Soundguy
Old Timer
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2002
- Messages
- 51,575
- Location
- Central florida
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Yup.. if you factor in time and equipment, it takes a bit of reloading to actually break even.
things that help are when you get free lead or brass, or are given free bad ammo and you can pull it down for projectiles.
you can sell the scrap brass and steel cases when you get enough.
Sometimes you get big savings on specialty ammo. I shoot some safari cartridges that cost 80-120$ a box, not including shipping. that's a box of 20.
Here is a real world break down. i shoot 458 LOTT. Right now if you look on auction sites, 100 rnds batches of Hornady 500gr 458 lott is 500$. that's 100$ per 20 rounds.
Letrs see what that relaods for.
50 projectiles is 50.11$
LMP is 4 cents
case will be free
powder is .. guessing here.. 75gr varget, at 33$ per 7000 grains ( 1 # ) = 38 cents of powder.
If you figure in shipping on the projectiles, but no hazmat or shipping on the powder for a local sale.. kick in another 13$ for misc. expense, case lube, etc.
that totals to 13$+.38+.04+1 = 14.42 to reload that box of 20. now pay yourself 8$ for minimum wage
and that's under 23$ to relaod 100$ of safari cartridges, and you even got paid to do it. Those are the rare cases where you can save or 'make' money reloading.
Other examples are when loading up old or rare hard to find/buy stuff, perhaps stuff that is not on the market, or if it is, it is a premium.. like 218 bee, 45 auto rim, 45winmag, 44automag. Component wise, all those relaod for about the same price as regular 45acp / 44 magnum or 223/556. yet they each cost at least 2-3X as much.
That's assuming you have your own set of fired cases to work with as well.
Another place you save or make money is when you cast your own projectiles.
I shoot plenty of 35 rem, so does my buddy. they only make one run a year so it's hard to find, and pawn shops want to charge 38$ for a box of 20 rounds.
We recently melted down and made 61# of lead from some xray shielding. add in some antimony and tin to get a lyman #2 mix, add a 19$ lee 2 cavity mold, and add in 33$ for a box of 1000 gas checks and you are in business.
I made my own hard lube from red paraffin wax, beeswax, vasolene and lanolin, and pan lubed. I use my .358 lee sizer ( 25$ ) that i use for making 357/38spl projectiles. result is a 200gr flat nose hard cast leat projectile, gas checked sized and lubed, ready to lead, and safe for up to 2000 fps without leading.
cost? case free, primer 4 cents, lube, 4 cents, powder, 35 gr imr 4064, 18 cents, projectile, 12 cents. or a total of: 38 cents each. x 20 = 7.60 base cost. if you pay yourself 8$.. its 15.60
New in store, in season, they are never less than 20$, and as I said. hard to find here and usually near twice that.Pick the expensive / hard to find / odd stuff, and you can pay off your investment in gear pretty fast.. then coast along making cheap ammo, and come out ahead.
Casting was turned out to be so cheap, I can't believe I waited so long.
55$ pot, 30 $ thermometer, 30$ ingot mold and ladle, and ball / bullet molds that are 20$ a piece from lee.
My buddies and myself are all shooting lots of .454 lead balls for black powder revolver lately. usually 80-100 balls per person per trip.
a box of 100 balls is about 15$. a pack of wonder wads is 9-15$ per 50/100
we bought a sheet of wool, and a punch ( 27$ total ) and calculate we can get about 5000 wads out of the wool. To make our own lube ( for lubed wads and lube pills, and over cyl lube ) costs about 11$ per gallon. tubes of commercial lube are about 10$ per toothpast sized tube.
with our virtually free lead we found, the first 800 balls we make BUYS all of our casting gear. last pour, we made 300 plus balls.
.454 lead balls come out to right at 141gr.
the 'free' 61# lead we found will yeild about 3000 balls and that's dropping a pound for dross loss. so 2200 of them are bone free.
Me and a buddy sat talking an in 1.5 hours made 300+ balls, and half an hour of that was waiting for the pot to heat, melting the lead, and etc, warming the mold, dropping back in the first 10 balls till we got mold hot and mix right.
start running the numbers. free cases is great, free lead is even better. that just leaves your major cost as powder... and that is generally about 7000 grains for between 25-35$ depending on what you shoot. primers never hit over 4 cents, sometimes as low as 2.5 cents. etc..
