Quote:
Originally Posted by gsxrken
I'm disappointed to review your math and see how little savings there is to be had. And that is not factoring in whatever I have to spend in tools... we would be in the red for many 1000s of rounds before we broke even. We're silhouette and soda bottle full of water shooters, not match paper punchers. I thought it was much cheaper.
Anyone else?
|
You can bring those numbers down if you buy in bulk, shop around, and stick to military surplus bullet weights. I typically buy my .223 55 grain bullets 2,000 at a time for around 7¢ a bullet. I spend about 2.7¢ a primer. Powder is around 23¢ a round. So I can reload .223 for about 33¢ a bullet.
The cheapest I can sometimes find .223 pre-loaded is for around 40¢ bullet. So I save about $70 for every 1000 rounds I shoot. (Having spent $330 instead of $400 on the ammo.)
Like Jeff, I do it for a hobby in and of itself. I also like that I can keep shooting when stuff gets scarce because of my component stockpile. Like Jeff, I'd highly recommend getting a single-stage press and loading .45 ACP to start. If you don't like that, there's no chance you'll loading like rifle ammo. Also, if I didn't start out on a single-stage, I'd have no idea how to troubleshoot a progressive.