Ammo

Tula Ammo costs $215.00 for 1000 rounds of FMJ 9mm. That's 21.5 cents per round of poor quality range ammo.

Wheel weights can be had around here for 25 cents per pound (I figure about 30 cents after you have processed it). 7000 grains in a pound, so getting a 124 grain bullet from it costs about .5 cents.

Powder cost me $28.00 for HS-6. I use 6 grains, and there, again, is 7000 grains in the pound of powder on my reloading bench. That comes to approximately 2.4 cents.

Primers run about $30.00 for 1000. That's 3 cents.

That's about 5.9 cents per round for the 200 I loaded yesterday.

21.5 - 5.9 = 15.6. That's 15.6 cents saved per round. Total savings of $31.20 on those 200 rounds. I have less than 5 hours total time invested in those 200 bullets. If my time investment is worth less than the difference between my cost per round, and the cost per round of cheap range ammo, my time investment was worth about $6.24, or a dollar less than minimum wage.

Being as how if you make minimum wage, you can't take home $6.24 after taxes, and being as I work a salary job, so I can't work extra to cover my ammo costs, I think I did good.

If I wasn't reloading ammo, I would have just spent those 5 hours goofing off anyway.

Reloading is a great way to shoot a lot more, for less dollars per round.