I am on the fence about jumping and buying a 300 blackout upper, but the price of ammo is stopping me. I’m seeing about 15-35 bucks for 20 rounds! :blink:
In comparison, If I could find somebody to reload/load 300 blackout for me, how much would you charge to do that?
I would do it for around $35 per 20 rounds.
Seriously it’s my favorite hobby but it just takes too much time and effort to do it for someone else. This is what it takes for me to load one round of 300 Blackout:
Bullet-25 cents
Once fired 5.56 case- 8 cents
Primer- 3 cents
Powder- 5 cents
Case lube- 2 Cents
Total - 43 cents per round
Tumble case for 2 hours
Chop 5.56 case below shoulder
Chamfer/Debur
Tumble again to remove brass shavings
Apply case lube
Set up resizing die
Resize/deprime
Remove primer crimp
Trim case
Debur flash hole
Final chamfer/Debur
Clean primer pocket
Tumble case for two hours.
Inspect case
Prime case
Set up seating die
Set up powder measure
Charge case with powder
Visually inspect cases twice for proper amount of powder
Seat bullet and run through seating die.
In addition there is costs for equipment, presses, dies, scales, tumblers, tumbling media, calipers, powder measure, manuals etc etc
I would never shoot someone elses reloads. There is just too much that could go wrong.
Where do you live. It’d be more practical for you to find a person in your area who is into this round.
If you buy converted brass from someone like Brad’s Warehouse or the guys at castboolits, loading it is no different than any other bottleneck rifle round.
However most will not want to reload. Least expensive option I’m aware of is Southwest Ammunition and their 147 gr FMJ supersonic loading:
http://www.southwestammunition.com/category_s/87.htm
Still, it’s going to run at least $0.50 per round for any factory stuff. As nightvisionary pointed out, just the component costs are high. Figure out if you really want the caliber. IMO, its uses are pretty limited.
Why not just load your own? By using pre prepped brass you wouldn’t need an expensive set up.
Do not shoot other peoples reloads not even companies who reload ammunition ( black hills blue box being the one exception).
Buying reloads is a false economy. So you pay half of what factory loads cost. Next thing your at the range, you pull the trigger and kb happens. Hopefully while shooting unknown reloads you saved enough for a new rifle.
You can buy a kit for pretty cheap that you Will have to add very little to. You can also look around your local area for anyone that has the equipment that might let you load at there place to see id you like it before you buy anything. There is a guy locally where i live and he teaches reloading in his garage. On Wednesday he lets anybody some over and use his equipment free of charge. You bring your components and load. I met the guy at a gun shop and he invited to come over to use his company after we shot the shot for 15 minutes.
Check the gun shops see if they know anybody that could help you get started.
The right hand loads will be better than most of the garbage on the shelf. I wouldn’t shoot UNKNOWN reman ammo.
Loading ammo one’s self doesn’t magically make it better than “other peoples”. It’s all about who is doing the loading.
And any guy with better than average intelligence can handload ammo WAY BETTER than anything Black Hills pukes into a box… new or Reman.
I only know of a couple peoples loads i would use. Maybe i shouldn’t have said never, but looking for someone online would not be the way i would go about looking for reloads.
Last week i had a buddy ask if i could load some .308 for him. I asked if he had a known load for me or if i needed to do a work up. He said i already have the load so it should be quick. I forgot to say he is in the middle of divorce and equipment is boxed. I went by to pick up the what he had. I asked him if he had the load info wrote down, and he told me to just use the load on the pound of Varget. Which was a max load. I believe 46.0 grains with a 168 hpbt. I asked if he had ever used this load. He said no but it should be fine. Im not going to go over the whole conversation, but before this i would have shot his reloads. Now i won’t. He said he just gets loads online or loads max always.
You just never know what your going to get from one loader to another, and think if you do not reload yourself you should probably stick to factory. If you know someone and you trust them to load ammo for you go ahead. I do agree that anybody who has an above average level intelligence can load ammo far better than what’s on the shelf. I also do not think that just because i load it that my loads are better than what you load. I do see some stuff that people post that makes it pretty clear that there are two groups of people. Those with the above average level intelligence who no doubt load some stellar ammunition. Then there is group 2 who seem to be of a just barely functioning intelligence who slap together components with little regard for safety or precision. Have not ran into any of the people who fall into category 2 on this forum, yet.
The only reason i said black hills ammo is that i have never seen a report of a catastrophic failure with blue box. I will not pay the outrageous amount of money they think there product is worth. The only purchase i made from black hills was some mk262 mod1 i purchased to run over the chrony, and check for accuracy. I was going to try and duplicate it the best i could. It was a huge disappointment. My load is not as fast but it is more accurate.
I hear you.
I’m nt exactly looking for somebody to make reloads for me, I am just trying to fiure out what somebody would charge to do it.
I still havent decided if I want to purchase the barrel and put a thousand or so rounds through it to see how I really like the 30aac.
and I really do not want to get into reloading. I ship for boot in 5 days, so… plus, I will be living on base (far away from home) so i am pretty sure I will not be allowed to load that on base 
Yeah starting to reload now would be pointless. As far as what one would charge its really hard to say. I do it for 2 people right now. One is just do to a divorce and it is less than a hundred rounds at a time. They are target loads for out to 600. The other is a family friend, and i load pistol ammo just for plinking. Im in the middle of brass prep for 2000 rounds right now.
I do not charge them anything they bring me the components. I load them.
Most of the people i know that reload if they do it for someone they usually just do it to help the person out. So even though i do it for a couple people i have no idea what someone would charge. If you supplied the components maybe they would take an hourly rate. It is really hard to put a price on someone else’s tim.
Good luck with boot camp
Thanks man. Means alot.
how much time do you think it takes to load about 100 300 aac rounds? I mean, if i could find a good local guy to load it for me instead of paying 20$ a box…
maybe i’m just thinking about this too hard. 
It just depends on what kind of setup he/she has.
Progressive with tools like giraud 3-4 hours (if brass is dirty and needs tumbled twice). About 1.5 hours is tumbling. If brass was clean 1-1.5 hours that is with trimming and prep work maybe les time.
Single stage with lathe style trimmer. An afternoon if dirty. If clean 3-4 hours.
I do not load 300blk. So Im going of my 556 times with a full brass prep plus some time for the extra trimming. If my brass is prepped and ready, and all i need to do is prime, charge, and seat bullet. It will take about 1.5 hours. If it is once fired nothing done an afternoon. That includes primer pocket uniforming, de-burring flash holes, trimming (trim to 1.750 always), chamber, and de-burr. That includes two trips in the tumbler.
These are just guestimates. the way i load i prep a bunch of brass and put it away. When i need to load. I get out the prepped brass and load it.
Exactly. For me it’d take a while. I decap, stainless steel media tumble, then anneal.
That’s 4 hours right there before even sizing the brass. Add another hour for sizing and vibratory tumbling the lube off.
Fear about reloading is legitimate, but overblown. You really don’t need many supplies at all.
For example, a very basic but functional setup:
Lee Hand press - $30
Priming tool - $25-60
Powder funnel - $4
Powder scale (digital, or beam) $20-60
Dies - $25-40
Case lube - $5
Ammo tray - $5
Trimmer - $30-100+
Powder trickler - $10-30+
Chamfer tool - $5-20+
Micrometer - $20-50+
Total: $180 - to the sky is the limit
Optional:
Powder Measure
Bench-sized press
Primer pocket swager
Tumbler/ultrasonic cleaner
etc.
The key here is ATTENTION TO DETAIL. A fair amount of folks just throw ammo together w/o regard to detail. BAD IDEA. You need suprisingly little amount of equipment to turn out decent ammo. It won’t be fast, but it will shoot. With a Lee hand press and hand trickled loads, I have gotten my 223 to shoot sub-MOA… and at a fraction of the cost of factory ammo. The KEY is to closely watch case dimensions, seating depth, and powder charge. If you can get these down its a piece o’cake.
The 300 AAC is ideal for reloading as there is no real reason for it to cost so much to shoot except that ammo supply has not yet caught up w/demand (and Remington wants to keep making $$$).
Get a book, start readin, you can do it… Oh, and your reloading equipment will pay for itself more quickly than you know!