Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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There can be no question that the trade-off remains good for quite a few cartridges. For 9mm Luger, at the moment the financial benefit is a little questionable, given the cost of certain components. However, for just about any revolver cartridge, from .38 Special up, and especially anything bigger bore like .44 Special/Magnum or .45 Colt/ACP...yep, the financial benefit is there.

I was just having this very discussion on Saturday with a couple of range customers. Two Jersey girls in I'd say their mid-to-late 20's, one of whom had just recently bought a Glock 21 in .45 ACP and was teaching her (apparently) partner how to shoot it. They now live in Virginia. Turns out the Glock 21 is my favorite of all semi-automatic pistols due to its ergonomics, and she felt the same way. But she did acknowledge the high cost of .45 ACP ammo. So, I suggested to both of them that reloading might be helpful for them, with an example of what it costs me to make a box of .45 ACP vs. what they buy theirs for. They were aghast at the cost savings. I think they'll start looking up reloading. :-)
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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Doing the Lord's work, you are. Do you offer classes at your range? What if there were a room with a communal press that could be rented by the hour or chunk of time? Customers could bring their own dies and scale and peripherals, and the press would be bolted down with the threads on the mounting bolts mushed over. Initial investment would be reduced. If a company sponsored such an endeavor, they could have posters up on the wall with all their products.The range could get a little cut.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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It's a good idea, but it turns out that anyone who is a Type 1 FFL, i. e. the "standard" FFL to sell guns, has to be very careful about reloading presses and such. We'd need to get a Type 6 FFL to keep from running afoul of the ATF. I know a guy who ran into exactly this issue, and I've read of other stories that corroborate his. It's unfortunate, too, because you're right; it would help, and we have sold some reloading components in the past, specifically handgun bullets. But we can't risk it.

Then there's the liability issue. Should someone not follow the proper safety rules for reloading and do a squib or double-charge, using our equipment, and then blow up their gun or worse, a body part...then, even with all sorts of signed waivers, we could and likely would still end up in court. A non-2A-friendly judge may well be eager to find a way to rule against us, and our local government is not the friendliest toward the 2A, generally. So, again, we can't risk it.

Before the anti-2A push, back in the day when your local gun store would gunsmith for you without batting an eye...perhaps. I'm talking the 1940's, 50's, even most of the 60's. Maybe even the 70's in certain parts of the USA. But now? The risk is just too high.
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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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An old reloader passed away and his wife brought his reloading components by the range for "disposal", as she didn't know what to do with them. We gladly obliged. :-)

A lot of it is cast bullets. There are approximately 2,000 full wadcutters for .38 Special (148gr) and 2,000 LSWC's for .45 ACP (200gr). Didn't cost me a cent. Also got a bunch of small and large pistol primers out of the deal. My go-to powders for .38 Spl and .45 ACP are Bullseye and Titegroup. Both are fast burning powders, and a little goes a long way.

The result is that my cost per round for reloading the next 2,000 rounds of .38 Special and .45 ACP is going to be waaaaaaaay down. Basically, it'll be the cost of the powder, because I get my brass free of charge as well (again, I work at a gun range; it's all once-fired). For the .38 Special wadcutter load, which will use 3.5gr of Bullseye or Titegroup, a pound of powder is 7,000 grains. That's 2,000 loads per pound. Say a pound of either powder is $40. Doing the math (4000 cents divided by 2000 loads), we're looking at 2c (two cents) per round. Multiply that by a box of 50, and we have one dollar per box.

That's right, those .38 Special wadcutter loads are going to cost me $1.00 per 50-round box to make. My reloading gear paid for itself 12 years ago, so everything after that has been pure gravy.

The .45 ACP rounds are going to take 5.0gr Titegroup, per the reloading manuals. Let's see...that's 1,400 rounds per pound. At $40.00/lb, that's again 4000 cents, we're lookign at 4000 cents divided by 1400 loads. That's 2.857 cents per round. Call it 3 cents. Multiply that by a box of 50, and we have $1.50 per box.

"Unfair comparison", you might say? Not really. The reason I can take advantage of this opportunity is that I was already set up to reload. Luck, folks, is 80% to 90% preparation, as many successful people will confirm. The key is to be ready for such opportunities as they present themselves.

And this, BTW, is hardly the first such opportunity I've gotten; far from it. Again, preparation.
"SF Liberal With A Gun + Free Software Advocate"
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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Now, since this is a "time vs. money trade-off" thread....

Remember that most of my reloading is done progressively. With ease, I can pop out 350 rounds of .45 ACP in an hour on the Pro 6000. On the Pro 1000, I've done 375 rounds/hour of .38 Special on quite a few occasions, though my average output is closer to just over 300/hour.

Let's look at the cost of the time, using the above cartridges. Say you spend an hour reloading. Say you make $100,000 a year, which is hardly unusual in the Information Technology field. That turns out to be about $50/hour. A typical box of FMJ "range-fodder" ammo, say, .38 Special, will cost about $30. In one hour, assuming about a (slightly conservative) 300 round/hour output, I've made $180 to $200 worth of ammo.

Now, let's look at .45 ACP. Typical cost for that is about $35. Assuming my typical, and somewhat leisurely, production rate of 350 rounds/hour, we're looking at $245 worth of ammo. In one hour. So, that person making $50/hour just ended up with either $180-200 or $245.

Now, let's subtract expenses. First, we deal with the $50/hour wage, so we're looking at $130-$150 for .38 Special, or $195 for .45 ACP. Now, let's subtract the actual cost to make the box of ammo. For .38 Special, normally that's $3.00/box of ammo, and for .45 ACP, that's $4.50/box of ammo. That's actually somewhat negligible, given the other figures here, but we'll call it $5.00. That's $125-$145 for .38 Special and $190 for .45 ACP.

Now, we subtract the time for bullet casting. Just to keep things simple, I'll stick to .38 Special for this example. I have made 6,000 bullets of .38 Special in about 12 hours. That's 500 bullets an hour. That's another $50/hour in wages subtracted, so we're looking at $75-$95.

I already included the cost of the lead for making those bullets in the cost of each box of ammo. But I'll share lead cost calculation with you as well.

The bullet mould that I use for .38 Special is Lee's 358-105-SWC, which drops at an actual weight of about 110 grains/bullet. This is what I use for my "powder-puff" load that's easy shootin', but it also replicates factory .38 Special in-flight ballistics (chronos at 850 ft/sec). So, 1lb of lead, i. e. 7000 grains, will get me 7000/110 = 63.6363 bullets. Call it 60 bullets/lb for round figures. To get 500 bullets, that means 8.3lb of lead alloy. Each lb of lead is about $1.20. That's $9.60; call it $10 even. Again, I already figured that into the cost of making a box of 50.

Hmm...$75 to $95 per hour...after all expenses...and I'm having fun doing it as well....

YEAH, IT'S WORTH IT!! :-)
"SF Liberal With A Gun + Free Software Advocate"
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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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CowboyT wrote: Mon Jan 30, 2023 10:44 pm Now, since this is a "time vs. money trade-off" thread....

Remember that most of my reloading is done progressively. With ease, I can pop out 350 rounds of .45 ACP in an hour on the Pro 6000. On the Pro 1000, I've done 375 rounds/hour of .38 Special on quite a few occasions, though my average output is closer to just over 300/hour.
How idiot-proof is the 6000?

I've been resistant to cluttering my garage workbench with a full-sized press, because my garage and house are already a SULPHUROUS, FULMINATING HELLSCAPE of clutter and crap (I'm not kidding; I am the worst person who's never been on Hoarders), but I've done all my relaoding with a Lee Hand Press, and the slow production is definitely inhibiting me. It was a great way to start reloading, and not TOO terrible for revolver cartridges since I pretty much only shoot slow-fire with wheelguns, but it's really demoralizing to spend over an hour making ammo I can burn in five minutes in a bottom feeder (it would be one minute, but I only take two magazines per gun to the range). That was one of the reasons I sold my 10 mm pistols. (I wish I'd kept the cheaper one, of course. Never sell a gun unless you absolutely must! But I digress...) I replaced them with 9 mm and 45 ACP 1911s, so factory ammo is potentially a little cheaper, but I'm an ammo snob so now I'm being tempted by fancy Atlanta Arms 9 mm ammo.

Between a long-delayed bathroom remodeling project and the need to go Marie Kondo on the garage, or at least figure out a way to get the crap better organized, I have more of a time vs time trade-off problem, and the idea of being able to make all my .43 and .45 brass into ammo in only a few hours then shoot it for a year is looking pretty appealing.

Also, the hand press is getting pretty worn. The ram is definitely looser in the frame than it used to be.
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Well, no reloading press is really "idiot-proof", and anyone who reloads should pay close attention to what he or she is doing. I know that should go without saying, but I'll do it anyway because it's that important. That goes double for any progressive press, since multiple things are going on at once.

With that said, the Pro 6000 is pretty good about "idiot-proofness", as far as progressive presses go. It's harder to do a double-charge on a Pro 6000 than, say, a Dillon RL550, due to the auto-indexing feature in the Pro 6000. The priming system, as I've mentioned, is considerably improved over the Pro 1000 and even a little bit over the "Safety Prime" in the Pro 4000 and Turret Presses. This is coming from someone who quite likes the Safety Prime system on our Classic Turret Press. That's always been the challenge with any progressive press, and Lee came up with a rather elegant, simple, and well-functioning, solution in this case. The new 2023 Pro 1000 also uses the Pro 6000's new priming system.

The powder measure is great and always has been. I'm referring specifically to the Lee Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure. The Auto-Drum Powder Measure is said to also be quite good; I just haven't tried it out yet since the Pro Auto-Disk Powder Measure is already set up and works really well. Basically, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" was my thesis in sticking with the Auto-Disk version. Nothing against the Auto-Drum, though, and the press comes with the Auto-Drum.

Just for that extra margin of safety, though, I would recommend some sort of Powder-Cop die right before the bullet-seating stage. On the Pro 6000, that generally would be either Station 3 or Station 4, depending on whether you use a separate case-mouth-belling die. I happen to use RCBS's version, but any other one (e. g. Hornady's) should do just as nicely.
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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Agree that auto-index is a good safety feature on a progressive. The Star, which was manually indexed, could be had with a lockout feature which blocked a second stroke unless the shell plate was indexed. I have an RCBS Green machine in-line loader, which while auto-indexing, is still capable of doing just about everything wrong if attention drifts just a bit. Good lighting, safety glasses, and a no-distraction place to work.
This isn't going well, is it?

Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Thanks, good answers!

I should have been more specific and said that by "idiot-proof" I meant how hard/fiddly/frustrating is it to get priming, charging, and bullet feeding to work well and reliably. I'm not hearing any complaints about that...

I don't have an Auto Disk so if it comes with the Auto Drum I would probably use that. I have a Lee Perfect which I like, except that it binds with certain fine-grained powders (mainly H110; I don't remember the AA# series being a problem). Looks like the Auto Drum is similar in principle. I might get a few spare drums for favorite recipes to minimize tweaking (e.g. 12.1 grains of Longshot for the .43 Magnum, which makes a very nice "house wine" load with 240 grain bullets).
IMR4227: Zero to 900 in 0.001 seconds

I'm only killing paper and my self-esteem.

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Re: Reloading - The Time vs. Money Trade-Off

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Ah, in that case, you'll find the Pro 6000 refreshing. It did take me a few hundred rounds for the priming system to get settled in. However, since then, it has been flawless, even when I inadvertently spilled some Titegroup powder on the primer feed. It's a simple, yet damned effective, and safe, priming system.

The case feeder is pretty good, too. Since it's gravity-fed, you do get the occasional case bouncing, if it's the last case in the tube, and you may have to stand that case right-side up. But that's easy to hear and easy to deal with.

Setting it up, there's almost nothing to it. It uses those new Breech-Lock inserts, so changing dies is simple. Included is a little plastic wrench for un-snugging them if your fingers aren't strong enough. Setting up the dies is about like every other Lee press, so the instructions for one will work pretty much unmodified for the Pro 6000 as well. I was loading ammo in a couple of hours after unboxing it. Like any other press, especially progressive presses, it takes some study to get to know it. My Dillon XL650 took me a day to figure out how to set it up, and even then, only with YouTube videos was I eventually successful. Also, stocking the Dillon with primers takes more time than with the Pro 6000, due to the Dillon's need for primer feed tubes. Not saying the Dillon presses are bad; they're not. But the Pro 6000 is easy by comparison.

You ought to check out my thread on this press. It's here in the Reloading section.
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