.22 Rimfire

I've been buying ammo there on a regular basis as of late - when they have it stock. You want sticker shock go to Orschelns and buy some .243 or 7mm Mag $35 to $45 a BOX of 20. Other stores and gun shops are just as bad or worse. Problem is Walmart is usually out most rifle rounds. Now that the boys are older they like getting out to shoot their .22s more and I get in a little practice with my AR10. With 19 round clips on it you can go through a lot of ammo in a couple hours.

A year ago I was paying $130 for 5000 rounds. Now, it's $181 for 5000 (long rifle Thunderbolts).
so, they went from 2 1/2 cents per round to 3 1/2 cents per round. USA made 40 grain lead solid points. If I buy in small quantities, they're $7.40 per box of 100.

Buddy of mine does not shoot much and only deer hunts. He bought 270 ammo this fall for the first time in 2 or 3 years. Went to 4 stores cause he thought $17 was nuts.

Dave

Reloading doesn't save you much money, but it does allow you to shoot more and develop specific loads and it's a great hobby. It gets even better if you get into casting.

I have loaded my own ammo for thirty years, and I would not consider loading for profit.

1. Without investing in a high-end progressive machine (about a 1000 bucks, after you add all the whistles and bells), you can't churn ammo out fast enough to make it worth your time.

2. Selling ammo to others sets you up for product liability. If someone buys your ammo and their gun blows up, there's no way you can prove that it wasn't the fault of your ammo.

3. If you sell ammo, you have to register as a manufacturer with the ATF. Obviously, the ATF is unlikely to come after a guy who sells a few hundred rounds per year. But if you're selling enough ammo to make the payments on a Dillon 650 progressive reloading press, you'd better have a license.

All of this is moot anyway. Reloading components are in even shorter supply than loaded ammo these days. Ask your buddy to see where he can buy a few thousand primers at a reasonable price before he plunks down his cash on a new Dillon press.

I load my own ammo for quality, not for economy.

First, nobody ever loads just 20 rounds, unless maybe they're working up a load. The minimum batch size for me is fifty rounds, and I usually do at least 100 rounds at a time.

Now if I had prepared or new brass, and my powder measure and dies were all set up, I suppose I could load up twenty rounds in five minutes. But it's never that simple. Particularly for my service rifle, I spend a lot of time with case preparation. And you always have to adjust your powder measure or dies.

The point is not to do it fast or cheap. The point is to do it right. If you want to cut the size of your groups in half, start handloading. If you just want to blast away without hitting anything, factory ammo will suffice.

Reloaded into what? New, primed brass? Or once fired brass that you had deprimed, cleaned, sized, trimmed, and primed in separate operations that you didn't factor into the 20 minute reloading time?

I find reloading with a single stage setup to be relaxing and enjoyable, but the only way I could ever come close to getting the time per finished cartridge down to a figure that wasn't embarrassing was to do each operation in amounts of 1000 or more, and not think about it too much. When I would get enough primed brass ahead to be able to reload for a few months without having to do any of the steps to get to that point---that's when I would think of it as reloading, and the time wouldn't seem bad at all.

All the best, Stan

I just got a Hornady LNL progressive. Not sure how I'll like it, but the press itself sure is nice!