SCJ429 wrote:Depends on your expectations from your primers. I pay the extra for the BR4.
Bills Shed wrote:10 cents a primer? You need to buy in bulk and get away from those prices!
As to is it worth it, As others have said you always seem to get better gear, then you try something else and then you want to make your own projectile .....and then it is to late... you have moved to the dark side. There is no turning back. Just do it and get it over with.
Bill
juststarting wrote:I buy Winchester or S&B, $45-47 depends on size lol. I bet they work the same, sungazer.
SCJ429 wrote:Changing primers can double your ES. Yes they all go bang but they don't al perform the same way. Why not use PPU brass instead of Lapua or Sierra Roo Load instead of Sierra Match King. People are using the best components they can to improve their groups. If Winchester primers work for you that is great.
Flyer wrote:Whenever anyone tells you how cheap it is to reload, they usually don't add the cost of their time - reloading is nearly always more expensive if you value your time at $30 an hour or more.
JimTom wrote:Like others have already eluded to, it depends on how much you shoot if you are doing it purely for financial reasons.
I do it so as to get the best accuracy for my rifles and I also find it a bit therapeutic so it’s more like a hobby than a money saver for me.
SCJ429 wrote:Reloading is a must be rare or wildcat cases, owners of a 378, 416 or 460 Weatherby Magnum are faced with paying over $300 for a box of loaded ammo if they can find it. At $16 every time you pull the trigger you can bring that down to around $3 not counting the (expensive ) brass.
SCJ429 wrote:Reloading is a must be rare or wildcat cases, owners of a 378, 416 or 460 Weatherby Magnum are faced with paying over $300 for a box of loaded ammo if they can find it. At $16 every time you pull the trigger you can bring that down to around $3 not counting the (expensive ) brass.
bladeracer wrote:Unless you are shooting professionally, why would you put a price on your time?
Do you charge yourself by the hour to go and kick a ball in the park, or spend a few hours on a beach?
If you are shooting for pleasure, the shooting _is_ the value. Reloading your own ammo just adds to the time you spend shooting.
If you've ever built your own engine you would know the pleasure that comes every time you fire it up, even years later, I find reloading to give that same sort of pleasure. Being a part of the machine rather than simply an end user.
Gwion wrote:It's not a hobby for me... I would rather watch grass grow or blow dry paint... but it does give me good ammo and save me at least %50 on ammo costs. Finding a reliable supply of good ammo locally is tedious and near impossible as well as being expensive, both for the ammo and fuel to go to the shop.
I bought 20 rounds for my 7-08rem when I first got it... 60 something bucks! I estimate that bullet, powder and primer has me at about $1.25, then allow 25c for brass ($170 for 100 then allow 7 loadings: now on load#5 and all looks good). That's $150 for 100 rounds. Same 100 rounds (actually worse because I just have to buy what they have at the time) would cost me a minimum of $300 in the shop. It takes me between 1-2 hours to load 100 rounds (because I'm anal about charge weight). Even if I charge myself $30/hr for 2hr (which I don't), I'm still $90 better off.
So. In the 500 rounds I've put through my 7mm08rem, I estimate that I have saved approximately $700.
I haven't amortised the reloading gear against that because that was paid off by the roughly 2500 rounds I have loaded for my 223rem. Again, roughly 1/2 price or even less. Before reloading I was paying about $1 per round of 223 plus fuel to shop, etc... So my $600-700 worth of reloading gear saved me about $1200. Minus the cost of gear is $500, plus the $700 from 7-08 savings is $1200...
Think I just convinced my wife I can afford that new GRS stock for the 7-08!
I wish....
Flyer wrote:I do build engines, and I very much enjoy rocking up to the drags in my 11-second Charger and saying "I built that".
But I don't fool myself that it cost nothing in time and that it was pure pleasure. Never mind the fact that learning how to build that engine in the first place took time and money . . .
I didn't take time off work to build that engine. Would you take time off work to reload?
So it all comes down to how much you value your free time.
In the above example, if I was a lawyer earning $300 an hour and had no idea how to build engines, then I'm better off earning $300 an hour and paying someone $50 an hour to build something for me.
In terms of reloading, you're competing with a machine that reloads thousands of rounds an hour or whatever at fractions of a cent per round (energy and tooling cost).
If you're going to spend hours of your time cleaning, weighing and trimming cases, deburring flash holes and uniforming primer pockets, depriming, sizing, neck turning, weighing charges, loading, seating and checking OAL and concentricity, then you're fooling yourself by saying you're "Saving money".
You're not - it's a false economy.
Arguing that it's time well spent because you enjoy it or that it's part of your hobby does not address the fact that you really haven't saved anything in fiscal terms, because if you spent that time earning money and buying factory ammo, you'd be way ahead.
I reload because yes, I do (in some masochistic way) enjoy the process, and because I get pleasure and reward from loading consistent and accurate ammo that's reflected in my scores at the target range.
But I certainly don't reload to save money. And I always have to balance time spent reloading against what other pleasurable activities I could be doing in that same time.
It's your time - spend it how you will.
sungazer wrote:You blokes can reload pretty quickly. 100 an hour is getting along. I rekon I am at about 50-70 in 2 hours. Thats not including the prep time.
Flyer wrote:sungazer wrote:You blokes can reload pretty quickly. 100 an hour is getting along. I rekon I am at about 50-70 in 2 hours. Thats not including the prep time.
I've got a Chargemaster Lite that throws as I load and seat. It's a great bit of kit. Two nights ago, I loaded 120 rounds of .223 in a bit over two hours with only one overcharge and one undercharge that had to be re-thrown. It's pretty consistent. I've got a mate who uses a manual powder-thrower and he's pretty quick once he gets into his rhythm, but I'm so anal I couldn't do it because I'd have to weigh every charge!