Should You Reload Your Own Ammunition?

I’m probably being dramatic, but the conflicted feelings are real, man. There are pros and cons to rolling your own cartridges. Reloading fanatics will tell you that you can’t be a serious hunter or sport shooter without slaving away at the bench. At the same time, I’ve spoken with successful competitive shooters, and definitely lots of hunters, who say it’s not worth it.

What’s the truth? It depends on what you think about the pros and cons below.

How much money you save depends a lot on the types of cartridges you want to shoot–rifle or handgun, hunting or plinking, match-grade or good-nuff, etc. Let’s start with the 300 Win. Mag., one of the most popular big game cartridges out there. You can get good quality hunting ammunition for $2-$3 per cartridge. There are exceptions on either end, but I think that’s a fair average.

Assuming you have some brass saved up, here’s what it would cost you to load your own.

For this example, I used H1000 powder (70 grains per cartridge) and Nosler AccuBond bullets. There are cheaper powders and cheaper bullets, but even with these components, my total is about 17% cheaper than the cheapest factory hunting ammunition.

But what about a popular handgun cartridge like 9mm?

To give our reloader the best shot possible, we’ll look at cartridges designed for defensive purposes as opposed to target practice. For that, the cheapest hollow-point options are about $0.50 per round with American-made options running closer to $0.80 per cartridge.

For this 9mm cartridge, I used CFE Pistol powder and Hornady XTP jacketed hollowpoint bullets. Again, you could probably get these costs down even further, but they’re already significantly less expensive than the cheapest defensive options.

Of course, with both these examples, I’m making a big assumption about brass. 300 Win. Mag. brass cases cost about $1.00 and 9mm cases are $0.15-0.20, both of which would make these reloads more expensive than buying cheap factory ammo. But your costs would still be less than higher-end options, and if you’ve been dutifully collecting spent cases, you can save yourself a bundle by loading your own.

The accountants among us have already identified several costs that aren’t reflected in the tables above.

First, reloading requires a significant initial investment in equipment. The reloading press kit I started with was the RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme. I got it second hand for about $200, but these days a new one will cost you north of $480. There are less expensive options, but I’d budget at least $300 for a reloading press kit.

Those kits come with almost everything you need, but not quite. If you get that RCBS Rock Chucker kit, you’ll also need a brass tumbler ($100), case trimmer ($130), case prep tool ($30), case lube ($10), and a caliper ($30). If you want to really dial in your rifle cartridges, you’ll also need an overall length gauge ($40) and a bullet comparator kit ($30). And, of course, don’t forget one of the most important components: a die set that allows you to resize brass, seat bullets, and crimp. These can cost anywhere from $40 to $300, but you’ll probably pay something closer to $75.

Add all that up and you’re looking at an initial investment of $745. I tried to pick a median price for all of these components, so you can find most for slightly cheaper or more expensive. But assuming that $745 number is close, you’d have to reload 2,328 rounds of 300 Win. Mag. ($0.32 savings per cartridge) or 4,966 rounds of 9mm ($0.15 per cartridge) to make up the cost of equipment.

If you don’t enjoy reloading for its own sake, you also have to think about opportunity cost. The hours you spend reloading could be spent on something else, whether it’s making money at another job, pursuing a hobby you do enjoy, or spending time with your family. Those costs are less quantifiable, but they should also be considered.

Reloaded ammunition can be cheaper than factory cartridges, and it can also be more accurate. There are a few reasons for this.

First, you can be your own quality control manager. You can make sure each case is exactly the same length. You can check wall thickness, neck tension, and overall cartridge length. You can make sure each case is spotless and is loaded with exactly the same amount of powder.

You can also tailor your cartridge to your rifle. Some rifles prefer bullets of a certain weight or powders that burn fast or slow. You can try different combinations of cases, primers, powders, and bullets until you find one that optimizes your rifle’s repeatability.

You can even seat the bullet lower or higher in the case to change the “jump,” or how far the bullet has to travel before it reaches the rifling. This is often one of the easiest ways to increase accuracy over factory ammunition, which must be loaded for a certain overall length.

All of these tweaks can reduce group sizes and make your rifle/ammo combo more accurate for hunting or competitive shooting.

The problem, of course, is that group shrink isn’t guaranteed. I once spent hours, days, years of my life trying to load an accurate .308 Win. cartridge for a Weatherby bolt gun, but I never really succeeded. It shot 1-1.5-inch groups with factory ammo, and I never found a reloaded combination that consistently cracked that one-inch mark.

On the other hand, I recently (finally) started to work up a load for this 6.5 Creedmoor I built last year, and I’ve seen good results. The best groups I shot with factory ammo averaged about .6 inches, but my reloads with 147-grain bullets have been consistently closer to .5 inches, with some as small as .25 inches. I’ve also been able to crank up the velocity with those heavy, high-BC bullets to nearly 2,800 fps, which will give me an edge at longer ranges. My standard deviations (how consistent the velocity is from shot to shot) still aren’t great, but I’m planning to adjust neck tension to hopefully make that more repeatable as well.

You’ll read accounts online of reloaders turning an inaccurate rifle into a tack driver by working up a bullet/powder/primer combo that the rifle shoots well. I believe these accounts, but I don’t think they always tell the full story. If you compare cheap factory ammo to reloads, you can indeed turn a 2-inch rifle into a sub-MOA gun. But if you’ve tried many kinds of high-quality factory ammunition, I wouldn’t pin your hopes on your reloads offering much better accuracy. It’s possible, but in my experience, accuracy gains are marginal over good match-grade ammunition.

I’ve concluded after about 10 years of reloading that I don’t do it just to save money or increase accuracy. It’s nice when those things happen, but I like reloading because I like the process. I enjoy putting each component together and seeing the rows of gleaming cases waiting for the next range day. I like the self-reliance and independence that comes from producing my own ammunition. Even though it’s frustrating, I appreciate the chance to solve the puzzle that is load development. I even enjoy the act of reloading itself. There’s something calming about running a press for a few hours and seeing the fruit of your labor once you’re done.

The benefits of reloading are real, especially if you’re a savvy component buyer and have a knack for multi-variable problems. But there are no guarantees. I can’t say whether reloading is “worth it” to you, but I can tell you that it helps if you enjoy it for its own sake rather than just for what it’ll give you.