Is Reloading too Expensive?

Small Caliber Big Savings Reloading 223

In this article from 2017, Ned Christiansen walks through his case prep and loading process using Alliant RL15 powder, his main focus is on cost savings here.

Small Caliber Big Savings Reloading 223

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I don't understand why people get so fixated on equipment costs.
They're tools, not consumables.

Do you include the cost of a wrench in every oil change?
Do you include the cost of a floor jack in every brake job?
Do you include the cost of a table saw in every board ripped?
Do you include the cost of the vehicle in every road trip?

Tools.
Not consumables.

It is not that expensive, anyway.
A basic reloading setup can be obtained for about the cost of three boxes of 'premium' rifle ammo.
 
If you are following the rules of cost accounting, you have to include them. They aren't consumables, but since you could have used the money you invested in the tools to buy commercial ammo instead, you now have to replace those never-purchased commercial rounds with additional reloads, making them part of the total cost. Or you could have put the money into savings or an investment, in which case your accountant would count how much interest you are NOT earning as part of the cost per round. You can think of the equipment cost either as affecting how many rounds you have to load and shoot before you break even or, what an accountant would amortize that equipment cost over all the rounds the equipment will ever produce for you. This means dividing the cost of the equipment by all the rounds you will ever load on it, and adds that little increment to the cost of each round produced on it. That gives you a realistic cost.
 
Unc is absolutely correct, and the mention of not including wrenches, jacks, saws and such is not relevant since those can be used for other functions like the saw for building furniture, the wrenches for rebuilding an engine, the jack can be used to rotate tires, etc. etc. Even the IRS considers the car’s depreciation when calculating the official deductible cost per mile. Besides reloading, what else can you do with reloading dies or a press? Answer - nothing.

Or you can fool yourself by not taking everything into account. Your choice, reality or fantasy.



.
 
Well the press reloads all calibers so....................... I don't change oil 50-150 times every week or so. I hazard a guess my vehicle tools cost far more than my reloading setup. Some were a one time use. Shrug.

Cost is really not the issue. Either you can afford it or not.

The only target ammo I could ever get was in 308. I sure can not get any ammo right now.

Long term, low cost setup might save money. In my case I can roll target ammo to suit me and the guns, I can roll a lot more of it even sans not available. I can load any velocity I want.

I could hire a plow truck to do my driveway. Or I can (have) bought snow blowers and I can put the snow where I want and not have a plowed mess. Yea there is a convenience return and I do neighbors as needed. Blowing snow is also a lot of fun and good winter workout.

We bought a house. That does not pay either. Still its now rent free. Lets see, 20 years to pay it off, 3 years rent free and in XXXX we break even!

Lets face it, shooting is not a have to. Its entertainment. How much does your cell phone plan cost you a month and how much of it is entertainment?

So, break the car out, how much is a want to and how much a need to? Break all that out. Or you can just figure, can I afford it, do I want to do it and enjoy it. Its not a business. You can assess it any way that suits you. The IRS does not care.
 
I understand amortization. But with reloading, it pays itself off quite quickly with many rifle cartridges and fairly quickly with many handgun cartridges. Really not a factor, unless you only plan on loading 80 rounds over the life of the equipment.

Besides reloading, what else can you do with reloading dies or a press? Answer - nothing.

Or you can fool yourself by not taking everything into account. Your choice, reality or fantasy.
Click to expand...
You need some imagination.
I use my presses all the time.
For reloading-adjacent purposes, like bullet sizing and swaging, and extruding lead.
And for ridiculous things, like installing solid rivets, assembling press-fit tools and jigs, and even pressing U-joints.

Did you know that you can get 'blank' shell holders from Lyman?
Combine that with a 7/8-14 bolt, and you have a generic, albeit small, multi-purpose press.
But that was not the point of my previous statement.
It was about reloading-curious persons freaking out about a $300 buy-in to load their first box of ammo, even though the 150 rounds of .300 WM that they plan to dump into the berm over the next 3 months is going to cost more than that.
 
what else can you do with reloading dies or a press? Answer - nothing.
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So? All mine do is load cheap ammo (like idea above to use as a mini-press. Never thought of that). I've definitely saved a huge pile of money over the years. Or, you can think of it I've been able to 'afford' shooting more when time allows. Take your pick. A win win.
 
I shoot a number of less popular/niche cartridges...

.41 Magnum, .45 Colt, .32-20, .25-20, .32 Long and .44 Special.

If I didn't reload, I wouldn't be able to shoot any of those either due to complete lack of factory ammo or obscene cost of ammo.
 
for the shooter who is happy with 1.0 - 1.25 MOA accuracy reloading is not worth it. For the shooter that needs .5 or less there is no other alternative. Compared to other hobbies such as boating and golfing reloading is still a bargain. I just look at it as spending my daughters inheritance
 
I enjoy reloading, its a part of my whole shooting hobby.

Besides, its not easy or inexpensive to try to find 6.5 x 50R Jap, 30 Remington, 6mm TCU, 6.5 x 53R, .50-70, or 7mm TCU factory ammo.:D
 
Yep.
I have many oddities, some 'unpopulars', several wildcats, and some obsoletes. If I don't load my own, I cannot shoot them.

Some people were discussing 7.35 and 6.5 Carcano recently, in another venue.
Turned into another reminder that people just want to complain.
Complaining about ammo availability.
Then complaining about lack of variety.
Then complaining that one of the companies uses .264" bullets in the 6.5 ammo.

They were reminded that most people shooting those rifles are reloaders.
So, they complained about bullet and brass availability (which is actually worse for .268" bullets than .298-.300" bullets, but they're out there).
Then they turned to complaining about die availability.

Meanwhile, I glanced over at my three sets of 7.35 dies, two sets of 6.5 Carcano dies, pile of brass, stack of bullets, stack of factory ammo, and stack of handloaded ammo - all of which were picked up and/or loaded in the last two years.
If you want to shoot the strange, you have to be prepared to wait for availability. I didn't get all of that over night. It took time.

As a select number of us provided solutions for each complaint that was brought up, they turned to something else to complain about.
Once all of the complaints had been given solutions, they just complained about the cost (which is not high - it is roughly on par with .30-30 or .308 Win).

But they won't sell the rifles, because then they would have nothing to complain about.
 
I have TWO reasons to reload.
I can lessen recoil for my 45acp target loads. At 85, hot factory loads are not
fun after about 20 rounds.
Second, John Moses Browning designed his pistol around 200 grain bullets, not the 230 that the Army forced on him. Try buying those in factory dress.
Cost: my brass is free- bullets are 8 cents to 17 cents, powder is $24/lb, and will load 1400 rds @ 5gr ea. Primers, unfortunately are about 9 cents ea after you get em home if you buy more than 1 brick. So adding and rounding up
I get about 28 cents per round. Cheapest brass I saw on AMMo seek was
46 cents, before tax and shipping.

Load your own IF: you shoot 400 rds/mo
IF you want your own spec rounds
IF you have a good time doing it.
Saving money is nice too.
 
Is reloading too expensive

Edit to the last post: Loaded rounds with Brass casing were $0.46 ea. I really don't want to shoot steel rounds from Russia.:cool:
 
It's about time frame. If you invest a total of $1000 in reloading-only tools and reload 200,000 rounds in your remaining lifetime, you've added half a cent to every round in a zero-inflation, zero interest environment. But if the environment is not inflation-free, and that remaining lifetime is, say, 40 years, that $1000 dollars invested in the average stock market (10% growth per year) would have grown to $45,000 by the time you died or were otherwise forced out of reloading at the end of 40 years. But if inflation copied the last 40 years, that large sum would have the spending power of $15,342 in constant dollars of 40 years prior, so your investment cost you the spending power of $14,342 in interest on top of the $1000 you put in. That's what is called your opportunity cost (the opportunity to earn interest having been sacrificed). On the day you die or otherwise stop reloading 40 years later, you will look back and see about $0.0767 per round is missing from your bank account. But that's only at the 40-year point. Looking at it at all points during that 40 years, you will averaged half that, or more like like $0.038/round.

Of course, that ignores what your opportunity costs would be for buying commercial ammunition. Much higher in that 200,000 quantity, I expect. The obvious solution is to load more than 200,000 rounds in your loading lifetime. A lot more.
 
My memory is a bit foggy--was many years ago when I got my MBA--but that sounds a bit like PVFCF--present value of future cash flow. I don't see any return at all on either hand-loads or factory ammo--unless you measure "appreciation" in terms of food put in the freezer--or financial winnings at matches.:D
 
I couldnt afford to feed the larger and odd calibers I own without handloading. You ever see what factory weatherby ammo sells for. I can save a couple dollars a round on 30-378 compared to factory
 
Sometimes it is not just about cost. Part of my incentive is to be able to produce high quality ammunition if (when) it becomes more strictly regulated, harder to obtain and even more expensive.
 
I shoot ammunition specifically tailored for each purpose and rifle/handgun I own. Let's consider a 6.5 Creedmoor for a minute. Two years ago, the Federal Gold Medal Match ammunition or the Hornady ELD Match ammunition was between $25 and $30 a box of 20. That is a price of around $1.25-$1.50 per shot. Right now, premium ammunition for the 6.5 Creedmoor is $2+ per shot. Also, right now at this moment it costs me $.77 for each shot when calculating the cost of primers, bullets, powder, and brass with 10 firings each. When I consider that I have around $1,000 in tools that are only used for reloading and try to see how many rounds of ammunition I have to load to pay for my equipment, it is pretty clear that at least for me, reloading my ammunition is definitely worth it. In 2020, I fired 3,000 shots from just one 6.5 Creedmoor barrel. In total, at my current cost, that ammunition would cost me $2,310. The last time I purchased the above-mentioned Federal Gold Medal Match ammunition, it was $34 a box. That is a cost of $1.70 per shot. The same 3,000 shots using that factory ammunition would have a total cost of $5,100.

Unclenick was discussing inflation. I believe he has some good points there, but inflation is not likely to affect the cost of loaded ammunition without also having a relative impact on the cost of components. For me at least, the cost of my ammunition for my 6.5 Creedmoor rifle is only 45% the cost of match grade factory ammunition. In the last 24 months alone, I have saved enough money to pay for my components and my equipment and still saved over $1,000. That is only considering what I saved for one type of ammunition. For my 300 PRC, the difference in cost is even more evident. Factory ammunition for that thing is $2.70 per shot. The only way for me to get brass for that gun right now is factory ammunition. Lucky for me, the factory Hornady stuff shoots very well in that rifle. As such, I do not count the cost of brass in the cost of my reloads. I figure, at least for now, I covered the cost of the brass when I purchased the ammunition, which I still got use of, therefore my brass for the reloads is free. Right now, I am paying $.50 per bullet, $.50 per powder charge, and $.10 per primer. That is a cost of $1.10 per shot. I have shot 100 factory rounds and 300 reloads from that rifle. Those 100 shots of factory ammunition cost me roughly $270, and the 300 rounds of reloads have cost me roughly $330. By the time I shoot this barrel out, if I consider 1,500 shots, Factory ammunition would cost me $4,050, whereas my reloads will have cost me $1,650.

If you shoot like I do, and I know a lot of people shoot way more, reloading is definitely not too expensive. If I were to consider how many shots, I take per year total from all my rifles and pistols, I am probably shooting 10,000 shots per year. Of course, this means that I spend almost every extra dollar I have after savings and expenses on my shooting habit. I could not afford to shoot even remotely close to that many rounds of factory ammunition.
 
Unclenick said:
If you are following the rules of cost accounting, you have to include them. They aren't consumables, but since you could have used the money you invested in the tools to buy commercial ammo instead, you now have to replace those never-purchased commercial rounds with additional reloads, making them part of the total cost. Or you could have put the money into savings or an investment, in which case your accountant would count how much interest you are NOT earning as part of the cost per round. You can think of the equipment cost either as affecting how many rounds you have to load and shoot before you break even or, what an accountant would amortize that equipment cost over all the rounds the equipment will ever produce for you. This means dividing the cost of the equipment by all the rounds you will ever load on it, and adds that little increment to the cost of each round produced on it. That gives you a realistic cost.
Click to expand...
Ah, I see, this makes perfect sense. It is no different than me calculating the sales I have lost in one product by replacing it with another that costs less money per unit. Especially if you consider that one unit sells better than the other. Even if my margin is higher on the replacement item, I still have to consider the cost and projected sales of the old item to forecast whether the replacement makes sense, or how long it would take me to see a net profit over time.
 
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