By John Bibby
You have heard all the talk about reloading. The itch is there, but the basic “know how” is not. You have a fist full of gift cards and you want to get started turning components into cartridges, so you can turn the same amount of money into a whole lot more noise. Excellent. Welcome to the reloading side. We have a lot more fun and our bullets tend to be more accurate.
The very first thing I am going to tell you, is that reloading will NOT save you any money. Quite simply most people are limited in their shooting quantities by one of two things. The first, is how much money they can spend on ammo. The second is how much time they can spend at the range. Reloading does nothing for the second bottleneck, but it does greatly increase the amount of loaded cases you can shoot for a given dollar amount.
That should also be looked at a little more closely. You will not save enough money if you are looking to produce 115 gr 9mm cartridges for bulk-shooting needs. Unless you have a specific need for lead bullets or low-velocity cartridges, there is no real reason to reload these. You are not going to save enough money vs bulk orders of the generic variants made by the major manufacturers. A quick look. (Pricing as of November 2024)
Brand Case each
Winchester 115gr steel case 9mm case of 1000 $200 $0.20
Sellier& Bellot 115gr brass case 9mm case of 1000 $212 $0.21
Fiocchi 147gr brass case 9mm case of 1000 $340 $0.34
Components 115 gr 147 gr
9mm brass Range recovered Free Free
Powder $0.07 $0.06
Primer CCI $0.06 $0.06
Projectile $0.10 $0.14-0.28
~$0.23 ~$0.26-.40
This is pretty close to as cheaply as you can build 9mm ammunition that has a copper jacketed projectile. If you change out the projectile to unjacketed, the build price drops but only slightly. Admittedly, with a quick search, the lowest price I can find on lead projectiles is $0.09 per unit. That certainly doesn’t address the time spent for the $30 savings per 1000 units.
Let’s look at the exact same process for 147 gr sub-sonics. The plinking version of the 147 gr cartridges run about $0.40 per shot with factory ammo or $0.28 with reloads. Saving $120 per case of 1000 means you can shoot a lot more. Using quality jacketed hollow point bullets ups the cost but it does so in factory ammo as well. Now, who doesn’t like exercising their suppressor more often?
Where the real increase in shooting opportunity comes in is with non-military rifle ammunition. Let’s look at two fairly common choices.
6.5 Grendel
Hornady SST 123 gr 6.5 Grendel runs about $1.30 per round with factory ammo
Components 123 gr
6.5 Grendel brass Starline Brass $0.11*
Powder A-2520 $0.19
Primer CCI $0.06
Projectile 123gr Hornady SST $0.34
*amortized 6 loading per $0.65 case $0.70
This is just under 50% savings on premium ammunition and if built properly, it should be quite a bit more accurate. If you are able to get once-fired or free range brass, you can shoot quite a bit more than twice as much as factory. Cheaper, better and you built it yourself; what’s not to like.
7mm Magnum
Federal Premium 160 gr Nosler Partition runs about $2.40 per round with factory ammo
Components 160 gr
7mm Magnum brass Federal Premium Brass $0.78*
Powder H 4350 $0.40
Primer CCI $0.06
Projectile 160 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip $0.66
*amortized 5 loading per $0.16 case $1.28
Again, just under 50% savings on premium ammunition that should be tuned specifically to work well in YOUR gun. And it can be much cheaper if you don’t need to buy the brass. Although depending on how hot you load, after 4-8 loadings the brass will be defunct.