I wondered about that.. How much do you think you have in them per hundred? For the stock metal, I realize your labor is free
right now cost is high, because you have to spread the tool cost over the produced units. It's one of those, the more I make, the cheaper it gets.
I don't want to keep cluttering this guys thread up. but here's a basic idea. commercial gas checks are about 35$ per thousand, plus any taxes or shipping. that means that to buy a box of say, hornady gas checks in florida, it would cost me 44$ ( tax n shipping ). that makes them 4.4 cents each, commercial option.
The materials.. common beer/soda can is just a HAIR too thin. I know guys that make it work simply by taking an extra .0005 off their mold inside diameter at the gas check shank area of the base. On an aluminum lee mold, this can be done with polishing compound, a dowel rod piece held in a drill, and sanded to dimension, and then ran in the mold. polish, check, polish, check.. don't take much to take .0005 off a wall.. etc. If you don't want to mod your mold ( I didn't ). then you look at other materials. for instance.. the rolls of aluminum flashing sold at hardware stores works out perfectly. it's between the .0145 and .016 material that freecheck sells. a roll of that flashing which is 12-18" depending, and 3-6 yards.. is pretty much a lifetime supply. Thus, if you wanted.. a 10$ roll of material covers you pretty much unless you make millions of checks. It punches holes clean, so if you take the material and cut it into strips, you just fed n punch and feed n punch. the strip width just has to be a couple mm wider than the check master diameter before mandrel forming. I use an old side arm paper cutter to cut metal strips. it cuts that thin aluminum easier than 1/8" of paper. been using it years. ( It also cuts doctor office 1/16" lead xray sheeting very easy too.. buddy brought me about 100# of that late last year to smelt down ). there is at least one other commercial gas check maker other than freechecks, plus you see a few machinists on gun forums making them for sale too. a unit goes just over 100$ usually. for instance, free checks newest gen 3 unit is 115$ to your door. ( and you can find them used on gunbroker, ebay, craigslist.. sometimes pawn shops and estate sales.. gun shows.. etc.. ) they will cut up to .022 thick material.
thus a unit costs about 2.61 boxes of 1000 commercial checks. Now here's the kicker.
Lots of people don't like buying gas checks by the thousand and instead like to buy by 500, 250, or 100. The unit price goes up as the qty goes down. buying by the hundred for example makes that 4.95 for the hundred tax making it 5.30, then shipping ( cheaper ) about 7.50 to get them in a padded envelope. as you go up in volume, the unit price gets better.
I tried out a few style and thickness commercial checks, buying by the hundred to basically sample the selection out there.
But to really answer your question.. lets see. 115$ plus 10 $ gets you the punch n material to keep you going for decades. using the 1k bulk prices, you need to make about 2850 checks to hit break even, not including labor, past that you are gravy all the way. Depending on your shooting volume, that may be a few months, or a few years. I know me an my buddies setting outside in my barn in just a few sessions can make that many bullets. with 3 - 4 of us tending the smelt, loading the pot, and with say 2-3 of us with molds, and the other people tending the drop buckets, etc.. in just about 3 hours one day we dropped about 700 bullets.. and that's just 3 hours.. 30 minutes of that being pot heat up time and hooking up the propane burner and hot plate for preheating the molds, water drop bucket.. etc. we did that in the summer... 3 hours takes it out of you.. could probably do 2 sessions like that per day in the shade in summer.. and we were not rushing by any means.. just setting there talking listening to music and pouring and dropping. that's 1400 a day easy. winter.. we could probably make that 2100 easy. Last range day I'd say we sent ? 850 downrange .. so yes, we are making more than we shoot, which is good for the rainy days.
4 of the 5 guys in the group load in some way shape or form, and the 5th guy is starting.. he's just slowly building up his equipment. he has his trimmers, saving his brass.. he must have 3 5g buckets of his own once fired brass in his garage. has his bench.. pretty much everything but the press. he's torn between a dillon 550 or a 650. I suspect at ta refund or christmas he will finally jump in and get his press. he's already got his manuals, stocking powders n primers, etc. his bench looks so clean.
