Earlier this week I resolved to reload 100 rounds of 9mm every morning. I figure 100 rounds doesn’t take me more than 30 minutes (from setup to cleanup). I can spare 30 minutes a day, and over time I’ll get what I need. 500 rounds so far.
Trouble is, I’m realizing that while I’m fairly well set for most components right now, brass is in short supply. I have a few avenues, but I’m probably going to need to buy some. I figured while I was shopping around for the best price I should see how much reloading one round of 9mm costs me.
If I have to buy some once-fired brass, it works out to about $0.033 per case.
My Precision Delta bullets, since I bought in bulk a while ago, are about $0.064 per bullet.
Buying Titegroup powder in 8 lbs jugs, at 4.5 grains per load it’s about $0.0018 per throw.
And the primer is about $0.027 each.
That totals up to $0.125 per round, or $6.29 per 50.
Over at ammoman.com, prices vary a bit depending what you buy and what level of bulk you get, but easily the cost per round there is double what it’s costing me. Over at the ammoengine this morning, the cheapest is Tula from CheaperThanDirt at $0.19 round. Once you move into the realm of brass-cased ammo, nothing is cheaper than twice what it’s costing me.
Certainly prices of factory ammo can vary. Certainly the cost of my components can vary, but buying in massive bulk quantities (I know I’ll eventually go through it) and looking for the best deals help. Plus, if we remove the cost of the brass (I can often harvest for free), that helps too. Bottom line is, the exact numbers may vary slightly, but there’s no question there’s significant cost savings.
So of course what’s the key difference? Time invested. I can spare 30 minutes a day. Just have to ensure I stay dedicated to it.
Stuff From Hsoi 
Your math is off. Assume you re-use the brass at least 10 times, and recalculate the cost to load 10 rounds of 9mm, only paying for one piece of brass. That’s closer to the real cost savings.
Well, that is true. And also given things like how I can get some brass “for free” from you, that could entirely remove the cost of brass from my equation. But really, how off the math is depends on some other factors.
For instance, take an intensive shooting class that goes through 1500-2000 rounds of ammo, and the brass can’t be recovered. That’s a lot of lost brass, especially if it was only reloaded once and now has to be replaced.
But however you calculate the math, the point of the cost analysis remains the same: it’s dramatically less expensive to reload, even if my math above considers “worst case” expense.
Did you factor shipping (or gas and sales tax) into your raw material costs? It’s not clear if your figured are FOB or delivered.
To KR’s point, you should either assume you have to purchase cases every X uses (to account for worn out/lost/crushed), or decide for modeling purposes that you will always be able to scrounge cases.
My (delivered) costs for 9mm range quality non-Russian (WWB, AE, BVAC, etc.) are averaging 0.2141/round over the last year, so (if we discount brass a bit) you’re at 0.105 per round, or a savings of 0.1091.
Discounting time value, added risk of home reloading, and value of bench space, and assuming $750 for a reloading setup (new RL550B plus accessories, roughly) you break even at 6875 rounds.
Yup. Those numbers were based upon what I paid in total (be it tax, shipping, hazmat fees, whatever) for each component when I bought them.
Bottom line: the cost savings are significant, so long as you’ve got the time. It’s been hard for me to do things like “get 1000 rounds loaded today”… that’s just too much for the brain and time allotment. But my new effort to load 100 rounds every morning, taking only maybe 30-ish minutes? That just means a little less TV to watch… no big loss. 🙂
But discounting labor costs is eliminating probably the largest cost of the whole operation. If you’re cranking out 200 rds/hour you have about a week’s worth of labor involved in getting to 6875 rounds. I don’t know what you’re making, Hsoi, but I’ll bet your paycheck would buy a sight more than 7000 rounds.
This is true. It comes down to the hobby factor… hobbies are generally always “in the red” activities both time and money-wise. But you do it because you enjoy it.
Are you set up to re-load .40? If so I would be willing to buy some from you. That may off set some of your costs.
Nope. Have no guns in .40 thus no dies or shell holders or brass or bullets or anything to reload it. Sorry.
Nice blog!! Thanks for the information. So the bottom line is, if you don’t mind the time and energy, then reloading yourself is financially well worth it, even if you have to put up about $750 to set it up. I guess I could recoup the cost of setup by charging others a little extra for labor when reloading theirs. Then, it would take less than 7000 reloads to come to that “break even” point. 🙂 Either way, how great is it to enjoy making something useful!
Time vs. money is certainly the trade-off. But it can’t just be about cost savings because it is so labor intensive, especially if you reload rifle ammo. There generally needs to be other reasons to reload, like components aren’t available in factory ammo (e.g. until very recently the Barnes Bullet 6.8 SPC 95 grain TTSX was only available to handloaders; now Wilson Combat has a good load for folks to buy), or you want to create a load that doesn’t exist, you want particular performance (common for people that shoot competition), etc..
But if you’ve just got a lot of time on your hands, hey, it’s a great way to do something useful. 🙂