Thanks, @Barry54!
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Happy Birthday @PDA3 and God bless you and give you health and long life.
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Thank you @Johnnyq60!
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Good setup, but Please be VERY careful. I’m a tad concerned about you having an FTF. Be SURE to closely monitor powder volume AND verify that Every round gets a charge
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A light or missing charge can give you a squib load, leaving a slug stuck in the barrel. Next round fired is a disaster. Also, depending on powder the difference between a safe or moderate load and a grossly overpressured round can be a little as .5 gr (and there are 7,000 grains of powder in a single pound! You cannot tell charge weight by looking! Reloading is a great hobby, can produce high quality ammo at decent costs and is something you can enjoy for many decades-BUT a moments carelessness can result in a catastrophic failure that can at best destroy a weapon and at worst can cause serious injury or death. Be safe, be careful and enjoy your new hobby!
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FTF
Failure to feed?
Failure to fire? Because a starting load didn’t have enough power to fully cycle the slide and pick up the next round? Got a click on an empty chamber?
My tiny 9mm jams nearly every other round on the cartridges I currently load on my progressive press. I don’t care though because they run great in everything else and I don’t need to run hotter rounds in everything just to satisfy the one. I don’t shoot it much anyway because it’s uncomfortable. If I plan to though, it’s easy enough to change my powder measure and make loads just for it, then go back.
7000 grains @DeWayne do you know how many more years it will take me to finish off this 8 lb keg of Hodgdon titegroup?? I think it’s multiplying in the keg every time I open it and fill up the powder measure.
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The original post was over 2 years ago. At this point I’ve loaded over 17k 9mm rounds on the SDB. Various cartridges - round nose, hollow points, subsonic. No FTFs (feed or fire).
Even though the press settings don’t change, I still weigh and measure whenever I start loading a new batch and at least every 100 rounds. I also case gauge every round.
As much as I shoot, the decision to reload again was a good one for me. 32c a round during the height of the ammunition shortage down to about 20c a round today.
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Just curious, any idea how much your original outlay for equipment, consumables & supplies cost? For everyone, did you do a cost/benefit analysis, and if so, how long does it take (in # of rounds produced) before reaching the “break even” point?
I realize it probably is like therapy for those who love it, and has other tangible benefits like knowing your powder loads are consistent and being able to get ammo during shortages, but how much did it cost to “get into the game” so to speak?
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I also recognize the benefit of working for your own gain, and the satisfaction of doing a job well, and of doing a meticulous type of work.
It’s kind of appealing to me.
How many rounds can you typically manufacture comfortably in an hour?
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My used SDB and basic misc equipment (brass tumbler, media, scale, caliper, case gauge, etc) required to clean, process, and reload 9mm was around $800. This did not include components - primer, brass, powder, bullets.
I calculated by ROI based on the price of manufacturer 9mm rounds at that time versus what the components costs. Once you reload, you also start picking up brass, so the price for that drops significantly. The ROI calculation was a no brainer back then since the price of 9mm skyrocketed to 50-75+ cents per round. I was able to re-coup the initial cost within 2000-2500 rounds. Probably less if I factored in shipping cost and taxes.
These days, it’ll probably take 5,000+ rounds before breakeven.
There’s prep time involved to de-cap and clean brass before I’m ready to load. Once I have the brass, I can comfortably make 200-300 rounds an hour using the SDB without sacrificing quality and consistency, which is a progressive, but fully manual press.
P.S. Since the initial outlay, I’ve doubled the cost of equipment to make prepping & loading easier - Lee APP press & accessories to de-cap and swage brass, de-capping & swage dies, bullet-pulling die, 100-round case gauge, spares kit for the SDB & APP, misc boxes to organize/store components & finished ammo, etc.
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Thank you for the info!
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It all depends. My greatest savings per cartridge would be from duplicating premium hunting ammunition.
Pretty high up there in value would be cartridges such as 380 where materials cost less than 9mm but it’s more expensive than buying factory 9mm
My favorite aspect is the nearly endless versatility. You can assemble reduced power rifle loads for off season practice without getting beat up by a light hard recoiling hunting rifle.
How about some 200 grain 38 special loads? Can’t buy those off the shelf.
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A single pound of powder will load a Bunch of 9mm👍. It’ll take you a while to burn through yours👍
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At 4 grains per round it should load 14,000 cartridges.
Not realizing how much titegroup I had left, I eagerly bought some Vihtavuori N310 (when components started coming back in stock) and the max charge for it is 3.4 grains. I might have to decide who will inherit it eventually. I haven’t even opened it yet.
About 1650 rounds per pound for me.
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may have some dies and presses for sell soon… will list em here
also reloading bench…
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Selling extras or upgrading?
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neither