Considering Reloading, opinons

[uhlan1]

It's not just the money. Reloading is a lot of fun. It also gives you a degree of freedom from the pukes in Sacramento, and they have a lot of ugliness planned for us shortly down the road.

[five.five-six]

You can reload 9mm for about half of that or around 10 cents a round using jacketed bullets. Lead bullets would be less.

With an inexpensive $100 single stage press you could load 50 rounds an hour. With a $200 turret press you could load 200 rounds an hour. With a $600 progressive press you could load 500 rounds an hour.

You are leaving out the time invested in sorting brass, loading primer tubes, and tumbling brass. If all your brass it preped and the tubes are loaded, you can load 600 an hour if you aren't checking every 10th cartridge for charge and OAL clearing a jamb, adding powder and all the other stuff that happens. On a 550b, I think that 300/hr is a more realistic estimate.

[the86d]

Currently I am reloading 124gr plated @ ~$113.1949143/1000 (~$0.113/ea).

Group buys and buying in bulk helps... Large jugs of power are harder to find when I have the cash, but not impossible.

[Sofatactical]

I just did a quick bit of math and the total for 1000 9mm with cast lead comes out to around $180
$35 for primers
$20 powder
$80 bullets
$40 used brass
Plus tax and shipping
averaging about 1500 rds per pound of powder

Does this sound right?

[XDRoX]

powder burn rate is not a consideration regarding the "reloading" part of reloading. you choose a powder based on the caliber/bullet/gun combo. slower burn rates are for magnum rounds, longer barrels, etc. faster burn rates are what is more common for most auto pistol rounds as well as lighter revolver loads.

for instance, blue dot, H110, and AA No. 9 are all slower burn rates and work great in heavy 357/44 magnums, but are totally inappropriate for 9's and 45's. faster burn rate powders like bullseye, 231, AA No. 5, and Unique, work great in 9 and 45. but, here's the thing. they also work great in lighter loads for 357/44 mag.

for example, if you want to load a PD round in 357 use blue dot or a heavy hunting load for the 44 use H110 or No. 9. but if you want to shoot 158 SWCs at paper, use bullseye.

[XDRoX]

I just did a quick bit of math and the total for 1000 9mm with cast lead comes out to around $180
$35 for primers
$20 powder
$80 bullets
$40 used brass
Plus tax and shipping
averaging about 1500 rds per pound of powder

Does this sound right?

I'm probably the worst person to respond because I haven't bought components in years, but since I'm up
Primers can be had, at least last time I bought some for around $20 when bought by the 5k. I'm sure prices are up right now but that's what I paid for them last time I bought them. Bullets, I use Precision Delta or Berrys. About $80. Today probably a little more.

And no one is including the price of brass in their calculations. Especially 9mm. It's free at any range and lasts forever. I have 9mm cases that I've loaded over 25 times. You can't even read the head stamp. You'll lose them before they crack.

And powder bought in larger volume can easily be had for $15. I don't have a calculator but I'm guessing that would drop the price down to around 11 or 12 cents per round???

It's key to buy in volume though. But in today's market, you may be better off buying reloads or Walmart ammo than rolling your own.
Hope that helps.

[BigBronco]

Yes the OP would save monies reloading in normal market conditions. However now is not normal, lets not forget trying to get components to load 1,000 per month. Many places are limiting primmer purchases to 1 or 2k per purchase. Recently my LGS would only let you buy 1lb. of powder per make and type. I would be concerned that right now the OP would have a hard time keeping his reloader fed with the volumes he needs. Yes a year ago and perhaps soon again. However in the current market he would spend more time hunting down components than actually loading.

[XDRoX]

Yes the OP would save monies reloading in normal market conditions. However now is not normal, lets not forget trying to get components to load 1,000 per month. Many places are limiting primmer purchases to 1 or 2k per purchase. Recently my LGS would only let you buy 1lb. of powder per make and type. I would be concerned that right now the OP would have a hard time keeping his reloader fed with the volumes he needs. Yes a year ago and perhaps soon again. However in the current market he would spend more time hunting down components than actually loading.

But isn't factory ammo equally hard to find?
Not being a smart ***, just asking...

[five.five-six]

And powder bought in larger volume can easily be had for $15. I don't have a calculator but I'm guessing that would drop the price down to around 11 or 12 cents per round???

[Bill Steele]

Quoting "what it will cost" or "how many rounds a press will produce per hour" is almost always an apples to oranges comparison, post to post.

If you count all the other things you have to do to reload, you are not going to sustain 600 rounds an hour on a 550B for very long (like say 600 rounds? and that after you queued everything thing up before you did your dash to the record...)

As far as the cost per round. Normalized over more than a few months, you are going to save money reloading. How much today is more related to how much time you are willing to spend watching for components coming into stock from large retailers. If you just want to go to gunbroker and pick what you want from a scalper, you will pay more for your reloaded ammo right now. For the guys that buy their components like a stock broker buys stocks (when everyone else is selling, on sale and in bulk), there is no comparison on how much you will save, a lot!

As far as the notion that all bulky powder is slow burning and all fast buring powders are not bulky (with regard to picking a powder discussion), pretty much all of that was nonsense. You can pick a fast powder that is bulky and impossible to double charge. As for Blue Dot not being a good 9mm powder, I have about 10K rounds loaded of it so far and I am loving as much as the first round I loaded. It can also be a top performer in 45 Auto when loading jacketed.

Honestly, lots of misileading information in this thread.

[Colt562]

You are leaving out the time invested in sorting brass, loading primer tubes, and tumbling brass. If all your brass it preped and the tubes are loaded, you can load 600 an hour if you aren't checking every 10th cartridge for charge and OAL clearing a jamb, adding powder and all the other stuff that happens. On a 550b, I think that 300/hr is a more realistic estimate.

Well while tumbling brass you arnt sitting there the whole time. If you put a pound of powder in the funnel, 7000 grains, with a 5.4 gn charge, thats around 1200 rounds. Not much happens once you get going, besides maybe a very small jam.

But I do agree that 300 is a more realistic number. At 600 that is around 10/minute. IMO thats going to fast, unless you have a powder check.

personally I just look in every case...at some point when the powder is low in the funnel I can watch it as it falls.



At the end of loading I use a trick that I watched online, but all the loaded rounds in a towel and grab a handful to check for powder leakage. I also grab a few out of the 100 and test those. I only do 100 at a time. Easier to me and I dont get to bored.

[five.five-six]

Well while tumbling brass you arnt sitting there the whole time.

These are just a few of the things that reduce the 600/hr rate, it was not meant to be an all in inclusive list.

If the hopper was full and I had 300 pieces of clean brass and 6 tubes of primers and and a box and 1/2 of projectiles sitting on my bench, and the head was all GTG, I could probably punch them all out in an hour. But that never happens

[BigBronco]

Yes it always irritates me slightly when one claims 600 rounds per hour on a 550B. You must include the time to fill the primer tubes. If you only have one then you have at least 2 min down time every 100 rounds. Therefore 10 minutes lost every 500 rounds. So are you actually loading 600 rounds in 50 minutes. Me thinks not. Please be realistic when offering advice to beginning loaders.

My best on a LnL with a case feeder, lockout die and refilling primers when needed is about 400. Of course if I actually used skewed math to multiply 100 rounds in so many minutes I guess I could say 800 per hour. Safety first, learn to crawl, walk then run. All this per hour stuff if Krap or some show of manliness.

So to the OP if you are near OC and you would like to try your hand on a 5505 and or a LNL send me a PM

[Sideline Shooter]

I hope you have been saving all that brass these past months. If you have you are not too far behind the game. Look up the load you want to shoot from IMR, Alliant, and Hodgdon. When those powders come into stock jump on them with buying an 8lb jug to make the hazmat and shipping worth it. Ask people who are reloading now to jump on thier orders and help pay the shipping. Buying in bulk is the only way to go but in the current market you have to do it with stratigery!

You have a long way to, buying all your componet's is one thing, let alone buying all your equipment and knowing how to use it. Google and youtube are now your 2 best friends.

[XDRoX]

As far as the notion that all bulky powder is slow burning and all fast buring powders are not bulky (with regard to picking a powder discussion), pretty much all of that was nonsense. You can pick a fast powder that is bulky and impossible to double charge. As for Blue Dot not being a good 9mm powder, I have about 10K rounds loaded of it so far and I am loving as much as the first round I loaded. It can also be a top performer in 45 Auto when loading jacketed.

Honestly, lots of misileading information in this thread.

Well you must be doing something wrong then Bill, because everyone knows that BD is no good for 9mm

As usual I agree with everything you posted.
Have you tried Trail Boss? It's one of my favorite powders. Pretty fast and very bulky.