I post this because I don't do much handgun shooting. However, with that said, I mentioned taking the CWP classes with my wife and she said she wouldn't mind going thru the training with me and getting her CWP. She said before she gets into the class she wanted to spend some time with me at the range getting more familiar with pistols. I have a 9mm and couple of 22 pistols but was thinking of buying her her own pistol. She likes to shoot my 9mm and I thought this might be a caliber she would be comfortable with.

Now to the question, how many rounds would it take to make up the cost of the dies and shellholder? I have everything else, I think? At least everything that is needed to load small and large rifle ammo.

I handload almost all of my ammo..for everything I shoot..

however working out the costs.. It is actually cheaper for me to just purchase the 100 round Winchester 115 gr RN's at Walmart than it is for me to handload them..

took my son out and let him shoot a few pistols... 38, 357, 9 mm... he sure fell in love with the 9mm... he really likes that one..

Well, if the only equipment you need is dies, then you can probably get a Lee set which includes the shell holder for anound 20 bucks. After that just powder and bullets. Figure arond $23 for the powder at your local gun shop, and you can buy the bullets via mail order. 9mm jacketed is cheap. Having said that, I do also use the Walmart white box stuff for plinking.
Peter.

Thanks guys. This is kinda what I figured. Is it something I want to do as a hobby, or are there some real savings there. Looks like I'll just need to weigh all options.

thanks,

quote:

Originally posted by graybird:
Thanks guys. This is kinda what I figured. Is it something I want to do as a hobby, or are there some real savings there. Looks like I'll just need to weigh all options.

thanks,

If you have a ton of time on your hands (as in after C-Spine fusion)& Nothing better to do, loading 9mm rounds is great but you will not be saving much if any. Also you need to pay extra attention as Not TO Double Charge A Case!

You may not be able to save all that much handloading practice ammo in 9x19 but you can save a bunch if you load good hollow points. Look at the price of Gold Dot, XTP or the equivelant self defence ammo and then compare what you can buy and load the same bullets for and you'll pay for your dies in 100-200rds................................DJ

The big savings used to come from being able to load hard cast lead bullets when the factory only supplied jacketed bullets. Full metal jacket, round nosed. Fine if you have a Geneva problem.

The other option is to look thru the available surplus 9mm. SARCO.com, SAMCO, etc. or the reloads. Hard copy of Shotgun News usually has ads. Or shotgunnews.com may have something. With this a military case now... And law enforcement.

Makes reloading a real hard question unless you are going to shoot match and need top accuracy. luck.

9mm is about .12 per rd to reload assuming you can get 'free' brass. That is easy for me to pick up at the range as well as thousands of pieces of Winchester brass from shooting the walmart stuff over the years I have saved.

Walmart WWB is about .21 or so per rd ($20 per 100 + tax)

So if you pull the trigger eleven times with reloads, you save a buck. Or about $1.50 per mag you run thru your pistol.



Depends on how much you shoot.

When WWB jumped from 0.13 per rd to .20 or so, it started to make sense for me. I am stock piling components now and going to spring for a Dillon 550 soon. Break even is about 4500 rds or so. Add .223 to the mix and I will make up the savings in a year easily.

I would imagine your break even would be around 350 rds or so. As mentioned above, loading practice Gold Dots to make sure they function in your pistol is really nice. (I would carry factory Gold Dots for liability reasons, real or imagined.)


YMMV

Lessee...I reload 9mm with cast lead bullets. I got my last batch of 1000 rounds down to something like $4.50 per box of 50...

All I remember was that the bullets cost about $0.05 per bullet, $0.02 per primer, and $0.02 for powder.

quote:

Originally posted by rnovi:
Lessee...I reload 9mm with cast lead bullets. I got my last batch of 1000 rounds down to something like $4.50 per box of 50...

All I remember was that the bullets cost about $0.05 per bullet, $0.02 per primer, and $0.02 for powder.

I was using Delta bullets at .067, .02 primer and about .04 powder.

The real economy comes from reloading with homemade cast bullets - as long as you have the time to do it. It is "officially" not recommended to use cast bullets in a Glock or H&K pistol with the ploygon rifling.