Digital Dan has written the definitive treatise on saving money by reloading:
quote:
I save money by hand loading. First I get a gun. Next there is the dies, different powder because there is something wrong with using powder that aces it in one gun for another. I KNOW that because the case has a different shape/rim/diameter/shoulder angle/birthday it's going to take a new powder. And bullets. I know damn well that what works for the .257 ain't gonna cut it for the .250 Savage. Neither will the primers. Forget the .25-20 for the moment, cause it uses lead, and even faster powder, milder primers, and a custom neck die. And moulds. Lubri-sizers, gas checks, and Rooster Red. My paper patch lube won't do, too soft. And a heater for the lube cause it's too hard to flow. You know you're an experienced handloader when you discriminate between BL(C)-2, IMR4895, H335, RX15, Varget, and maybe a few I can't recall. When you can do that you know you're getting maximum efficiency from every kernel of powder, every primer. Yep, then you learn how to anneal your cases so they can last 67 years. Only costs a few pennies a case every now and then.
Lest we forget, you need to load CONCENTRIC ammo too, or it won't shoot straight, so get yourself a runout device from RCBS or Sinclair. And that 11* chamfer. Flash hole uniformer. Dewey rods, Sweets 7.62 and Hoppe's Benchrest solvents too. Somewhere about now you're going to need a new house to store all that crap, so it's a good thing you reload, or you wouldn't be able to save money to buy the house. I figure that it doesn't cost me more than about $237.45 for each round of cast bullet loads that I shoot, $214.12 for the jacketed ammo, and mebbe $42.00 a box for 12 Ga. No hidden charges, not like Wal-Mart. You go in there to buy a box of 30-30 ammo, next thing you know you got yourself two Remmy 700s, a Weatherby and an NEF Handi-Rifle with three barrels. 5 sets of cammo, 12 bottles of stink juice, 40 packs of patches, some for calibers you may not have. That's okay, get 'em because they may stop production, think of the collectable value 15 years from now!
Next, you gotta buy the dies...
All hail Digital Dan!
lawndart
Posts: 7158 | Location: Snake River | Registered: 02 February 2004
I don't save money on all my reloading tasks. The prime examples are 9mm and .308 Milsurp and 7.62x39. Buy the time I factor in time on these, it costs me more. I buy 160 rds of .308 for a little over $30.00. I save my time for expensive rounds anymore, my 41 mags, 10mm, 45 Colt, and premium rifle ammo. On these it factors to my favor. I still load 357's and 45 ACP's, but lately I am eyeballing whether its worth the effort on 45 ACP. I am trying to free up my loading time to work on more rifle cartridges and the volumes of pistol ammo just takes away from that available timeslot.
Posts: 1486 | Location: Idaho | Registered: 28 May 2004
After reloading and saving lots of money over the past 35 years, I'll bet if I had to replace all the reloading tools and components I've got around here it would cost me 3 or 4 grand. That's a lot of ammo at WalMart.
Posts: 8169 | Location: humboldt | Registered: 10 April 2002
Before I started reloading, my approach went like this. A box of ammo from Coast to Coast, usually W-W brand, a box of Federal from the Co-op, and some Remington brand from Gambles. Shoot 'em all up and the most accurate of the lot was the kind you kept buying. Then came reloading. The saving piled up, especially with pistol ammo, and so it went for years. The secret -accumulate stuff slowly.
Reloading is just like anything else, don't get into it unless you have a specific task in mind. If you expect to save a big bunch on certian ammo and could care less if they shoot 3 inch groups then don't get into it! I am still using the same old RCBS press and dies I bought 20 years ago. I have bought some new ones for new calibers but I never go for the highest priced ones. I have some 4000 lake city .233 cases that I got years ago for around $5.00. I have 4000 primers I payed $8.00 a 1000 for and several thousand bullets @$4.00 a 1000. I can load up and shoot an accruate .233 round for about $1.00 a box. Depends on what you want to do. But don't bitch about reloading if you don't care about real accruate shooting while having the fun of carring through a desire and will to do something the best you can do. Americans today are spoiled brats enslaved to the idea of a goverment owing them a living and no desire to excell at any thing but whining and bitching about everything possible. For those reloading is not for them. Reloading isn't for saving a bunch of money, although I do because I bought years ago thinking of the future rising costs. Hey, buy what you will, shoot what you want, but unless you have spent serious time in reloading don't bitch about it and don't try to make those of us who do out as idiots. Reloading is like anything else, you get out of it what you put into it.
Posts: 671 | Location: none | Registered: 14 February 2005
Blob 1--thanks for saying it like it is. i usually get off on a tangent and forget what i'm writing about. reloading is the same as other hobbies, if you don't want to take it to the highest level,DON'T START, and quit bitching.
Posts: 510 | Location: pa | Registered: 07 May 2003
Yeah, the potential for saving $$$ by reloading is only skin deep, below that lurks the urge to get every gadget and component in the Reloading Universe, and there are quite a few of those! I'll not even mention the time it takes to produce the ammo required, I always maintain I'm not wealthy enough to measure my time in money. It's a hobby, so...
On the positive side, you learn a whole bunch about shooting, ballistics etc, and you get to shoot a bunch more!
Reloading forever!
-mike
********************* The rifle is a noble weapon... It entices its bearer into primeval forests, into mountains and deserts untenanted by man. - Horace Kephart
Posts: 6653 | Location: Switzerland | Registered: 11 March 2002
Just don't let my wife see this post. She keeps asking just how much do you have in your Reloading "STUFF" and guns? I change the subject really fast. Had to build up my Wife Points Account, bought her a new Chevy Tahoe. Now I get to buy another gun. Which means a excuse to buy more dies, bullets, powder, brass, primers, etc. The cycle starts all over again.
Posts: 59 | Location: Soledad, CA USA | Registered: 17 January 2002
New neighbor behind my little spread was mowing his place, and became very concerned about the steady reports from my 7mm yesterday. (I was fire forming new .338 Norma brass to fit my chamber on the Encore. Load of 5010 making a compressed load, cannelure cut into the 175 gr. pills, heavy crimp with the Lee factory crimp die to be sure the case did not ease forward upon the firing pin strike. Cases annealed prior to sizing down from .338 to 7mm.) Guy comes up the hill waving a white flag on a stick. After introductions, and trying to explain what I was trying to accomplish, he made the statement, "Oh, so you reload to save money?" Thought I was going to have to give the wife CPR, she tossed a drink of her Diet Coke through her nose. (I think her guffaw was driven more by sarcasm than hilarity!) Dude went back down the hill, looking back over his shoulder every few steps, am sure he thinks the folks above are really weird, guy shooting into his dirt berm with no target to "make bullets" as he understood it, with a wife that cackles like a moron and shoots coke out her nose!
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." Mark Twain
Posts: 742 | Location: West Tennessee | Registered: 27 April 2004
I've reloaded for 45 years....gauges 12, 20, 28, and 410 Handgun .44, .45 colt, .357-38, .32 H&R and 21 different rifle cartridges from .204 to .404 If I had all that money back for reloading tools and ammo shot up I'd be hunting ele now!!!
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill
Posts: 28849 | Location: western Nebraska | Registered: 27 May 2003
Originally posted by Dennis: Just don't let my wife see this post. She keeps asking just how much do you have in your Reloading "STUFF" and guns? I change the subject really fast.
Women must be kept in their place. Don't forget you've probably bought them a nice expensive house in the 'berbs, while we would be quite happy in a cheap cabin somewhere. :-) JL
Posts: 2355 | Location: Australia | Registered: 14 November 2004
Originally posted by Dennis: Just don't let my wife see this post. She keeps asking just how much do you have in your Reloading "STUFF" and guns? I change the subject really fast.
Women must be kept in their place. Don't forget you've probably bought them a nice expensive house in the 'berbs, while we would be quite happy in a cheap cabin somewhere. :-) JL
Two items.
For the big bore Nitro Express cartridges reloading REALLY does save you (a lot of) money
And I'd really like it if you could give me a clue as to where that "cheap cabin" is as I'm having one hell of a time finding one.
Roi
DRSS member
Constant change is here to stay.
Posts: 626 | Location: The soggy side of Washington State | Registered: 13 July 2003
It costs more but the costs are spread in smaller more user friendly amounts - sort of like drinking beer instead of malt whisky. I spend more on 6 packs than bottles of Glenfiddich but it seems cheaper!
Hello hte campfire: I started to reload to save money when I had two sons who loved to shoot. We would get together and losd several hundred shot shells and then go and shoot them all. I think that it saved me a good bit compared to buying good shell retail. Now they have married and moved off and I still losd for them both shot shells and rifle cart. It keeps me from in front of the tube, satisfies my tinkering need, and gives me something todo with my hands that does not involve my wife, and keeps me out of my wife's hair and off her last nerve. I think that the savings on nerve meds off sets the cost of components. Not to mention the savings in Viagra at my point in life. Now when I catch the faint sent of Hoppe's number nine behind the wifes ears, I know to stop pulling the big lever because I'm gonna get lucky tonigt. Reloading give me something to do until then. Plus I can always escape the in-law because I need to load 500 rounds of 45ACP for the match Satuday, or 100 rounds of 30-06 to test fire before hunting season. Reloading is much cheaper than strip joints, Alabama co-eds, or cocaine. Judge Sharpe A slow moving once fast draw outlaw
Is it safe to let for a 58 year old man run around in the woods unsupervised with a high powered rifle?
I know everything here is meant to be humorous but, a little on the serious side. We all know why we handload. It is a hobby. Hobbies cost lots of money. We all know why we got married, I think. Marriage costs a lot more money. Which one do we like to talk about? The most in-expensive. We keep adding to the re-loading hobby to balance the costs. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Posts: 116 | Location: Eastport Maine | Registered: 24 April 2005
Reloading is just like anything else, don't get into it unless you have a specific task in mind. If you expect to save a big bunch on certian ammo and could care less if they shoot 3 inch groups then don't get into it! I am still using the same old RCBS press and dies I bought 20 years ago. I have bought some new ones for new calibers but I never go for the highest priced ones. I have some 4000 lake city .233 cases that I got years ago for around $5.00. I have 4000 primers I payed $8.00 a 1000 for and several thousand bullets @$4.00 a 1000. I can load up and shoot an accruate .233 round for about $1.00 a box. Depends on what you want to do. But don't bitch about reloading if you don't care about real accruate shooting while having the fun of carring through a desire and will to do something the best you can do. Americans today are spoiled brats enslaved to the idea of a goverment owing them a living and no desire to excell at any thing but whining and bitching about everything possible. For those reloading is not for them. Reloading isn't for saving a bunch of money, although I do because I bought years ago thinking of the future rising costs. Hey, buy what you will, shoot what you want, but unless you have spent serious time in reloading don't bitch about it and don't try to make those of us who do out as idiots. Reloading is like anything else, you get out of it what you put into it. 
Dutch.
