Like other loaders have said before, I value the time spent in my shop reloading. In my experience, it has many secondary benefits to include increased patience, peace of mind, and pride in ones work!
I enjoy tinkering with things. I find it very calming, so I feel/hope that reloading will do the same. I often take my guns down and clean them even if they don’t need it, just to relax. It gives me something to focus on.
I put on an audio book. Maybe some soft music. It’s my singular focus time where nothing else matters. The time, for me, is a benefit and not a cost
You sir are fucking nuts.Have a drink.
BTW, I bought components locally and pay 6.47 per for my 9mm loads.
$.11 cents a round currently for .223. Brass is free range pick up where I work occasionally.
7 cent bullet.
2 cent primer.
2 cent for powder.
If you don’t already have the equipment, and components, you are pretty much out of luck until the storm subsides a bit. Once all is said and done, I’m guessing you will have to physically walk into a store to buy your components in the future.
Paying for empty brass sounds like paying for empty beer bottles… it’s a lot more enjoyable to buy loaded ammo (or beer) and produce your own empties.
Agreed, except you want to make sure that it’s once-fired, if possible.
The stingy bastards who use my range never leave any brass laying around, except the blown-out cases that have already been reloaded eight times… By then it’s really just scrap.
I was talking NATO rounds ! Not 9mm dumbass!!
My comment about my cost of reloading 9mm was for the thread.
But. . . .
I would love to know why 9mm isnt a nato round.
Has anyone ever ripped the exclamation point key off your keyboard as a joke? If so, how did you convey such unbecoming panic?
sent from mah gun,using my sights
To start Im reloading 5.56 for .17 a round and 9mm for .12 a round. If you end up having to buy brass it is much cheaper than your are seeing try some local forums and backpage in your area. I just picked up 3k 223 brass and ~2k 9mm brass for 4.5 cents on the 223 and 2 cents per on the 9mm.
ETA: Usually the 5.56 is decent quality lots of Lake city, even throw a wanted ad up I bet you would get some takers. The problem is going to be the projectiles and primers at this point.
I was really enjoying this thread until you showed up! I was happy to find some worthwhile technical discussion again that pertains to my interest. The worst part of this gun ban scare is the new idiots it attracts to this forum :rolleyes:
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And 9mm is NATO!.. Dumbass! :banghead:
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Bajaboy or me???
Lay off the dope, man. It makes you paranoid. I hope you’re just some sort of super clumsy agent provocateur, and not for real.
I have to pay a bit more for powder and primers up here ($26 / lb powder typically, $40/1000 primers), but my costs come out to something like:
$0.37/rd for 77gr SMK 5.56
$0.12/rd 115gr plated 9mm
$0.21/rd 124gr XTP or Golden Saber 9mm
$0.26/rd 230gr XTP 45
+/- $0.01, I’m estimating from memory.
I still have plenty of XM193 and XM855 on hand, so I haven’t gotten into loading 55gr 5.56 yet.
I only buy new brass for things like 41 Magnum, 44 Special, 270 WSM, 45 Auto Rim, 45 Super… you get the idea. I buy stuff that it would cost a lot of money to buy large quantities of factory ammo for, and that you’re not going to find laying around.
There are also plenty of places online you can buy once-fired brass for super cheap, at least in the common police/military cartridges. They’re usually police range cleanups or similar. I would recommend only doing that for pistol brass. Some people don’t mind screwing with M249 fired 5.56 from a military range, but I’d rather not have the hassle.
Regarding brass life, with non-magnum pistol brass you can pretty much just reload it until you lose it. In theory it will wear out, the primer pocket will loosen up or the case will split, but you’ll notice that when you’re working with it. It doesn’t require some in depth inspection. I have 45 brass from when I started reloading 5 years ago that has seen 20-25 reloads. I’ve mangled cases badly enough to toss them, but I haven’t yet worn a case out due to too many reloads.
For rifle, I go with 8 reloads for bolt actions and 5 reloads for semi-autos. I anneal every other reload, which is overkill but it is easy to do and kinda fun so whatever. My rationale regarding the 8 vs 5 is semi-auto chambers are (typically) looser, so the brass is worked more, will thin faster because I have to trim more, etc. The actual number of reloads is half educated, half arbitrary. It has worked well for me so far.
Bajaboy
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I think i’m getting about $.17-$.20 for .223 and $.23-$.25 for 40s&w.
When you guys do your annealing, do you just toss the brass in your oven or do you need special equipment?
You only want to anneal the shoulder and neck, so heating the whole case is a bad idea. It will weaken the case and can lead to case failures.
I use a propane torch for my annealing. I hold the case by the case head with my bare fingers and roll it back and forth in my fingers with the shoulder/neck in the flame, and when it gets about too hot to hold at the case head I drop it in a can of water. Not high tech but it works for my purposes. I don’t really endorse this technique; I use it mainly because I do the majority of my annealing in summer when it’s light all the time (so I can’t look for the magic “slightly red glow” people talk about).
What equipment you should use for annealing depends on what you want to get out of it. If you are trying to make super precise benchrest ammo, well, there are much better techniques than what I do.
http://www.6mmbr.com/annealing.html
That will tell you probably more than you want to know about annealing brass, but it’s a good read. I’ll switch to the method they describe this year, probably, since I intend to focus mainly on precision rifle.
Gotcha, thanks for the great explanation and link.
Negative on the oven.
It’s debatable if annealing by hand actually even works since it’s hard to tell if you can even get the neck hot enough. I anneal my 7.62x51 (after the 2nd reload) by hand - hitting the neck (only) with a torch, and then drop it in an old baking pan (no water).
5.56 cases are too small for comfort, but I might try it some day if push comes to shove.
You need use some Google foo here.