Economics of reloading ammo(e)

Depends what they're using. 27 grains of Win 748 fills my .223 cases to the base of the neck, and that's a standard load according to my manuals. I can just imagine though what would happen if they were to try that with a fast burning powder. :eek1

You might give Frank a call at Rimrock Bullets. They are located in Ronan now. He'll show you bullets in different hardness categories and discuss what FPS each will run before leading your barrel. Nice guy, and has stock to ship or pick up as opposed to most of the stores today! They make bullets there for Hunting Shack in Stevi. I just got a box of 500 from them yesterday.

Ball powders were developed to provide a uniform scoop of powder. There are probably a lot of powder/bullet combinations that would be safe to do that. Maybe not that accurate though. My first loader was a "Lee Loader" that came with various scoops for each type of powder.

Can't find it right now but I had photos I took off the web of a loading "factory" in Pakistan or ?. In a tent. A lady held a bunch of cases in a wooden tray then poured powder over them. Then another lady inserted bullets with the help of a wooden mallet:eek1

I was using IMR 4064(?) with a 80 gr bullet in 223 because I had tons of it for 308 loading. It is a long extruded powder. You had to jiggle the cases and tamp the powder in with a pencil. Really accurate but slow loading. I think they called it a 110% of capacity load. The bullet compressed the powder.

Lemme know what you come up with on the 180's. I shoot my 357 the most, but practice with the American Eagle stuff. I shoot Federal Cast Core 180's for hunting though. They have the same point of impact to 50 yards +/- an inch which puts it in minute of whitetail for me.

I'm a bit leary of running heavy loads through my Taurus Ti, so I don't want anything that has too high of pressure.

On a side note, I made an ingot mold and cleared off some space in the garage for smelting lead. Hope to get some ingots cast this weekend or next, then shortly thereafter casting some 240 grainers for the 44.

Everything you ever wanted to know about cast bullets can be found here: http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

From the limited research I've done thusfar, it looks like H110/WW296 (same stuff, different container) and Lil' Gun are the best powders for high velocities with 180 grain bullets in the 357. Since I use 296 already in another caliber and am trying to narrow things down to just a few brands of powder that work for different cartridges, I'll start out with that. It looks to me like 13.0 grains is a decent starting load. I might try bumping it up a little if I don't get pressure signs at that level, flattened primers or sticky extraction. I'll be doing my testing in a S&W 627.

I'd be a little leery of using heavy loads in a lightweight/Ti revolver. However, it'd probably be okay. I hear that the real danger to those types of guns is using light bullets, say 110 grainers loaded to high velocities, that it can result in accelerated erosion to the face of titanium cylinders.

I had that issue already. When I first got it, I shot the hell out of it and after a few thousand rounds I was getting some erosion to the cylinder face and topstrap cutting. I thought it was the heavy loads though. Anyway, I sent er back to Taurus and they replaced the cylinder under warranty. I still have a little gouge in the topstrap, but it seems to be holding up pretty well. I've seen deeper gouges on engine cyclinder walls.

I've been shooting more 38 spl through it than magnum loads. A few sighters before deer season and the one or two when I shoot a deer.

First handgun I ever owned is a S&W Model 27 .357 Mag. It is '61 vintage and my dad gave it to me as a Christmas gift in '66 when I was a high-school kid. I shot that probably tens of thousands of times over the next 15 years, often with heavy loads. Of course, it's an all-steel gun but the little gouge in the topstrap is there and fairly deep. I don't shoot it anymore, not because I'm afraid it'll come apart but more because I think of it as something of an heirloom and have other guns now and don't need to. In any case, at one point long ago I showed it to a gunsmith and asked if there was any danger, and he said "oh, maybe in about another 300,000 rounds!" I decided to stop worrying about it at that point!

I am looking at reloading .45 ACP for bullseye shooting.

I have found a source that can supply 200 gr .45 ACP in semiwadcutter ( with return on brass) for about $ 0.23 per round. I want to get into reloading but I am going to have to justify it with enthusiasm and specific tuning for my gun and not economics. It would appear to me that the only way I can beat his price by more than $0.02 per load is to cast my own bullets and sources for lead seam to be getting few and far between. Kinda like bullets....

Anybody reloading 200 gr 45 ACP for cheaper than $0.21 a shot ? ( I am assuming zero cost for brass in that number.)
The biggest portion of that appears to be anywhere from $0.10 to $0.13 per bullet.

Again, I want to reload... I was just hoping to justify to the wife on a cost basis. It will be tough to justify at 2 cents a pop but I think I am up for the challenge!1

Cast bullets can be had for much less - around $0.061 each for a 200 gr. semi-wadcutter from this outfit: http://www.mastercast.net/cast_bullets.htm

Thanks!! That will make the economics better,

Using Aurelius' bullet source at 6 cents each, primers if you can find them......an open question right now, although I did notice the other evening that my local shop had both large (what you need for 45acp) and small pistol primers in stock.....at 3 cents, and a fairly fast powder like Bullseye or 231 where you're only using a few grains per round, you ought to be able to bring those in at around 10 - 12 cents per bang.

Be careful using bullseye, it is very easy to overcharge the case with that stuff and it's hard to see the variation especially in a larger case. I used Red Dot for pistol cartridges. It used a similar weight (in grains) but the powder is far bulkier. It is very easy to see the difference in charges using Red Dot or Green Dot. At 4 to 4.5 gr of Red Dot for a 200 gr cast bullet in .45 acp you'll still get over 1200 rounds from a pound of powder. Green dot is also very close in burning rate so you will use a similar but slightly larger amount for the same velocity.

I tend to agree that both Bullseye and 231 are powders with which you have to be exceptionally careful as a double-charge will not overflow the case and can be dangerous. I personally like both 700X and Universal for the 40S&W and 45acp rounds. I just used those as examples as they use small quantities and are popular with lead-bullet target-shooters.

I scored some primers.


I just reloaded my first 7 rounds, using a lee loader.


The super cool thing - it's economical, because I didn't pay real money for the primers!

Seven rounds with a Lee Loader? Musta taken you about an hour then?

Sounds about right.

40 minutes.

But that included set-up* and clean-up.




*which meant finding the damn thing.

That's pretty darned fast with the Lee Loader!!