TTAG doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about handloading. That’s probably because it’s not really that much fun. Unless you’re some kind of Zen master, handloading isn’t something you do because you love to do it. It’s something you do because you love to do what handloading lets you do: shoot your guns exceptionally accurately or exceptionally cheaply. I tend to go in for the latter of these reasons, and these are not exactly (in the immortal lyrics of Dennis DeYoung) The Best Of Times for handloaders like me. Just a few years ago I sometimes had to drive 45 miles to hunt down the rumour of bulk primers or gunpowder in stock. Handloading components are now universally available again, but the economics of ammunition have changed and it’s not always cheaper to DIY . . .
Let’s look at three common rifle cartridges: 5.56x45mm NATO, .270 Winchester and 7.62x51mm NATO, and consider when or if it’s worth making your own ammunition. Five years ago the answer was a no-brainer, but times have changed.
Assumptions
Let’s make the generous assumption that you already have a reloading press, dies, and several hundred empty cases. We’ll assume that primers cost $.04 each for rifles or handguns which is what I just paid for them. We’ll also assume that rifle powders cost $30 per pound. You can sometimes find slightly better deals, but you can almost always find any powder you want for $30 a pound.
Note: if your goal is the very best accuracy you can get from your rifle and optic, you’ll probably end up handloading whatever it costs. I’ve had remarkable success (sub-1″ groups at 300 yards) with Black Hills 168-gr .308 Match, but most handloads are noticeably more accurate than Wal-Mart grade rifle ammo.
5.56/.223
Commercial Ammo
Commercial 5.56 ammo currently (November 2013) runs at least $.35 a round for steel-cased plinking ammo, $.40 to $.80 for surplus or commercial reload brass-cased FMJ, and $1 or more for exotic target or hunting loads. (One year ago the same steel-cased plinking rounds cost only $.21 per round, and brass FMJ was rarely more than $.50 per round. Many of us are waiting for those happy days to return.)
Reloading Components
Bulk 55-grain FMJ bullets can be had for as little as $.16 each. (Link here.) 25 grains of Varget is a popular powder charge, which costs about $.11 per round. Add $.04 for the primer, and your component cost is $.31 per round. If you want to go lead-free, Barnes Bullets will set you back a staggering $.50 each.
Conclusion
55-gr FMJ handloads will produce essentially the same performance as Remington Green Box or other standard commercial ammunition, and you’ll save at least $2.70 for every full 30-round magazine you burn through. Handloads with exotic bullets are cheaper than their commercial Barnes cousins ($.65 instead of $1.50) but they’re as expensive as standard factory loads. I’m not sure a groundhog can tell if it’s been vaporized by a Remington Green Box 55-grain FMJ or a Barnes Bullet.
The more you shoot the more you can save by handloading, but the more time you’ll have to spend at the reloading bench. No centerfire burns through rounds faster than a 5.56mm modern sporting rifle, and if I can shoot 300 rounds in a day at the quarry I’ve always preferred to spend a few more cents a round to let somebody else do all that work.
.270 Winchester
Unlike the 5.56 and 7.62 rounds, there is no military market for the .270 and thus no steel-cased or milsurp imports. You can always make .270 brass by necking down surplus .30-06 brass (boxer-primed only) but this article assumes you’ve already got the brass.
Commercial Ammo
The cheapest .270 you’ll find is $.90 per round. This really isn’t too bad, because the price of .270 has increased by only about $5 a box over the last twenty years. If you want high-performance hunting ammo, you’ll spend $1.50 to $2.00 per round.
Reloading Components
130-grain spitzer bullets run about $.30 each for the .270 if you look carefully. They’re not fancy, but these flat-shooting bullets will put mid-sized deer and antelope down for the count and they’re dynamite on varmints and predators. Most .270 loads use 50 to 60 grains of powder, for an average propellant cost of $.24 per round. With a $.04 primer, the cost of these 130-grain loads will be about $.58 per round.
Fancier hunting bullets can run $.70 each, so even handloaded hunting rounds are too expensive for a day blasting tin cans at the quarry.
Even the lowest-cost .270 handloads, if carefully assembled from your once-shot brass, will usually be more accurate than Wal-Mart ammo costing almost twice the price. These handloads will give excellent exterior ballistics and acceptable terminal performance for varmints, antelope, predators and medium-sized deer, but they’re not the right medicine for big mulies or elk. The .270 is one of the most versatile hunting caliber on the planet, but it’s only appropriate for the biggest North American ungulates when it’s loaded with high-performance hunting bullets.
Conclusion
Handloading makes a lot of sense and saves you a lot of money for hunting calibers like the .270, whose rifles are typically very accurate bolt-actions. Whether you’re loading simple soft-tip boattails for coyotes or Barnes Bullets for elk, your handloads will be 30% to 50% cheaper than comparable commercial ammo and you’ll save a minimum of $.30 per shot.
7.62/.308
Commercial Ammo
If you can spare $.60 per round, the world’s your FMJ .308 oyster. Because of the global military market for 7.62x51mm, the heavier projectiles and powder charges only cost you $.20 more per round than comparable plinking-grade 5.56mm cartridges. Hunting-grade .308s with excellent terminal ballistics cost $1.10 to $2.00 per round, and match .308 runs about $1.50 a round.
The cheapest imported .308 is about the same price as the cheapest handloaded .270 Winchester.
Reloading Components
The cheapest .308 FMJ bullets cost $.30 each, and we’ll assume a hypothetical 50 grain powder charge. That powder costs $.21 per round and the primer another $.04, so a really cheap handload will cost $.55 to assemble. Premium-grade Barnes or Nosler hunting bullets are at least $.60 each if you really need them, and that price hurts you almost as much as it hurts that elk you’ll shoot them into.
Conclusion:
If you’ve got an accurate rifle and your targets are paper or elk, you can save a good bit of money and really increase your accuracy by rolling your own 7.62/.308 ammo. Accurized handloads can save you 50% of the cost of commercial match ammo, if you invest the time to develop the right load. Fancy hunting handloads with premium bullets will cost about $1 a round to assemble, but they’ll still be $.50 to $1 cheaper per shot than premium commercial hunting ammo.
For hardcore hunters and actual target shooters, handloading is the way to save money shooting the 7.62/.308. If you don’t already have a press and dies, you can recoup the cost of a simple single-stage reloading setup by the time you’ve assembled 500-600 rounds or less.
If you’re shooting a 7.62mm semi-auto sporting rifle, however, my advice is completely different because your needs are completely different. Your AR-10 doesn’t care if it’s eating 175-grain OTMs, Barnes TSX or bimetallic Brown Bear, so shoot the cheap stuff.
Handloads will only save you a few cents a round over imported or mil-surp ammo, and pricier domestic ammo won’t give you a noticeable boost in accuracy.
So…
These may not have been the conclusions you expected. I was surprised by the cost benefits of handloaded .270, and shocked to see that handloaded .308 FMJ isn’t appreciably cheaper than Privi Partisan.
Next time we’ll look at some popular handgun calibers: 9mm, .357, .45 Colt and .45 ACP. Just as with rifles, the critical price factor is the cost of the projectile. Unlike rifles, however, bullet construction is often crucial to good handgun stopping power.
Waiting to be led around by their noses? A bunch of sheep! Not a one with the spine to think for themselves! Always a pope, minister, imam or president to tell you what you should do! The reality is you are only making them more powerful and giving away your freedoms at every step to them!
I am thinking the idiots in San Rafael deserve these morons for whom they voted. No sympathy here.
BTW the Federal judges are already using the “rights of society at large” to infringe on our Constitutional rights.
Chris, Great article. Many of my friends have been trying to get me into hand loading based on the economic argument. As I point out to them, the savings is realized by excluding the cost of labor. Many shooters will simply consider the time spent money saved but I figured that the real opportunity cost far outweighed the benefit.
The other aspect of the analysis is the initial cost for the tools, storage, and workspace. My uncle’s set up is top notch but takes up a dedicated work bench in the basement.
Lastly, many warranties on firearms specify factory ammo only. If you make a mistake on the load and it damages your rifle you have to eat it… The cost of which faaar outweighs the economic savings.
The real benefit of hand loading, in my opinion, is to fine tune your loads for your specific gun… Especially significant in precision, long range shooting.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Despite some claims and the emphasis of this article, I think economics are not the best reason for loading your own ammo. It’s simply the fun of it and the sense of having made your own the way you want them, and discovering which way you want them.
No one cooks from scratch because it has better nutrition or better cost. It’s for the joy of cooking. Loading ammo is for a similar joy. Someday when I retire I might try it, but not until I have a lot of time and a place to shoot without going to a range.
If you are going to invest in quality reloading equipment (don’t invest in cheap crap) and spend the time learning the craft, then your goal should be for accuracy. If not, spent the $350/1000 for cheap, factory plinking 223 ammo.
Stay away from cheap components. Your bullets should be only Hornady, Sierra, Nosler, Lapua scenars, or Berger. FYI, 77gr SMKs cost only $0.26. You can get overruns of Nosler Competition for close to half that. Stay away from anything else.
Brass: Lapua, Winchester, LC, Nosler, or Norma. Unless you want runout over .005, avoid everything else.
Buy quality reloading equipment. Buy once, cry once.
Tip: Buy primers and powder locally to avoid HAZMAT, and buy everything else online. It will almost always be cheaper.
Buy Zediker’s book on handloading for competition and seek out those posters on SH or accurateshooter that are experts if you have questions.
Avoid most advice from your LGS or those at the range, most of that advice is wrong or dangerous. Take your time, use quality components and tools, and you will enjoy yourself.
That’s terrible. Here in TN, and my family in NY, online prices with hazmat fees can’t even touch the prices of the local shops, unless you buy in HUGE quantities. If I save $3 a lb. online and hazmat costs me $30, I have to buy 10 lbs. just to break even.
Well, huge for me anyways. I can’t afford to buy enough at one time to make a difference.
There are occasional deals to be had for particular bullets. Pulled military 5.56 bullets are a great deal when you can find them. I bought 500 pulled 9mm FMJs for a song three or four years ago and made my own 9s for less than the price of steel Tula.
Deals like that don’t come along frequently enough that you can count on them, though.
FYI: you really shouldn’t be advising potential novices that a particular charge weight (here, 25gr of Varget) is a good or popular charge. Always remember that due to many variables (chamber, seating depth, temperature, humidity, etc.) it is ALWAYS advisable to work up a load.
Another FYI, 175 SMKs are only $0.42 each.
She’s right, you know. All they need to do is convince the lawmakers. Once that’s done, and the laws are on the books, that’s pretty much it. When was the last time a major piece of legislation was actually repealed?
There are people who say that our freedoms are not on a ratchet. The fact of the matter is that they ARE. Once gone we will NOT get them back. It’s why it’s so vital that we not give up any more ground than we already have. All we’ve ever done is give up ground, “compromise”, let them have more and more of the cake. Well sooner or later they’re going to have all of it and we’ll be left with nothing. When that happens, their idea of compromise is going to be a lot different. Instead of “Give us X and we’ll let you keep the rest” it’ll be “Do X and we’ll let you live.”
Of course actually doing something about this would require the majority of this country to wake up, but that’s not going to happen. As long as they have their Kardashians and Dancing with the Has-Beens and Duck Dynasty, they’ll remain peacefully slumbering until one day, it’ll all be gone, and they’ll wonder where it went. And us? We won’t be around to tell them we told them so. We’ll be dead.
Does the Americans for Responsible Solutions have more than one person in its Executive ranks? And does it operate out of Pia Carusone’s kitchen? And finally, does anybody besides Shannon Watts and Pia read the junk on CNN anymore?
Thank you Beetle…Your articles are so informative and interesting.That is simply one of the most beautiful guns ever produced. The best finished handgun I ever held was a mint blued Colt Python with that deep blue finish.I still dream of owning one some day.
Happy thanksgiving to you and yours Robert….Y’all could sit around the table and talk health insurance instead…P.S,,,the cigar looks Delicious
http://bestsextoysformen.edu.tf/ best sextoys for men ! wow
The other thing to consider about handloading is that the components come into the house is seperate lots, meaning the head accountant sees the money leave in smaller chunks and smaller amounts. Next thing you know your sitting on several thousand primers, bullets, and powder. If you went out and bought it all at once your now making a different argument. For 9mm, $30 for 1k primers, 20-25 for 1k worth of powder, and 75-90 for 1k worth of berry’s plated lead. Around $0.15/rd, round here std commercial 9mm is running $0.38 ($19/50) $380 vs $135 and the 135 would have been spent on potentially 3 seperate occasions.
I am some kind of zen master. I love reloading. It’s great fun to tune a load to a particular firearm and see what the maximum intrinsic accuracy and reliability of function is. You can change recoil characteristics, alloy your own lead, etc. It’s like experiencing one firearm as a whole bunch of new firearms.
I’m thankful that my family (my immediate family at least) all agree with each other politically and religiously. Because I would not put up with what Mr. Farago puts up with. I don’t tolerate anti-Christian, anti-liberty, hoplophobes as friends, nor will I tolerate them in my family. There can be no fellowship between those who love liberty and tyrants.
You may not be able to choose your family, but you sure can choose whether or not you want them to be a part of your life. I’m not giving any advice. I’m merely describing how I choose to live.
Military surplus ’06 loads for my Garand are getting pretty rare – and you don’t run down to Wally World to pick up a box of 7.5mm Swiss. I reload because its the only way I can shoot some of my rifles.
I vote for a longslide .45. Or a “high capacity” .22/.22mag like the PMR 30.
Hell, a 5.7 would be sweet too.
I’m going to guess a single stack 9mm. We’ll see. If I can get a deal on one, then I may put it in my safe with the other Glocks. If not, a pistol cal carbine would be awesome, especially if it maintained magazine compatibility. I’d consider a .380, but I don’t have much confidence in that cartridge.
Shotgun choke. I’ve heard of them things. Never knew anyone who used ’em.
And out of those “young, minority, single, female, and LGBT voters” 5% of them will be psychological deviants, some of them outright psychopats. And we’ll be back at square one.
They only calculate technical factors and exclude the psychological ones. Some people can be that naive.
Looks like a backwards 1911 thumb safety mounted on some plastic doohickey and I agree, definitely looks too small.
Glock already sells two models in .380: the G25 compact w/15 rounds and the G28 subcompact w/10 rounds. I don’t know about elsewhere in the world, but in the U.S. they’re only available to law enforcement. I’ve never even seen a used one for sale anywhere. I suppose it’s possible they’d come out with a microcompact (to inventicate a word) in .380; but a just as large splash could be made with no new tooling by unleashing the existing .380’s to the civilian market.
So what’s their new product? Who knows? I doubt a .22LR, too, as kits are already out there. I’m going to guess either a subcompact in .32 caliber, the lowest caliber eligible for qualifying for a concealed carry license in most, if not all, states. Or possibly some proprietary, but similar, small caliber, sort of like what they attempted with the .45 GAP.
I fucking hate the collectivist mindset. “sickness on OUR soul.” We don’t share a communal soul. This idiot is denying the basic fact that individuals are individuals so he can claim damages from someone else who owns a gun for tainting his/our “soul.’
HAHAHAHA! so sweet of you to post my vid and write something nice about it 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving!
They should have just used active.com for the registration site. It’s easy and it works.
Just like a wop….bring a pistol to a dove hunt. No offense to my Italian compadres out there, just always liked the unaltered line in the movie.
I still don’t see why cops would think they need bayonets.
Enjoyed this, thankyou.
In Rhode Island, one can carry in schools with a gun permit although the progressive left every year tries to change this through legislation.
Yes, as a sworn officer I would go in. Yes, as a citizen I would go in.