Reloading Economics

[maser44]

I’ve been out of the loop and living off my stockpile for a while… is there an added tax on ammo now like they did with firearm purchases?

 

[chiroken007]

same 11% excise tax as firearms.

 

[AR15barrels]

I bill $100-125 an hourish so that's about how I value my time.

Do you get paid that for all the time that you are not billing too?
If so, reloading is not likely for you.
If you are making $100/hr all day, every day, that's $16,800 per week and you can certainly afford to buy ammo instead of reloading.

 

[Gawernator]

Do you get paid that for all the time that you are not billing too?
If so, reloading is not likely for you.
If you are making $100/hr all day, every day, that's $16,800 per week and you can certainly afford to buy ammo instead of reloading.

hah I wish! Obviously any business has taxes and the paperwork I dread like invoicing. But I do work like 50-60 hours many weeks

 

[five.five-six]

You might be a reloading addict when you have a counting scale to count your brass, bullets and loaded rounds.

I’m not an addict. I can stop any time I want. I just don’t want to.

Now, if you need a spreadsheet to inventory your components so you don’t end up with 5X the 0.311 150’s you needed because you keep forgetting you already have them…. Wait, Oh !

 

[five.five-six]

I bill $100-125 an hourish so that's about how I value my time.

With materials premiums and RMR, I charge a lot more than that but I enjoy hand loading and that’s how I value my time.

If you do not enjoy hand loading or have a difficult time concentrating on a task at hand, then hand loading is definitely not for you.

 

[Skilly]

Reloads don't make sense at all unless its part of your hobby. And, by hobby its more than just the activity itself, its the, materials and sourcing; including in some part, scavenging, or capturing your own spent casings, or it ends up being more expensive than boxed options. Not sure Id call that fun, but let's just say to the reloader it is all part of it.

Without factoring the labor at all (because its fun'), lets suppose you can knock 3-5 cents off of 9mm round. That's $30 to $50 per 1K. Let's assume that the enthusiast has a manually indexed Turret Press that does 150 to 200 rds/hour. Thats 5 to 7 hours to produce 1K rounds, translating to about $7 of savings per hour. With @Gawernator hourly rate, he'd be spending $700 bucks to save $50.

 

[chiroken007]

Just shoot loads of high power and you’ll save enough money to feel good about it. lol.

 

[tedster]

I bill $100-125 an hourish so that's about how I value my time.

That's what you bill your clients. Now, you wouldn't turn down a client because you were planning to re-load a few thousand rounds of ammo instead.

Myself, I am not billing myself. If there is no work that pays me an hourly rate, you do whatever is worth your while.
I hear some people like to play with their kids, walk their dog or hand-load ammo.

 

[RustVendor]

Reloads don't make sense at all unless its part of your hobby. And, by hobby its more than just the activity itself, its the, materials and sourcing; including in some part, scavenging, or capturing your own spent casings, or it ends up being more expensive than boxed options. Not sure Id call that fun, but let's just say to the reloader it is all part of it.

Without factoring the labor at all (because its fun'), lets suppose you can knock 3-5 cents off of 9mm round. That's $30 to $50 per 1K. Let's assume that the enthusiast has a manually indexed Turret Press that does 150 to 200 rds/hour. Thats 5 to 7 hours to produce 1K rounds, translating to about $7 of savings per hour. With @Gawernator hourly rate, he'd be spending $700 bucks to save $50.

we did the math above but it's at least 100 dollars per 1000 of savings and on a progressive press it takes me about 90 minutes to load 1000. And that 100 dollars savings is using 124s or even 147s vs the literal cheapest 9mm that's probably 115s and an unknown velocity. The savings is substantial but it does take time and you have to like it. No one is loading 9mm on a turret press, at least no one sane.

 

[tedster]

... and you can certainly afford to buy ammo instead of reloading.

It's a fundamental question I had to answer for myself: Can I afford to shoot firearms? Which includes buying ammo.
The answer is yes, within proper means. I am not the kind of guy who shoots a few thousand rounds of 9mm or .45 ACP in a single day.
Re-loading to meet large volume cost efficiency will never be my thing.

 

[Gawernator]

Reloads don't make sense at all unless its part of your hobby. And, by hobby its more than just the activity itself, its the, materials and sourcing; including in some part, scavenging, or capturing your own spent casings, or it ends up being more expensive than boxed options. Not sure Id call that fun, but let's just say to the reloader it is all part of it.

Without factoring the labor at all (because its fun'), lets suppose you can knock 3-5 cents off of 9mm round. That's $30 to $50 per 1K. Let's assume that the enthusiast has a manually indexed Turret Press that does 150 to 200 rds/hour. Thats 5 to 7 hours to produce 1K rounds, translating to about $7 of savings per hour. With @Gawernator hourly rate, he'd be spending $700 bucks to save $50.

lol crazy. Even at subcontract jobs like $60/hr surveillance yeah.... it does seem like a lot of effort and I barely have free time as is

 

[WSS01]

9mm math
Projectiles are 7-10 cents depending on weight, type and quality, yes you can easily pay more but that is what I pay for competition style loads
Powder 3 cents per
Primers are about 5 cents
Brass is negligible as you are reusing multiple times

That puts you about 15-18 cents per round or $150 -$180/1000 rounds

All these numbers require purchasing in bulk. I am still loading off of supplies I bought last black Friday and with those supplies I am loading 147gr Hi-Tek coated 9mm for $135/1000.

The biggest benefit for me though is being able to control my loads.

If you are shooting a box a couple of times a month then no reloading is probably not for you. I easily shoot 1k a month in 9mm so even the smallest savings adds up quickly.

Oh, and as for time. On a Dillon 750, it takes me about 90 minutes to load 1000 rounds. Not a huge time investment.

Does that include poking/flipping primers, cleaning brass? Those two things take hours for me. Maybe I need some schooling on how to clean. Do you have a bullet feeder? I load on a 650 for reference.

 

[Skilly]

lol crazy. Even at subcontract jobs like $60/hr surveillance yeah.... it does seem like a lot of effort and I barely have free time as is

Oops for the reloader who is considering their time as 'free', let's at least factor the cost of the machine. Rather than a cost per hour, lets treat each hour spent as paying for equipment with the savings. Just need to add about a weeks worth of work, er hobbying, to get to break even.

 

[RustVendor]

Does that include poking/flipping primers, cleaning brass? Those two things take hours for me. Maybe I need some schooling on how to clean. Do you have a bullet feeder? I load on a 650 for reference.

I use a double alpha automatic primer tube loader. For cleaning I just wet tumble with dish soap for an hour then rinse and put in a tray in the sun. I was a couple three gallons of brass at a time which is thousands of rounds, I think it's 1200 shells per gallon. You don't need 9mm to be scrubbed and polished.

 

[tedster]

Does that include poking/flipping primers, cleaning brass? Those two things take hours for me. Maybe I need some schooling on how to clean. Do you have a bullet feeder? I load on a 650 for reference.

Of course not. I always find it fascinating, brass doesn't cost anything, because you are saving your spent brass. Imagine, after a range event you pickup 1k brass cases. Given, some firing lines have a nice concrete surface where you use a broom to sweep it all up, drop it into a box and sort it later.

I rather hang out at the Tex Mex All Stars party.

 

[WSS01]

I use a double alpha automatic primer tube loader. For cleaning I just wet tumble with dish soap for an hour then rinse and put in a tray in the sun. I was a couple three gallons of brass at a time which is thousands of rounds, I think it's 1200 shells per gallon. You don't need 9mm to be scrubbed and polished.

I have been considering the DAA primer feeder and the mr bullet rig. That would speed up things immensely. I load 5k of 9 a year plus various 45 and 223 but mainly 9, usually all together over a week or two if I get busy. The prep is for the birds LOL.

 

[Gawernator]

All of this has told me that you don't really save much by reloading 9mm unless you enjoy it as a hobby

 

[ejhyun]

I use a Dillon primer flip tray, takes me less than 10 minutes to load up 1000 primers. I obviously have several primer tubes.

Cleaning brass is a bit of work...sort of...I switched to wet tumbling and that has made it a lot less work for me. I hated dealing with the dust from the dry media.
My usual routine is to drop my spent shells into my wet tumbler. I will then start loading for an hour. My loading and wet tumbling usually finish at the same time. I will then rinse and drop all the brass into my dryer (food dehydrator). Since it has a built in timer, I am then finished with my reloading session. The clean brass I deal with the next time I am out in the garage.

I have a Dillon bullet feeder. I'm not sure if it has really sped up the reloading process for me but it has sure made it easier. I do not run my press as fast as it is capable. Instead, I go at a comfortable pace and with or without the bullet feeder, I can crank out around 600-700 rounds an hour. Over the course of a month, I will spend an hour loading every other week. This gives me more than enough 9mm that when I can make time to go shooting, I know I can showup with a bag full of ammo and shoot as much as I want.

 

[RustVendor]

I have been considering the DAA primer feeder and the mr bullet rig. That would speed up things immensely. I load 5k of 9 a year plus various 45 and 223 but mainly 9, usually all together over a week or two if I get busy. The prep is for the birds LOL.

The primer feeder may be the single most time saving device of all, second being the case feeder. I still don't have a bullet feeder, well I did have a 3d printed one but it sucked and then it broke. It doesn't slow it down that much to place the bullet though.