After reading about the price breakdown for 1000 yard shooting and with all the reloading stuff on my brain, I was curious if my .223 Rem reloading effort was financially worth it.

The following is a rough breakdown. Component prices can vary based upon vendor and market forces. As well, other factors play into the bottom line price paid. For instance, if I buy locally I’m going to pay sales tax and the only “shipping” is gas for my car to drive to and from the store. If I buy on the Internet, likely no sales tax but I will pay shipping charges. As well, buying primers and powder online will incur a hazmat fee, but since it’s a flat fee the impact of that fee is lessened if you order a large quantity.

The Barnes TSX .224″ 62 grain bullets were $27.99 for a box of 50 at MidwayUSA. Bought 2 boxes, NRA round-up, shipping, and it wound up costing me $0.64/bullet.

Buying 100 new Remington unprimed brass cases at Cabela’s was $25.99, and with tax broke down to about $0.28/case.

Primers end up being about $0.03 each.

Powder has the most variance depending on the powder you buy and then how much powder gets used. But ultimately it winds up being about $0.06 per round.

Grand total: $1.01/round

In a lot of respects, that’s not bad. Premium rifle ammo isn’t cheap. Federal P223S at Cabela’s runs $29.99/box-of-20 ($1.50/round). I can buy Cor-Bon’s factory load of the TSX 62 grain direct from Barnes for $32.28/box ($1.61/round). Of course again this isn’t strict apples-to-apples comparison as there’s tax, shipping, etc. in play or not in these figures. Furthermore, the cost of brass won’t always be a factor, which cuts a fair chunk out of the cost-per-reload. I’m also looking at use of a premium bullet; cheap plinking bullets should cost a lot less. But you can still get a rough idea of what you’re up against here.

There is one thing that isn’t accounted for. Time. Let’s say I can reload 100 rounds an hour at that $0.50 or so savings. That’s $50/hour. Is my time worth that? Maybe, maybe not. The way I’ve looked at it, with a progressive reloading press churning out a few hundred rounds an hour of ammo for handgun practice, that may or may not be worth it in terms of time. But for your high-end rifle ammo for hunting? It may be. If I find the right load and load say 50 to 100 rounds of it in a couple hours (excluding all the time invested in working up the load), I could be set for life for hunting ammo and that time investment may be worthwhile.  But as well, is everything a time vs. money trade-off? If you’re reloading purely for cost savings, it may not be worth it, especially when you consider all the up-front costs for buying equipment: it will take years to amortize the cost. Plus you have to consider how much money you can make per hour of your time, and could your time be better spent in some financial way? If however you are looking at reloading as a hobby in and of itself or part of the overall hobby of shooting, then like any hobby you’re likely going to invest more than you’ll ever get out of it in terms of money, but you’ll get a lot of enjoyment and that’s tough to put a price on.

So is reloading worth it? All depends how you value it. Certainly over time there’s cost savings, the trade-off being your invested time. If life’s too busy, just buy factory ammo. Me, I like having hobbies and “other things to do” than work all the time. Shooting and reloading are very mentally stimulating for me with both a science and art aspect to them (same reason I enjoy martial arts so much). I know I’m investing far more into this than I’ll get out in terms of money, but I enjoy learning the craft and who knows how it might pay out for me later in life. Meantime, it’s just something enjoyable and interesting to do. Sure the money matters, but enriching my life matters a lot more.