$54.99 good for 250 rounds of 9mm?

[StrangerDanger]

I buy cast bullets from S&S Casting. If you buy significant amounts, they give discounts on top of the displayed price. I guess if I got into casting, my costs would drop further.

[coachrose]

Originally Posted by StrangerDanger

I buy cast bullets from S&S Casting. If you buy significant amounts, they give discounts on top of the displayed price. I guess if I got into casting, my costs would drop further.

They have good prices. I would think the actual shipping would be the biggest cost of buying the bullets. I have a way to get pretty much an unlimited supply of lead, but don't know if it would be worth it. My dad has a builder he gets it from to make fishing jigs. I don't know if lead is lead though or if there are different grades of it. I guess that is why I'm looking for all the information I can get.

[StrangerDanger]

To do casting, you need to have a place to do it that won't piss off the neighbors. It can be a smokey affair as you're burning off the impurities in the lead. I'd never be able to do it in my town house.

Plus, I don't usually have the time to add another lengthy step into my reloading process. I'm not sure how many you can cast in an hour on average.

S&S Casting uses flat rate USPS shipping boxes. So they can ship 70 pounds of lead in one box for 13.50 or something like that. For 9mm, that equals 3000 rounds per box. His packing job is nice. He uses the cushion layer that is under your carpet on the top and bottom of the box. For 9mm, they're shipped in smaller boxes inside that have 1000 rounds in them. The top and bottom of those boxes also have this cushion. So for 9mm orders, you'll want to order in 3000 round increments in order to maximize your shipping value.

One of my orders earlier this year made my mailman cry. 15 boxes. 70 pounds each! He had half a ton of lead in the back of his expedition.

[coachrose]

Originally Posted by StrangerDanger

To do casting, you need to have a place to do it that won't piss off the neighbors. It can be a smokey affair as you're burning off the impurities in the lead. I'd never be able to do it in my town house.

Plus, I don't usually have the time to add another lengthy step into my reloading process. I'm not sure how many you can cast in an hour on average.

S&S Casting uses flat rate USPS shipping boxes. So they can ship 70 pounds of lead in one box for 13.50 or something like that. For 9mm, that equals 3000 rounds per box. His packing job is nice. He uses the cushion layer that is under your carpet on the top and bottom of the box. For 9mm, they're shipped in smaller boxes inside that have 1000 rounds in them. The top and bottom of those boxes also have this cushion. So for 9mm orders, you'll want to order in 3000 round increments in order to maximize your shipping value.

One of my orders earlier this year made my mailman cry. 15 boxes. 70 pounds each! He had half a ton of lead in the back of his expedition.

Wow! I don't think my mailman could make that delivery in his vehicle, might snap his axle.

[JacketShot]

Originally Posted by StrangerDanger

Start reloading in bulk, and you'll consider that price an epic rape.

I can reload a 1000 rounds of 9mm for 75 - 80 dollars with today's component prices.

Can you be more specific? I can't see how at the prices I've seen for primers and such, it looks a lot higher. Even the S&S prices don't seem to allow that.

Thanks for your help (as someone looking at getting into this because I like to shoot a LOT of ammo!).

[Dave007]

I can reload 1000 rounds of 9mm for about $110. I can't get down to $75 or $80 unless I used plain old lead boolits and maybe save a tiny bit if I bought the powder in an 8# container rather than 1#. Using plated or FMJ, my cost per round is about $0.11. My reloads are at most half the cost store bought ammo, usually closed to 40-45% of store bought (and that's just for the 9mm).

Powder cost: $0.013 (assuming $22/lb & 4.2gr recipe)
Primer cost: $0.028 (assuming $28 per 1000)
Bullet cost: $0.068 (assuming $68 per 1000)
Brass: picked up @ range

cost per round: $0.109 (just under 11 cents)

Start reloading .45 and your savings add up really fast.

Have your non-reloading friends save their brass for you, or pick it up at a range... you can also find decent deals on bulk once-fired brass (like 2000+ pieces) on some of the gun auction sites like gunbroker or reloadersauction. You can probably get 2000 pieces for under $50 if you shop around a bit.

Edit: Oh yeah, if you can buy locally, that's the way to go. If you have to buy components like primers and powder online, you have to order bulk, and lots of it, to justify the shipping and hazmat fees. I am able to find all components (except bullets) locally, so no hazmat or shipping fees. That helps.

[StrangerDanger]

I'll try to list them out. First, I don't buy brass. So that eliminates a significant portion. 9mm Luger is fairly easy to find.

I wrote to S&S Casting to see if they'd give me a discount for bulk ordering. He gave me a 10% discount for orders of over 25,000.

You want to buy in increments of 3,000 rounds so you can maximize your shipping, so for simplicity I will say we're buying 30,000 rounds. I went with 125gn LRN rounds.

$1,363.50 for the bullets with the 10% discount. Shipping will be $135.50. They charge 13.55 per box.

Some will cry, but I like using Titegroup for my 9mm practice rounds. Titegroup goes a long way for your money. Hodgon calls for 3.6 to 4.0 grains. Buying 8 pound jugs from Powder Valley Inc. sell for $101.00 when they're in stock randomly. 8 pounds is 56,000 grains. So the math works out to:
3.6 = 15,555 Rounds
4.0 = 14,000 Rounds
So you'll need two jugs.

Small Pistol Primers are a bastard to find lately, but they are getting better. However, you could use Wolf small rifle primers which are available from Powder Valley for $25.50 per 1000. Or, $765.00 for 30,000.

Bullets shipped: $1,499.00
Powder (16 lbs): $202.00
Primers: $765.00
Shipping + Hazmat: $40.00 (estimate)
Total: $2,506.00

This comes out to roughly 8.35 cents per round. A slight bit more than I mentioned due to the increase in primers and powder in the past few months. The trick is to maximize your hazmat costs. Try to load up to 48 pounds of hazmat materials for each load. I think you mentioned in another thread about wanting to load .223 also. Buying all small rifle primers makes sense then. Reduce the number of items you'll need to source.

Some peoples eyes gloss over at the idea of spending $2,500.00 dollars on ammunition. Unless you're a competition shooter, 30,000 rounds will last you a long time. The amount of time it will take you to load them will be an undertaking in itself.

Some worry about the size of all these items laying around. You could fit all the 9mm in their shipping boxes in a 20mm can. That can will weigh 550 - 600 pounds though.

[Myk9noseknows]

I started to reload to save the money, and I started out like the OP did. I started saving brass long before I even thought about reloading. So I had boxes already stored for when I finally broke down and bought my setup.

Right now though, I just cannot justify spending the time vs. the payout I get for reloading. I mean 6 months ago when you couldn't even find ammo, it was feasable. Sinking in the big bucks to get setup properly was difficult. I was like "I can buy everything I need to start reloading, or I can buy a LOT of ammo instead...) But now I basically have to decide what is most precious to spend my time on.

I still have time set aside to shoot (thank god I'm never too busy to shoot), but I just can't take the time to reload to save some coin. I don't shoot anything exotic, mostly .45 and 9mm. .45 is at the see saw limit that in another year I won't be able to afford to shoot without reloading. But for 9mm, I have to just spend the few extra bucks on buying factory rather than save the money but lose time with my gal, hobbies, or friends.

So lots of Wolf or Blazer aluminum right now. Of course when I do shoot brass, I still pick it up like a hobo and aluminum cans

As for the UMC, yes it's dirty, but not much dirtier than WWB or Federal Red Box (that's really dirty). Not quite as accurate for me. I prefer several other brands/loads ahead of the UMC if price is the same, but I'd buy it at that price.

$11 off the shelf for brass is a good price. You didn't specify if you have to pay any shipping or any tax on top of the $11 though. I spend $10 for a box of steel cased Wolf, and still have to add shipping on top of that. So I'd say it's a pretty good deal if you clean your firearms and don't mind if it's not a super accurate load. And I don't shoot Wolf in most of my handguns, so it's not like I can stock up on it. I paid $14 + tax for a box of the Green Remington and I usually avoid it like the plague. They had some issues in the past with a wide difference of seating dimentions....bad news. But it was a spur of the moment "let's pull over and fire off some lead" kind of day and that's all WalMart had. Good news was the seating was uniform on all in this box.

[JacketShot]

Thanks for the details, guys. As I have been pondering this, Wally World has once again had the Federal in stock (price increased to 9.47 + abusive sales tax), so I am picking up 6 boxes / trip. Also have some of the 100 WWB packs, so I am backing off for the moment...

...although I HAVE saved the last 200 pieces of brass .

[coachrose]

Originally Posted by JacketShot

Thanks for the details, guys. As I have been pondering this, Wally World has once again had the Federal in stock (price increased to 9.47 + abusive sales tax), so I am picking up 6 boxes / trip. Also have some of the 100 WWB packs, so I am backing off for the moment...

...although I HAVE saved the last 200 pieces of brass .

I keep hearing about everyone else with 9mm in stock at their Wal-Mart, must be nice. I keep hoping it will be coming to a Wal-Mart near me soon. They actually added a few rifle rounds to the case the other day, but nothing useful to me.