Ammo...huh?

[BLR]

I am utterly confounded as to why more people don't reload.

The cost argument used to be "I can buy 9mm as cheap as making it." That isn't true....assuming you can actually buy it. 9mm costs roughly $100/thou, 45 about $150.

Especially with all the QC issues abound.

I'm also perplexed as to why more commercial reloaders haven't sprung up.

And what I really don't get is why there are no competitors for primers and brass beyond what we have. Those aren't difficult to make, to be honest. ATK doesn't have a lock on engineers willing to work with explosives, and there must be a dozen local shops that could make cartridge cases around Dayton...well, used to be

Seems like a wonderful business/investment opportunity to me....

[ToddG]

I am utterly confounded as to why more people don't reload.

1. Picking up brass sucks.
2. My time is worth more than the difference in cost.
3. Picking up brass really sucks.

[Jay Cunningham]

1. Picking up brass sucks.
2. My time is worth more than the difference in cost.
3. Picking up brass really sucks.

FTMFW

[Symmetry]

Reloading isn't for everybody. It takes a patient person who is picky about attention to detail. I know some guys who I would recommending NOT getting into reloading, as they have personality types that would get easily frustrated, and do things carelessly. Personally, I like shooting .45acp and .308. Neither of which would I be able to afford to do much shooting with unless I had a good reloading setup. When reloading, I generally save about 60% with .45acp, and up to 70% with .308. With smaller, more common calibers like 9mm or 5.56, the savings are not as great.

[TGS]

I am utterly confounded as to why more people don't reload.

I work 60 hours a week and work on a grad degree in my down time.

Of my shooting buddies, they all work similar hours or two jobs. Fortunately for rsa-otc, reloading is part of his job.

Lots of Americans are working 2nd jobs these days, so that might be of influence.

[JV_]

It takes me 10-15 minutes to load enough ammo for a range session, 250'ish rounds. I wake up a few minutes early and crank it out before my Friday AM range session. It's not really that time intensive ...

If my schedule is so tight that I can't spare the time to reload, I probably shouldn't be hitting the range for a few hours.

[EricP]

I do reload, mostly out of necessity. I enjoy the load development and carefully crafting my own ammo. I don't like reloading for anything I shoot in high volume. If I could, I'd buy 9mm and 5.56mm by the truck load and leave the brass for the scroungers.

I'd love to see more companies producing primers. My guess as to why you don't see new companies making primers is the permitting process, as well as, that shooters tend to be a conservative lot. When Wolf primers became available in ~ 2005, they were dirt cheap and nobody was buying them.

[BLR]

I do reload, mostly out of necessity. I enjoy the load development and carefully crafting my own ammo. I don't like reloading for anything I shoot in high volume. If I could, I'd buy 9mm and 5.56mm by the truck load and leave the brass for the scroungers.

I'd love to see more companies producing primers. My guess as to why you don't see new companies making primers is the permitting process, as well as, that shooters tend to be a conservative lot. When Wolf primers became available in ~ 2005, they were dirt cheap and nobody was buying them.

Same here. I load less for cost than because what I want to shoot isn't available (well, I'm not paying $1 per from Blackhills for 200g LSWC ).

As for primers - it's easier than you'd think. We have an AFTE Explosives License (got my first Letter of Correction this year). I've personally made thousands of primers under an R&D contract. It's simple. Remington has a couple really good (and expired) patents out there on how to make compounds that you can develop from there. As for the market, I'd not go retail at first.

Still, I don't understand why more don't reload. I'm crunched for time far more than the average guy (2 businesses, 3rd grad degree - Nuclear Eng). Though, I don't have a wife+kids.... Meaning, that for me, the decision was availability and tuneability of ammo, not cost/time.

What prompted this line of thought is the ammo thread running right now where tpd223 mentioned that selling ammo for profit w/o license is a fed crime. If it's bad enough where people can jack up the price, why is reloading not more popular?

[cclaxton]

I am utterly confounded as to why more people don't reload. The cost argument used to be "I can buy 9mm as cheap as making it." That isn't true....assuming you can actually buy it. 9mm costs roughly $100/thou, 45 about $150. Especially with all the QC issues abound. I'm also perplexed as to why more commercial reloaders haven't sprung up. And what I really don't get is why there are no competitors for primers and brass beyond what we have. Those aren't difficult to make, to be honest. ATK doesn't have a lock on engineers willing to work with explosives, and there must be a dozen local shops that could make cartridge cases around Dayton...well, used to be Seems like a wonderful business/investment opportunity to me....

This is why I started my business reselling commercially reloaded 9mm, .40 and .45. I sold 150,000 rounds in May, and another 150,000 rounds this month. There are no problems with this ammo because he buys already-cleaned reloadable casings, and the mfr pressure-tests and measures each casing. That way he is nearly eliminating the typical problems with hairline fractures or bent casings causing bad rounds. He uses CCI primers, Alliant powder and Extreme bullets.

I have ammo available in quantities when nobody else except Gunbroker has it. I shot the Carolina Cup, Va State Championship, BEast of the East, and two local matches with over 1000 rounds of this ammo and had zero ammo failures...in fact not a single malfunction at all. I am shooting it in a Cz75 Shadow.

I am not sure you can reload ammo at $100/1000. Everyone I talk to about this tells me it's more like $150-200/1000 for 9mm and $200-250/1000 for .45 because the cost of components have gone up...for those that are available to purchase....in other words...today's market price for components.

Everybody seems to be referring back to pre-Newtown pricing and some web sites still have those old prices up....but those prices are not returning any time soon. There is too much demand and not enough supply...Economics 101: "The current price at which an asset or service can be bought or sold. Economic theory contends that the market price converges at a point where the forces of supply and demand meet. Shocks to either the supply side and/or demand side can cause the market price for a good or service to be re-evaluated."

The market price has been re-evaluated. But there are people like me that are offering available commercially reloaded ammo at $100-150 below the market price. A good indicator of market price is the Gunbroker.com website. There you can track auctions with no reserve and monitor the price that ammo will sell. THAT is the convergent point for supply and demand.

I am restricted from advertising here, but you can PM me if interested.
CC

[DocGKR]

Time. I work 0700-1900 M-F and am on call other times.