and primers since the election, I opted to play it safe and get what I needed before the election. I was happy I could afford to do so and am even happier for the people that were forced to wait and can now enjoy some sanity returning to the market.
 
I'm 59 and would like to continue to work full time for at least another 7 years. And after that if part time becomes available I would take it. At present I have a considerable amount of both components and tools and I'm actually not planning on making any purchases for the rest of this year except I'm working on a deal for 6000 pcs of range brass. Bullets/primers I can shoot to my hearts content for at least 3 years without buying anything. Even media for my tumbler is not a problem.

I am going to put a bit of money into my bench this summer. That's it though. I'm going to keep careful track of the amount of shooting I do and at the end of 2019 will see what I need to replenish. I'm making for myself a rule that I'm not going to buy any firearms that I'm not already set up to load for. I know that it's impossible but I want to retire with the idea that I can shoot and fish without having to buy expensive accessories and basically I now have most of the necessary toys.
 
You guys save money by reloading! Wow, what a concept. I started reloading to make better ammo, kinda like I started tying flies to make better flies. My wife would kill me if she knew how much I have in reloading equipment, not counting components. I have been doing this for 50 years and I have over 40 sets of dies on the shelf. It bothers me to buy factory ammo. I shoot pdogs, so I guess my quest is for accuracy. I don't shoot as much pistol as I used too, but my rockchucker has been paid for long ago. I bought my son the progressive presses and he loads almost all of my pistol rounds. I would think that if you reload to save money, soon you will just shoot more and break even....
 
witchhunter said:
You guys save money by reloading! Wow, what a concept. I
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shhhhh it's like the government reducing spending. Or saving us money.

Spend less on factory ammo, so less per round but then buy many many times more in components so we can spend more at the range!

In all seriousness I looked at what I was spending on ammo and figured it wouldn't take long to recover the cost of the equipment. Then per round it would be less expensive for me to shoot. So basically I'd get more shooting in for the same money. Add that I found a way to relax some and actually enjoy reloading it's a win/win/win/win!!! And knowing that each round is EXACTLY the same is helping me with my shooting knowing that "it's all me" and I can't blame the ammo.
 
Just to add to my previous post>>>>>

What if a person was only capable of shooting so many rounds to begin with regardless of cost? There is a limit to what most people will shoot even if the ammunition was free! Many people may forget that or not recognize that some people shot a lot before reloading and spent a lot of money doing it.

There is a difference in perception that is based on ones own experiences and not the experiences of others. In my case I shot a lot before reloading and it hurt to do so due to cost. I have only been able to increase my shooting by 30-33 percent since I started reloading. I have no time or desire to shoot much more than that especially when factoring in bolt rifle range time.

Getting to the point, I am trying to bust Myth's offered as blank statements that even I myself once believed and that most don't realize. Those myth's being that "you don't save more by reloading" when in fact many do. Some break even or spend more to load precision rifle and don't have as much savings in pistol to offset the cost of equipment enough to ever save any money. Some shoot more and don't recoup the cost either. Some cast their own bullets and get free lead and more quickly pay the investment off and begin saving. The reloading community is made up of a jumble of shooters that shoot different things, in different ways, with different quantities and different quality to fulfill what they see as fitting their needs or wants. Some only pistol, black powder, revolvers, rifle or any combination thereof.

For the first years I began reloading on an actual press I used a friends equipment and we bought bulk supplies to save on cost. I basically paid for my first press long before I bought it. Knowing full well that I needed my own press at some point in time I continued to use his mainly because he we both enjoyed the company. When he moved further away it became more reasonable to buy my own and avoid long 2 hour trips.

My journey was different than some or most people. Some people begin loading on a family members press Like their fathers or maybe an uncle. some bought theirs when they started reloading.
 
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You are one brave guy, mounting that Uniflow right in the middle of mama's prize dining room table !!

:rofl:
 
Regarding my reloading investment, I caught the accuracy bug and have been heading down hill ever since. Combine that with the fact that my range is on the way to and from work and you can see how that can put a dent in the disposable income.

But such is the way with any hobby. There are worse ways to spend your time and money
 
2800 in equipment? Ive spent about 700$ in equipment, and load 12 caliber, including some for gun I dont own, for other people, in about 8 years. If you talking about components too, don't worry, you've probably already saved enough to pay for everything. Ive payed off my equipment investment about 14 times now. As far as componets cost, I cant even guess over the years. But the best thing about reloading, is you still save money. Happy retirement!
 
I have an interest in guns that are somewhat off the beaten track. That got me started because ammo was not found in your normal hardware store (back in the day). With an eye toward not being able to find any ammo in the future, I started small and gradually added as I acquired more calibers. I've never totaled what I've spent on equipment...nothing expensive, but I don't want to know! I've been retired now almost thirteen years and it's a welcome hobby.
 
You can do that when you are single . I was going to replace the table , it is getting a ruff for years , but I never eat there , so I just decide not to get a new table and mount my press there . I also use it as my computer desk .
 
I think that we need to look at it the other way around. If we Don’t reload we must either shoot less or spend more. Neither is an acceptable option.
 
I had to retire about 6 months ago due to the aftermath of terminal cancer; once the reality of being told that you are finite hits home, everything settles into a peaceful and proper perspective - a deep wisdom takes over your life. I do not know if I have saved anything reloading over the years, I only know that I have enjoyed the process. Do not sweat the detail if you enjoy something; I now shoot, reload, fish, walk in the woods, etc. when my body is up to it and all carries a much more intense sense of the moment - always take the time to feel the cool air in your lungs, the smell of the woods, the deep blue of the sky, the colors around you; always tell those close to you that you love them. The return on investment of reloading (or anything that is enjoyed) is the joy itself - life has never been about money. Enjoy your retirement, reload and shoot, savor the moment. Good shooting.
 
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