As a high volume (“hobby” reloader, not commercial) ammo reloader I’m often asked how to get started reloading. So last week I sat down and started writing… I wanted to cover just the gear topics and not the actual how-to initially. It’s my opinion that many people are turned off by reloading due to the confusion regarding what gear is needed and what kind of results they can expect. So that’s what I hoped I could cover here. In the last 4 years my reloading press has produced over 120k rounds of ammo which directly allows me to shoot more, stock more and be more prepared. I could just as easy buy imported steel cased ammo and meet the cost factor in the middle. It wouldn’t be quite as cheap but I wouldnt spend as much of my time working on ammo. But, that imported ammo would would not work to my standard and it would still cost more. Plus buying imported ammo supports foreign economies where as my reloading Compoents support Americans, that work for American companies!
It’s taken me 4 years of reloading to really respect what reloading can do for me and how good my ammo really is as a result of my expanding reloading experience. I’ve actually grown to enjoy reloading were I used to dread it. It’s that ability to make a piece of art that will perform exactly the way I designed it to, that has gained my respect and increased my enjoyment.
Due to the lenth of the post and the number of photos, I’ve posted the write up on my blog. While not all relaoders may agree with my opinions, I can tell you that my reloading is time efficient and produces near flawless ammo in high volumes for personal use. I’ve well earned back the money spent on equipment have have knowledge of ammunition that I would have never gained without reloading experience.
Hope you all enjoy the post. Please feel free to start a discussion on any related topics in this post
Nice write up very fair IMO. I have XL650 with all pretty much all the same accessories. 2 tidbits I personally add:
1.) The importance of a good scale regardless of type whether beam or digital.
2.) Purchase and use of case gauges and calipers.
I too have relegated to crimping all my .223 brass but made a little mod to my Super swage to help speed things along. This was taken a while back, have since made improvements to make it more robust.
And for those that wonder about real numbers here’s an example of prices and time…
It takes me about an hour’s worth of my time to prep 5k 9mm cases. That means to sort them and process them through the tumbler. Then it takes me 5 hours to actually reload them to complete ammo. So 6 hours total time to completed 5k rounds of loaded 9mm ammo to my spec.
In order to load 5k 9mm rounds my costs are…
5k 124gr Bullets - $68.42/1k = $329.10
3 Pounds of W231 Gun Powder = $48.75
5k primers = $140
Total = 517.85 + 6 hours of my time
Currently the best price I can find on Wolf Ammo is $8.95/box which works out to $895 for 5k rounds + $123.68 for shipping of 100 boxes. This puts us at a total delivered price of $1,018.68 for 5k rounds of Wolf. Which is hardly the quality of what I’m making.
So if we start with the cost of the Wolf at $1,018.68 and deduct my parts cost of $517.85 we have a total of $500.83 that I SAVED by reloading my own ammo in 6 hours. That puts my HOURLY wage at $83.47…
How many people here make $83.47 HOUR? I sure don’t, even when working at time+half. Now compare this to the same quality ammo that I’m producing from an American Manufacture and the savings will go up even more. Compare it to .40S&W or .45ACP and it goes up a huge amount. You will save substantially more loading the larger calibers as they component costs go up very little, but loaded ammo costs of those calibers go up a lot in comparison to loaded 9mm.
Now you don’t get this speed of reloading during your first year of doing it and you can’t do it with cheap equipment. I’ll use about $2k worth of equipment to make this batch of 5k rounds of 9mm. But in the savings it quickly pays for it self as a long term investment.
It gets more complicated to compare match grade ammo vs reloading it as there’s a lot more time involved to reload it. But I would venture to say that the hourly payoff is still there because the cost of the match grade long range rifle ammo is about $1 per round. Where as I’m making it for $0.38 per round if we’re talking about a typical short action long range match load.
Oh and the bullet cost I quoted above are from Precision Bullets if anyone needs the link it’s on my blog post. The primer and powders I quoted the prices on are from my local supplier Elk Bomb Shooting Supply. The Wolf ammo quote I used from AIM Surplus. I didn’t just make up the prices for the example, those are real world numbers from in-stock dealers.
I just got asked about my overall process for reloading .223… Here’s the summery and my results.
It’s a two pass deal.
Pass ONE
Station 1 - Depriming (No Sizing) It’s a regular sizing die backed out so the outside of the case is never touched. This will also punch the inside of the case neck if it’s bent.
Station 2 - EMPTY
Station 3 - Dillon RT1200B - Full length sizing occurs here as well as trimming. The extreme sharpness of the blade and the angle eliminates any burr in the case neck when it trims.
Station 4 - EMPTY
Station 5 - Another sizing die set just to punch the neck of the case incase there is any shavings holding on from the trim and to make sure the neck didn’t get squeezed down too much if the brass was thick, since there is no neck expander in the Dillon RT1200B
Out fall the totally prepped cases. These then go into the tumbler for an hour to remove all the lube.
Pass TWO
Station 1 - EMPTY
Station 1.5 - Primer inserted on the down stroke of the ram
Station 2 - EMPTY
Station 3 - Powder charge manually dropped via a Dillon powder funnel die. The powder charge is measured and provided by a set of Hornady Lock-N-Load Auto Charge powder measures.
Station 4 - Powder check
Station 5 - Bullet seating - NO CRIMP EVER and I don’t have bullet set back issues because my neck tension alone is tight enough.
Hornady 75gr BTHP bullets in Lake City brass that are loaded this way shoot 0.75" 5 shot groups at 100 yards.
Berger 82.5gr BTHP bullets in Lake City brass loaded this way shoot 0.45" 5 shot groups at 100 yards.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that these results were obtained from a home built AR15 with a 16" - 5.56 match barrel, mid length adjustable gas system and a direct attached suppressor built on a Vltor upper with a Troy free float hand guard. Optic used was a 3-9x Leupold VX-R Patrol. Shooting was done indoors at 100 yards from a bench with an adjust able front rest and rear bag.
I do NOTHING to the primer pocket but swage them the first time I load Lake City brass. I do not chamfer the case necks or do any other hand processing of these cases before or after loading.
Forgot to mention that my setup for 55gr blasting ammo is different. I let the normal case activated powder measure do the work so it’s much faster. The setup above is for Match Grade ammo only. My 55gr loads normally shoot 1.5-2 MOA in mixed brass with surplus pulled bullets.
I do something similar with an XL 650 or XL650/Super 1050 combo.
Pass One:
Station 1 – deprime using a Dillon decap die (you could just as easy do it as FCB does it with a regular sizing die turned out)
Station 2 – empty
Station 3 – Dillon RT1200B
Station 4 – empty
Station 5 – Lyman M Die for 22 caliber. I have to check but I believe it is the 22 short M die. This is used to very slightly expand the neck back out like FCB mentions. I set it so only the first stage of the M die goes in.
Pass Two: For 55/62 grain practice ammo I use the 1050. For more precision stuff, which I have not done a lot of due to time constraints, I use the XL 650.
For pass two, I set both types of presses up more or less in the regular fashion, each station as you would expect. However, I stick a normal decap die in Station 1 since the cases are already sized. Why don’t I leave it empty? Since I tumbled the brass after Pass One, I want to make sure no media is stuck in the primer flash hole. I use Walnut usually and sometime a pice will get lodged in the flash hole.
I do crimp – for 55/62 gr I use a Lee FCP die in the last stage. For precision, a Dillon crimp die that barely crimps. For 55/62gr practice I seat with a normal Dillon seater. For precision stuff I use a Redding Competition Seater die (why? because I can ). For the 55gr/62gr stuff I use the Dillon Powder Check to make sure the powder is about right. For precision stuff, I use my Mk 1 eyeballs and go slower.
In both cases I use standard Dillon powder measures. Sometimes, depending on what I am doing (which powder etc), I will also hand drop powder for precision stuff. But I usually use the powder measure since they work well enough for me and I don’t have the patience to hand drop 100s of rounds of powder.
I find it interesting that we have come up with similar protocols for loading 223.
Excellent work; I’ve been reloading for a few years, but will always look for new tips!
I absolutely hate trimming cases; only the fact that free cases are readily available keeps me at it. I am going to look into the Dillon trimmer you mentioned, because it may at least relieve that headache!
). For the 55gr/62gr stuff I use the Dillon Powder Check to make sure the powder is about right. For precision stuff, I use my Mk 1 eyeballs and go slower.