Cost per round.

Moonraker68

Well-Known Member
I've just been quoted £43 for a box of Norma 6.5x55 120grn ballistic tips....which made my eyes water. I've spoken to other dealers who have them in stock at around £36 a box, but the cost of travel will counter any saving:rolleyes:.
I've always fought shy of reloading before, but am now starting to give it serious consideration. What would a typical homeload cost per round? I've been saving my fired brass, so that is a bit of money saved already.
 
I seem to remember I costed out my 260rem at around £0.65 per round purely for consumables - powder, primer and bullet. The 22/250 was under £0.50 per round.

This obviously ignores your capital outlays on kit, brass costs, most of us use brass we already had, and of course labour.

If you amortised these capital costs in accurately over the first thousand rounds, it probably costs around £1.10 - £1.20 per round, after round 1000 your will have recovered your capital outlays and costs fall back to just under a £1.00 per round including labour.
 
Very interesting question, and it got me thinking.

For my .308 I've been using the following consumables:

Nosler 150gr Ballistic tips @ approx £50/100
Vihtavouri N140 @ approx £75/kg
Remington primers @ approx £5/100
Lapua .308 brass @ approx £55/100 (only bought 100 for the new rifle, will then re-size)

Out of a kilo of powder I'll get, say, approximately 350 loads (I use 43.5gr), so the cost of powder per round is approx 21 pence, or £21 per 100 to keep the maths easy!

Therefore the cost of consumables would be a maximum of £131 per 100, or roughly £1.31 per round.

On top of that you have to add the investment in the reloading kit itself, which is not insignificant. Press, dies, case preparation kit, tumblers, calipers, scales, brushes, case trimmers, OAL guages, neck turners....and the extra garage to keep it all in.

But weigh against that the hours of pleasure that come from handloading, experimenting, etc. and the fact that you can develop a load specific for your rifle and it becomes much more compelling.

Mind you, you may also find that your conversation starts to bore the pants off anyone who is not, themselves, a reloader.;)

I reload for my .308 but use factory rounds for my .243, though I've not yet found a deer that could tell the difference.

If you ever want to drop round for a reloading session, let me know.

willie_gunn
 
Brian,
Thanks for the response. That's a big enough saving to make it attractive. I'll be in Dorset tomorrow, and will call in at the Sportsman to get an idea on the cost of the equipment. They quoted me a good price for Norma bt's, so I'll pick up a couple of boxes to tied me over and give me some more brass.

Willie_gunn,
I appreciate the invitation and may well take you up on it in the near future. Just sold my last cocker pup, so I can invest the proceeds in some new gear.

Rupert
 
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im loading my .270 using N160 and H4831sc with CCI LR200 primers my loads work out as follows-

H4831/140GN BARNES TSX 0.67p per round
N160/N560 /130GN SIERRA GAMEKING 0.47p per round

consumerbles only not inc brass .

i wouldnt use factory ammunition now even is some one paid me !:D
 
How much do you shoot a year?
From a commercial perspective, if it's 20 or 30 rounds then keeping buying factory.

You're likely to get more accuracy from a home load but it can be a lot of work and more cost in terms of travel, trying bits 'n bobs etc.

P.S. Willie_Gunn, you're overpaying for powder and primers, £30/1000 for primers and £62/kg for Viht.
 
Brian,
Thanks for the response. That's a big enough saving to make it attractive. I'll be in Dorset tomorrow, and will call in at the Sportsman to get an idea on the cost of the equipment. They quoted me a good price for Norma bt's, so I'll pick up a couple of boxes to tied me over and give me some more brass.
Rupert

my mate bought the RCBS complete kit all bar calipers and dies off amazon for about £220 !

but you can get the lee basic set for about £130 the last time i looked !

drop fenlander on here a pm he'll tell you what it cost exactly
 
Lee, those costings look good - especially for the Gamekings. I'll pm Fenlander as you suggest.

Milligan, I guess I probably shoot approx 100 rounds a year, so there would be about a 2 year payback period based on me paying £2.15 per round locally for factory ammunition. There would also be the satisfaction knowing that I wasn't being sh*fted......priceless!:lol:
 
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buy the Lee Classic Loader kit on here for 6.5X55 - £25. Tub of propellant £30 ish, 100 bullets £28 ish, 100 primers £5 ish, calibers and scales 25, lee chamfer and primer pocket cleaner tools £10. Job done.

this will see you reload 100 rounds around £0.50p/round! almost 5 times cheaper than what you were quoted.

The basic gear needed to try reloading with this method will set up back the equivalent price of 40 Norma BT's, and with that gear you can load 100 rounds...it's a no brainer.

before people jump in a start listing a million other reloading items you need (trays, powder funnels, primer machines, presses, dies, re-sizers, diameter checkers, lubricant, tumblers, corn media, etc. etc. etc. etc),,then take my word for it, you DONT need all that. I have been reloading using the basic setup described above for .243, and can shoot almost one ragged hole with series of 5 rounds....and yes, you can get calibers and scales for £25, just ebay digital scales that do both grams and grains, and some digital scales, should come in at just over £10 each,,,and 'I' have found them just as accurate as more expensive gear..

just my opinion mate, others will disagree.
 
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Lee, those costings look good - especially for the Gamekings. I'll pm Fenlander as you suggest.

Milligan, I guess I probably shoot approx 100 rounds a year, so there would be about a 2 year payback period. There would also be the satisfaction that I wasn't being sh*fted......priceless!:lol:

Moonraker, if you are only shooting 100 rounds per year total, it is probably not worth your while. You are only going to save £70 max on the ammo costs and your initial outlays / start up costs on kit, consumables etc will be £400 - £500.

I would shoot somewhere near 1000 rounds per year from 3 rifles.

I recently gave up loading for my 30/06 as I found it would go .6-.7" with Privvi ammo at £12/20. I can't buy the consumables for that money.
 
Brian,
Just checked Sportsman's website; you're spot on - reloading kit, plus dies & scales would be about £500. I'll keep an eye on the classifieds section on here, and hope I can save a bit by buying second-hand. I plan to be shooting a few more rounds per year in the near future, so it might prove viable. In the meantime, I'll buy up my maximum permitted holding of factory ammunition when I see it at a good price. Norman Clarke is the cheapest I've found, and I'll ask him to bring some along to the midland gamefair.
Regards,
Rupert
 
I'd be a little careful before you buy a lot of Norma 6.5x55 120grn ballistic tips, I got them for my Blaser thinking being Norma they would be great and it do not like em. Best spread I can get is 1.5". I'm about to go down the home load route. When I get the time.
 
dont overlook the hand loader.

I came at this from exactly your perspective having shot Norma 270 for 20 years.
When it broke £30+ a box I decided enough was enough. I am not remotely interested in bench rest accuracy, all I wanted was cheaper cartridges, if they happened to be more accurate then that was a bonus!

I spent (significantly) less than £50 on hardware. (lee loader £25, case trimmer £4, case holder £4, deburring tool £3.50, primer pocket cleaner £2.50)
£60 powder (enough for 330 rounds)
£4 on primers (100 of)
£25 on 100 Hornady interlock SP (very similar to Norma)
I already had several hundred once fired Norma brass (as you probably do to)

even with hardware factored in i am looking at £100-130 for 100 rounds (not counting the 200+ worth of powder left over!)
thats 40-50% saving including the reloading hardware. Just gets cheaper from here on in and by my maths I am looking at 40-45p a round max.

once I had sorted my barrel walking problem I got this. before I even started faffing with seating depth

IMAG0233.jpg


love it so much I bought one in 243

IMG_4218.jpg


I feed them both on the same powder which makes it even cheaper!!

do it, you wont look back
 
dont overlook the hand loader.

I came at this from exactly your perspective having shot Norma 270 for 20 years.
When it broke £30+ a box I decided enough was enough. I am not remotely interested in bench rest accuracy, all I wanted was cheaper cartridges, if they happened to be more accurate then that was a bonus!

I spent (significantly) less than £50 on hardware. (lee loader £25, case trimmer £4, case holder £4, deburring tool £3.50, primer pocket cleaner £2.50)
£60 powder (enough for 330 rounds)
£4 on primers (100 of)
£25 on 100 Hornady interlock SP (very similar to Norma)
I already had several hundred once fired Norma brass (as you probably do to)

even with hardware factored in i am looking at £100-130 for 100 rounds (not counting the 200+ worth of powder left over!)
thats 40-50% saving including the reloading hardware. Just gets cheaper from here on in and by my maths I am looking at 40-45p a round max.

once I had sorted my barrel walking problem I got this. before I even started faffing with seating depth

IMAG0233.jpg


love it so much I bought one in 243

IMG_4218.jpg


I feed them both on the same powder which makes it even cheaper!!

do it, you wont look back

+1
 
I 'll state from the outset that I've always handloaded - ever since the days of churning out 500 rounds of .38sp at a time when pistol shooting.

Looking at the economics of it these days, unless someone is shooting more than the average recreational stalker or has other reasons to handload, then I suspect it's not worthwhile. With Privi SP ammo at £56/100 - it works well downrange and if it groups reasonably well in your rifle it will do the job - then I can't see any savings.
 
buy the Lee Classic Loader kit on here for 6.5X55 - £25. Tub of propellant £30 ish, 100 bullets £28 ish, 100 primers £5 ish, calibers and scales 25, lee chamfer and primer pocket cleaner tools £10. Job done.

this will see you reload 100 rounds around £0.50p/round! almost 5 times cheaper than what you were quoted.

The basic gear needed to try reloading with this method will set up back the equivalent price of 40 Norma BT's, and with that gear you can load 100 rounds...it's a no brainer.

before people jump in a start listing a million other reloading items you need (trays, powder funnels, primer machines, presses, dies, re-sizers, diameter checkers, lubricant, tumblers, corn media, etc. etc. etc. etc),,then take my word for it, you DONT need all that. I have been reloading using the basic setup described above for .243, and can shoot almost one ragged hole with series of 5 rounds....and yes, you can get calibers and scales for £25, just ebay digital scales that do both grams and grains, and some digital scales, should come in at just over £10 each,,,and 'I' have found them just as accurate as more expensive gear..

just my opinion mate, others will disagree.
Totally agree with the above.
Plenty of clips on youtube how to do it.
Cheers
Richard
 
I think one of the big reasons to reload is security of supply. Certainly here in Northern Ireland if you manage to buy a box of ammo you want and zero the rifle with it you can be certain that on your next visit to the RFD there will be lots of sucking of teeth and "oh, that stuff is hard to get it could be months..."

Once you reload you have a little more control over that, though of course you can encounter the same problem with components. However, if you stock up as best you can then you should be able to keep yourself ticking over for quite some time while reloading.

For what it is worth I calculated that reloading my 308 was costing about 85p for a Hornady Spire Point load and about £1.15 for a Nosler Partition load. This included the cost of brass and allowed for 10 reloadings of each case but didn't include any capital cost.
 
Been reloading for over twenty years,bought my first press and basic reloading kit second hand, or rather exchanged it for a couple of outings stalking, thats when an outing for roe was if memory serves me right £25.

Still possible to pick up good s/h kit for not that much money.

Cost was never my main consideration in reloading but on an average of 1,000 a year I would suppose its quite considerable.

Some say if you are only shooting a small amount of ammunition in a year its not worth investing in loading gear,
I would disagree in fact I would say you have probably more reason to reload, while they are correct that it may not be cost effective. The fact that if you only shoot a small amount, you probably only have a small amount allowed on your ticket, one of the biggest problems with factory ammo is consistency not to much of a problem if your allocation is large, but if small and infrequent purchases thats when problems can arise, ideally you want ammo from the same batch
if not you can find yourself having to re zero every time you buy ammo found Norma particularly bad for this , though haven't used it for nearly thirty years so can't say if this still applies at the present time.

Home loading will prevent this as you can[A] develop a round to suit your particular rifle , and once you have done so you can produce exactly the same round indefinitely.
 
I replied to this thread earlier but it seems to not have gone through.

Its me selling the Lee reloader. You have a PM I hope.

I bought all the stuff last week, only FMJ bullets as I want to reload for running deer targets. Its easy to get through 120 rounds in a day on those targets. I have plenty of factory expanding ammo so I'll leave that for a while. I have collected all the brass I've ever shot so I'm ok on that front for a while too. As far as the other parts go, PRVI 139g bullets are 1.6p each, powder (Viht N160) was 21p ish for each round and the primer a fraction of a penny.
 
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