I rarely reload .223, so I can't give a good figure for the moment, but I can give you a cost difference for .308 Match, with 175 grain Sierra Matchkings...........george72 wrote:How much money do you guys save per round vs buying new, lets say .223? 5 cents?
Right now, Cabelas sells Federal Gold Match 175 Grain Matchking BTHP for $26.99/box of 20, or $1.35/cartridge.
Now, here's my hand loading cost to produce a similar cartridge that shoots even more accurately in my Remington 700:
- Unprimed Brass - Remington, New, $28.99/50, or $0.58/cartridge
- Winchester Large Rifle Primer, $28.99/1000, or $0.03/cartridge
- Varget Powder, 1 lb can, $25.99....... 1 lb = 7000 grains, my load takes 44 grains, or about $0.16/cartridge
- Sierra Matchking BTHP 175 grains, $38.99/100, or $0.30/cartridge
$ 0.03
$ 0.16
$ 0.30
$ 1.07 per hand loaded cartridge, using UNfired new brass — a savings of $0.28/cartridge, or about 20-21%.
This load gives me 4 rounds into 3/8" at 100 yards. That's just plain hard to beat with an off the shelf rifle that cost me less than a grand back in 2007. (Keep in mind that this is in MY rifle.....you could have the identical model, and it might not perform as well in yours.....or it could be even better. My son's Savage put 3 rounds of this load into one hole the other day.)
Keep in mind, that you can easily reload a spent piece of brass maybe 5-8 times, depending on the caliber, the pressures involved, and the type of rifle action, so after the first load with new brass, subtract $0.58 from the cost each cartridge loaded, and your price goes down to $0.49/cartridge for the next 4-7 uses of that piece of brass.
Bolt actions tend to be more kind to brass than semi autos, but as long as your brass is in good shape and you clean, resize, and trim it properly, I would think that you'd get at least 4-5 uses out of a single piece of brass. The key is, you have to inspect your brass, ESPECIALLY, if you're picking up brass on the range that may not be yours, and you don't know how many times it has been reloaded, if at all. Just do your due diligence and inspect all of your brass.
Now, the above numbers were to reload a .308 Winchester match round. If you're loading a hunting cartridge, maybe the bullet cost would be a little less.......or maybe it cost more. For instance, I bought a box of Nosler 180 grain Ballistic Tip Hunting bullets back in 2013, and the price was $22.49/50, or $0.45/bullet........50% more than the Sierra Matchking! But if you're just buying cheap FMJ, or cheap soft points, your price/cartridge for .223 would be pretty cheap; probably not as cheap as buying bulk milsurp, but still cheap, and you'd have the advantage of running your own quality control, so your ammo would be more consistent than off-the-shelf ammo.
From a cost perspective alone, the real question if you're considering reloading isn't "will I save money on ammo if I reload", because the answer is most probably yes. The real question is, "will I save enough money on ammo to amortize the cost of the reloading equipment in a reasonable amount of time". If you load a couple of hundred cartridges a year, you won't be able to justify it on ammo savings alone. If you load a couple of thousand cartridges a year, you might be able to justify it. But this applies only to the cost justification.
There are two other reasons to reload:
- You get the personal satisfaction of building the perfect cartridge for your gun and your application.....not just a generic "one size fits all" cartridge produced by a large company to satisfy the lowest common denominator. If you also built the gun yourself (as many AR owners do), you'll have double the satisfaction, knowing that you built the whole system, from parts purchase, to bullet on target, from the ground up.
- Whatever the caliber, the application, and the rifle platform, you will almost certainly be able to build a cartridge that exceeds its factory-made equivalent in terms of consistency and accuracy — which are two characteristics that are tied at the waist, as consistency of performance is one of the components of accuracy.
