Powder....making it's way back and the state overall of components

[300WSM]

Yikes is right! This world we live in now. You either pull the trigger now or maybe not get what you need? I've been a victim of this too. I think some of the things we all see in stock..for sale right now, may have been ordered by suppliers possibly a couple years ago? Just my thought and thats all. For now... just for now, I'm not playing the game. The haz mat fees will eat you alive! A couple pounds of powder here a thousand primers there adds up fast! I don't live in a place where I can buy supplies locally. I've been getting stuff I know I will use sent to me..period! We all live in some times I'm not used to. If we can weather the storm, we will be good. I've adapted the way I go about working up loads I want to try these days.

At the end of the day though it's still cheaper than buying comparable loaded ammo and significantly so in many cases.

As example...
if I could buy Winchester Supreme loaded with Ballistic Silvertip 180gr in a 300wsm present day it would cost at least $75. It would actually be more since that stuff hasn't been made in a few years so that's 2018/2019 pricing...

Provided you have the brass
.....
Let's put the hazmat on the primers and we'll use rounded up numbers

Primers - $130
$130÷1000=$.13
$.13 per round

Powder - $45
Using 300WSM I can get approximately 108 rounds per pound. (7000 grains per pound)
7000gr÷65gr per rd=107.69 rds
$45÷108 rds=$.42
$.42 per round

Bullets
Using our beloved as example if they could be had
$50÷50 bullets = $1.00
$1.00 per round

That's $1.55 per round
For $31 for a box of 20.

Now if we want to get really to the penny let's add in the brass.
Bag of 50 for $50
Let's say we can get 10 firings from them
That means we can get 500 firings from that bag.
50 cases x 10 firings= 500 firing
$50÷500=.10

$31.10 using case life average for a box of 20 loaded Ballistic Silvertip

If Winchester was loading that round at present I guarantee it would be well over $80 per box
Probably $95 per

 

[cloverleaf]

Yup its crazy- but I tell you this- I will throw rocks or shoot rubber bands before I pay $75 a box for 20 rounds of anything! ( Did you hear that Nosler...???)) Sorry - really appreciate the forum- but reality is reality. Black list me if you must. CL

 

[TexasLife]

Yup its crazy- but I tell you this- I will throw rocks or shoot rubber bands before I pay $75 a box for 20 rounds of anything! ( Did you hear that Nosler...???)) Sorry - really appreciate the forum- but reality is reality. Black list me if you must. CL

Agreed! There's more to reloading than savings, but NOW (for rifle anyways) you can save house payments worth! Another reason I don't finance! Unfortunately GM (and maybe others) doesn't give the discounts when PIF at the dealership, cause they give low interest rates for those who can't PIF.

 

[Winshortmag]

I used to reload to save money when I first started out. I reload now to get the most accuracy out of my rifles I can get now. No factory ammo can do that for me at any price. I still buy some target loads for shotguns but they have to be good enough hulls to reload. I bought a box of factory ammo for an experiment I did years ago and it was trash to me. Bullet run out was way out past my limits, it produced horrible groups and was 2 or 300fps slower than advertised.

 

[300WSM]

For now... just for now, I'm not playing the game. The haz mat fees will eat you alive! A couple pounds of powder here a thousand primers there adds up fast!

this
Is the reason I brought up the cost factor.
I never would promote paying retail pricing for some of these factory offerings but merely responding to a statement of the expense of reloading eating you alive right now.

Eating you alive how?

If you buy any premium factory ammo comparably loaded to your intended reload the savings are more than half.

It's been that way forever.
The more premium the bullet from the factory the more you save reloading an identical or comparable round.

What has changed is the cheaper line of ammo in things like AR and pistol.
Years ago when we were importing garbage stuff just good for blasting ( looking at you Wolf and sealed tins from Malaysia as example ) that stuff was a dollar a box...or slightly less.
It was foolish to load for that if you were just looking for plinking ammo when that stuff was so cheap. Perhaps you could load for 90 cents on the dollar then but it was silly when you could buy 1000 round cases for $45- to even $68
That's. 95 cents to $1.36 per box of 20.

Today...that stuff is gone. Long gone.
Now...if you want plinking ammo you're forced to buy a loading from Winchester, Federal, Hornady and or Remington. Sometimes PMC is found a little cheaper but most average around $12 per box of 20 for simple FMJ 5.56x45 ammo.

I can load 55gr FMJ/BT for $6.00 per box.
Half price plus benefits of each charge being exact to the tenth of a grain. I shoot a lot so that is significant savings.

Again.. if I'm loading for matches and using a premium bullet the savings are really significant compared to a factory loaded counterpart. Without the benefits of loading it yourself too.

 

[300WSM]

Agreed! There's more to reloading than savings, but NOW (for rifle anyways) you can save house payments worth! Another reason I don't finance! Unfortunately GM (and maybe others) doesn't give the discounts when PIF at the dealership, cause they give low interest rates for those who can't PIF.

Yup its crazy- but I tell you this- I will throw rocks or shoot rubber bands before I pay $75 a box for 20 rounds of anything! ( Did you hear that Nosler...???)) Sorry - really appreciate the forum- but reality is reality. Black list me if you must. CL

Oh without question there are many benefits to reloading. Accuracy, consistency...getting to know your personal weapon...
It's also a great cerebral hobby as well. You must focus and pay attention to remain safe.

Even with the bloated hazmat fees present day and higher cost of raw material it's still relative...significant savings...

Especially when you remove all the imported plinking offerings of 20 years ago.

Availability...if we can just get that completely ironed out things would be grand

 

[Charlie-NY]

In the extreme left-wing state of NY it isn't legal to have ammo sent to your home. The newly elected Gov Hochol saw to that with her latest legislative initiative. If it wasn't for reloading, I'd be taking up golfing about now.

 

[300WSM]

In the extreme left-wing state of NY it isn't legal to have ammo sent to your home. The newly elected Gov Hochol saw to that with her latest legislative initiative. If it wasn't for reloading, I'd be taking up golfing about now.

Sad state of days we live in now.
That's pretty ridiculous

 

[Wolfshead]

In the extreme left-wing state of NY it isn't legal to have ammo sent to your home. The newly elected Gov Hochol saw to that with her latest legislative initiative. If it wasn't for reloading, I'd be taking up golfing about now.

I’m concerned that with HoeGhoul in charge, we in NY may soon see that we cannot get reloading components in the mail either.
I tried to get some bullets from an online retailer recently and they would only send to an FFL. For just bullets!
oh how I wish we could just cut off the bottom half of the state from say Albany on down and let them run themselves into oblivion….

 

[Charlie-NY]

I’m concerned that with HoeGhoul in charge, we in NY may soon see that we cannot get reloading components in the mail either.
I tried to get some bullets from an online retailer recently and they would only send to an FFL. For just bullets!
oh how I wish we could just cut off the bottom half of the state from say Albany on down and let them run themselves into oblivion….

Hey now - I live on Long Island!!

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Hey now - I live on Long Island!!

Guess you'll have to move You folks can come to WV. We'll welcome you. Dan.

 

[DrMike]

Guess you'll have to move You folks can come to WV. We'll welcome you. Dan.

Well, yes, the guvnor did say that she would gladly rid the state of a variety of people, though she seems to have changed her tune somewhat after the election. She is a great one! (Couldn't find the sarcasm font.)

 

[xphunter]

Well....

I can't say I've shot less overall...just different platforms.
I've got several 300's and I shoot them @ 1000 yards. Some competitively and some for fun.
Now those I haven't shot as much because of the component shortage. I'm extra particular on the mfg of components used in that discipline.
I've definitely shot more in the time being of 1911's and AR style platforms, M4/M16/AR10

I reckon that's by design because I'm very busy and don't have time to track down conponents for a second discipline of shooting or platforms. It takes a lot of effort, energy and time to track down items you need.
I've focused on components for 5.56x45 , 7.62x51 (45 i just buy right now already loaded) so I can keep loading and shooting for the time being....and those particular components are obtainable if you look hard enough.
I shoot Claybirds as well and it's still a lot of cheap fun. Shotshells I definitely buy loaded as I buy them wholesale and it's not cheaper whatsoever to load shotshells versus buying and accuracy is no different out of a shotgun.

It's truly amazing how quickly skills can erode when you're not shooting. Muscle memory, focus and concentration can drop off pretty quickly when not doing it.

Are you shooting LG or HG at a grand with your 300 Wizzum?

 

[TackDriver284]

It's reason I don't like to buy a few boxes of primers, bullets or a couple of pounds in one go because of those silly hazmet fees and shipping charges. I save up a few grand hoping to buy a few jugs of powder and 5 bricks at least along with like 10 to 20 boxes of my preferred bullets in selected lots, all in one go. Helps with hazmat fees. Only if you can find them, usually we don't these days like the older days when its always available.

And yes, its cheaper and more accurate to roll our own ammo.

 

[hunter24605]

another solution, if you have trustworthy partners, is to do a group buy. Me and about 4 guys out the range will go together and make a group purchase and split the hazmat & shipping charge. One guy places the order and the rest pay him directly for their part of the order...Usually the 5 of us have to contribute about $8 or $10 each to cover shipping and hazmat, plus whatever our particular order came to. That used to work great, but nowadays with limited supplies, it's rare that what everyone in the group needs is in stock, so sometimes that is reduced to 2-3 partners.

 

[jezzolo]

So where can retumbo be bought???

 

[Yoteklr]

So where can retumbo be bought???

I have noticed Retumbo shows up in a year and a half or two year cycles.
It showed up this late spring and early summer.
Probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

[FOTIS]

PISTOL PRIMERS

PISTOL PRIMERS https://www.brownells.com/reloading/components/primers/pistol-primers-ae05bda3/

www.brownells.com

LMAO----just got this email.

 

[michsteve]

Powder valley offering free shipping with $199 purchase and they have Varget for people still looking. The free shipping helps a little you would still have $20 hazmat.

 

[RL338]

Winchester primers give instant, hot ignition and are easy to seat into primer pockets.
Run hot loads and all primer bands will seat easy.