"though you're a little generous in some places."
I reload .357 Magnum for between $5 and $6 a box, and the cost of a box of .357 Magnum is far beyond $20 these days.
I reload .45 ACP for about $7.50 a box (bullet prices have gone up quite a bit for .45). .45 ACP is also quite pricy from the store these days.
From Midway the Lee Delux 4-hole Turret reloading kit, which comes with scale and powder thrower, is $118.00.
Throw dies in on that... Let's go with the Lee 4-die set... that's an additional $40.
Total cost for a low end and bare bones, but complete serviceable reloading set up, is $158.00
That leaves you more than enough to get a copy of Lee's Modern Reloading 2nd Edition, currently on sale for $11.00.
You can cut that price even farther if you go with a Lee single stage kit, where the Lee Challenger Breechlock Single Stage kit will set you back $90 on sale right now.
"some new brass [not all is going to be reloadable]"
I'm still reloading brass, both .45 ACP and .38/.357, that I purchased as loaded ammunition in the 1980s.
The vast majority of my brass has been obtained free from range pickups.
Granted, that's not going to be as possible to do with something like the Makarov, which isn't a common cartridge.
Even so, Mak brass isn't particularly expensive.
Once again, Midway to he rescue, where Mak brass is $17.99 per 100 from Starline.
Granted, 18 cents a case seems like it's expensive, but every time you reload the case the cost goes closer to zero. After four reloads, you might as well figure the cost of the brass is zero if you're amortizing it.
Here's the last kicker.
I'm using Midway prices, which are generally the most expensive of all of the major suppliers.
You can do better on prices by scouring the web and by hitting gunshows and local gunshops, especially for powder, primers, and bullets. Shipping will kill you on powder and bullets.
Granted, prices WILL fluctuate given commodities prices for lead and the state of panic of US gunowners (primers shot up a few years ago).
But, as commodities prices and panic goes, so goes the prices you pay from your local dealer.
At the same time bullet and primer prices were going up a few years ago, loaded ammunition prices were absolutely skyrocketing as people convinced that Obama was going to go door to door confiscating guns laid in huge supplies.
Hell, at one point the price of loaded .380 ammo topped $75 per a box of 50 on a lot of online sites because it was being snapped up.
How long would a loading press take to pay for itself with a price differential of $70 a box of ammo?
Two boxes? Three?
I've been reloading for over 30 years, and I've watched the cost of reloading go up and down, but it's always stayed relatively a pace with the cost of loaded ammunition, making the savings fairly consistent no matter what the price of loaded ammunition.
The only time when it's not been worth my time or effort to reload was when I could get 9mm Luger ammo for as little as $4.50 a box on sale (and boy would I stock up). That's when I couldn't reload and realize any savings.