Wow! Thanks fellows. I’ll likely never do it, but gonna learn about it.
What did you do at your reloading bench today?
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Wow! Thanks fellows. I’ll likely never do it, but gonna learn about it.
It looks like a lot of work, but it also looks like it's fairly simple to do provided you have the proper equipment.
The real question would be whether or not the juice would be worth the squeeze from a time vs. money saved. I'd have to factor in the number of bullets produced vs the time spent to produce them, and then factor in whether or not the cost savings would be worth it.
You beat me to it....
notice this board has been having a lot of double posts lately
-Rock
Yup. I’d swear I didn’t click the post button twice. But I’ve been known to get slap happy with the button.
A little like reloading in general. You can sure reload and save money. But it’s honestly harder to reload and save enough money to make it worth your time. Sure, maybe with a single stage press you could reload 100 rounds of 9mm for 20cpr maybe (trying to use some of todays prices, range brass). If that took an hour and a half of time investment, you saved maybe $16. For 1.5hrs of work. Congrats, you earned a bit over minimum wage.
plus the cost of the equipment. And the time to setup all your dies. Plus you probably want to double check at least a couple of rounds each time you setup the press/dies in the press. Etc. so maybe less than minimum wage.
Don’t get me wrong, I save a crap load with my lee Classic turret because I can leisurely hang out 200 rounds an hour and 250-300 if working fast and don’t run in to any issues.
And a true progressive would get more done faster. All with higher upfront equipment costs.
Now get in to casting. Compared to buying lead bullets, what’s your savings if the lead/wheel weights aren’t free? A little, but sure not a lot. For a moderately large investment of time to cast them and then swage them.
But if you enjoy doing it. Priceless. Or if you can make ammunition you can’t buy. Etc.
85MikeTPI
Ultimate Member
Loaded up 15 rounds of 338 Lapua for barrel warmers for the new Ruger Precision. RL 33 and 300gr SMK pulls.
I have been reloading for 40+ years, I originally started as I had all the free 30-06 and 45 APC brass one could ever want from range pick-ins. I initially bought all used equipment as I was only an E-4 and could not afford crap on a monthly salary of 300 bucks.
Me personally I don't consider time as a factor in reloading to tally savings as it is not a business. Like any hobby you can spend big bucks for the best equipment or as little as possible to get the job done, I prefer the latter. I have a single stage reloading press, my dies are all match grade, decent scale and one manual scale, an accurate hand metered powder dump and a case tumbler. Also, I started casting my own heads, the equipment was less than 200 bucks for molds and crucible.
Since the start of the great ammo, powder and primer shortage of 2020 to??? Ammo has doubled and some cases tripled in price if you can find it. Yes, there is an initial investment in setting up to reload. However, all said and done I have typically saved 60% or more by making my own ammo. For example, 1 pound of powder makes about 800 rounds of 40 caliber S&W. If you add up all the associated costs to reload 800 rounds including basic equipment, powder, cases, heads and primer you are at the breakeven point.
In comparison wood working and all the equipment needed to build stuff is far more costly that equipment needed to reload. However, when you make something with your hands it is not the costs savings you initially think about. It is time well spent in the satisfaction of what you made, and reloading provides me with the same feeling.
Reloading equipment is an investment to be sure, but once you have your equipment, then you start factoring cost savings. Like Harrys said, it's something I enjoy doing, but there came a point where I wanted to produce more for my time than my basic single stage setup was giving me. With that setup, if I had things well organized, I could do about 100 rounds an hour. I invested in a progressive press - just a Dillon 550C - and with that if I have things organized and things are going well, I can do about 100 rounds every 12 minutes or so if I'm loading for pistol. Even really being careful and taking my time it's still a much better rate than with a single stage setup.
I'll start reloading rifle soon, and when that happens, I'll most likely go back to a single stage press - I think that rifle warrants the extra time and care.
Above all else though, reloading is something I enjoy. I like having control over the process and really knowing and understanding what I've loaded and why. I agree that it's similar to woodworking - you take pride in the things you produced in your own workshop.
I'll start reloading rifle soon, and when that happens, I'll most likely go back to a single stage press - I think that rifle warrants the extra time and care.
Above all else though, reloading is something I enjoy. I like having control over the process and really knowing and understanding what I've loaded and why. I agree that it's similar to woodworking - you take pride in the things you produced in your own workshop.
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steves1911
Ultimate Member
I started on a lee single stage and still use it for all my rifle rounds. 3 pieces of equipment greatly increased my reloading rate for rifle while keeping them just as precise. (1) lyman case prep express (2) frankford arsenal intellidropper (3) giraud tri way trimmers for 308 and 223 for those 1k+ rnd batches.
This is why I love my 650XL with a bullet feeder, yeah. That said, I've gotten a little less impressed with burst speeds vs sustained/average speeds.
It all really depends on why you're shooting rifle, though. For me, I'm mostly an action shooter, and I don't care about getting .5-1MOA ammo. I just need a lot of it that performs at something like a 1-2 MOA standard on average. If my dispersion screws me once in a while on a distance shot in a match, I'm just pulling the trigger again.
For those rare times when I'm shooting ELR, yeah, I'll break out the turret press and CM Lite, and load a little more deliberately.
I tend to be pretty careful when loading on my 550C - I think it's a nice boost in production from single stage, but it's also very easy to troubleshoot if something goes awry in the process, mainly because it doesn't auto-index. I know that case feeders and bullet feeders "can" be added to the 550, but that press doesn't lend itself to that like the 650 does, and at times I have just a twinge of regret that I chose the 550 over the 650 - for me it wasn't about the money because I could have gotten the 650, but I thought that for me and what I wanted to do, the 550 was the better option.
I'll probably load all but 556/223 on a single stage - I plan on loading 223 on the Dillon as a progressive. (I plan on using the Dillon for single stage with a 550 single stage conversion kit that puts everything in the center of the ram.)
The 550C is infamous for pistol double charges in action shooting circles, which is why it was never on the table for me. Doing those on a 650 is difficult due to how it works. Doing it on a 550C is one moment of indexing forgetfulness, especially with smaller 9mm charges. That is why I almost never recommend the 550C for anything other than large rifle cartridges.
I guess we should have a law to keep people who can't rotate a shell carrier from owning reloading equipment. After all, it's for the children.
Oh, I agree. But some people are also claiming they're loading at 500 rounds an hour on one, without a bullet feeder and a case feeder. There's a lot of room for things to go wrong at that pace.I guess we should have a law to keep people who can't rotate a shell carrier from owning reloading equipment. After all, it's for the children.
Yea, 500 rounds an hour is a little dangerous to say the least.
I don’t personally disagree. But if the only goal
Is to get in to it to save money, then you have to figure opportunity cost. If you have work flexibility and you could pickup a few extra hours at $25 an hour, even after taxes that’s what you’ve gotta weigh your savings against.
I didn’t get in to reloading to save money. It’s a secondary consideration for me. I figured I’d love doing it and I could make ammo I couldn’t buy. I love it and I can make ammo I can’t buy. Some day it’ll save me money. I mean, it sure does. But I doubt I’ve paid off all of the equipment I’ve bought yet. Sure not all of the components. Though probably need to weigh component cost against what the loaded ammo would cost. It’s not like I’ve usually bought ammo as I shoot it.
But a lot of guys get in to reloading to try to save money. If I didn’t enjoy it, well I’d probably rather do something else with my spare time. I mean, if I was saving $50 an hour of work, well hell id do it even if I hated it.
I'm with you. I enjoy reloading, can make ammo for specific guns, and can do some things a LOT cheaper than I can buy them.
bigmancrisler
2A Preacher
I’m sure I probably save a good bit as almost everything I shoot is obsolete/not very readily available and usually expensive to get if I can find it. But also, I just love reloading. To me, there’s nothing better than coming home after a long day and just processing some brass or loading some ammo up.
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Yeah I hear you. Oh my lee Classic turret I can burst about 350 rounds an hour chugging along. I can do that for about 8-12 rounds before I inevitably mess something up. I’ve used others 550 and I get how much faster it is. But I think the same principle applies. Run a press too fast and you’ll F up eventually. It’s really hard to double charge on my Lee. But I can skip charging a case by accident (I’ve done it twice and caught it both times). And I can sure ram a case in to the edge of the expanding die and crush the mouth. Or ram a bullet in tipped for some of the rounder cartridges like 9x18 and 32acp.
I can sit down and after I’ve got through maybe 20 rounds and gotten in to a rhythm I can rip through 30-50 rounds at about 250-300 rounds an hour if I am just loading a box, box and a half or two boxes of ammo. But my typical reloading rate is about 160-200 an hour. Closer to 160 if you factor in needing to reload primers occasionally, the rare screw up I need to fix (like I didn’t seat a primer quite enough or whatever). Smaller and more finicky rounds are a little slower. Easy ones like 45acp I can cruise at around 200 even figuring in reloading primers and mess ups.
Of course rifle rounds if I factor in ALL of my time from new brass/range brass to a loaded round it’s probably half that rate figuring in all the extra case prep.
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