Read every book you can find! That being said, I only have a Speer and Hornady manual and have read both. I can reload .223 for around $0.26/round 9mm for maybe $0.16/round excluding brass because I mostly use free range pickups. It all depends on where you get components. Berry's makes inexpensive pistol projectiles (most of the cost of the reloaded round). Eastman gun shows are a great place to get cheap components.
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Which book
- Thread starter Childers
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Honestly I use the Lee manual more than any of the 3 others that I have.
Lee doesn't produce primers, powder, projectiles or ammunition and so cover quite a wide spread of choices. companies that manufacture reloading components as well as factory ammo generally only list loads for their parts. (speer, Hornady, Nosler, etc.) and of course the best place to get safe ,reliable loading info for a caliber is the powder manufactures websites.
Lyman is also a good manual but more so for lead loads.
Cost for reloading is dependent on where you get the components, MY cost for 223/556 is 13 cents per round (FMJ)but thats buying in bulk and finding projectiles on sale.
So Lee seems to be the most popular. I'll go by the bookstore at lunch and see what I find. I try to always buy bulk. You pay more up front but save in the end. I'm paying $0.18-0.20 for reloads and don't like the ideal of steel in my legion. .223 I pay $0.22 for steel and $0.28-0.30 for reloads. I did manage to scoop some 5.56 reloads last week for $260 I want to get that lower.
I also watch sales pretty well but haven't for reloading because I don't know much on the topic. What's the Hazmat fee's I've heard of? Also I'm done with Eastman Gun Shows. Most of the prices can be beat by Cherokee Gun and Pawn, True Prep or Georgia Gun Store....then there's online.
The hazmat fee is a set fee when ordering powder or primers online.
Best I recall it was 24 bucks or so.
If you're going to get hit with the hazmat fee you best max out your order.
It's a rare day that I order anything with a hazmat fee, when I do I always buy every pound of powder I can, this way the hazmat fee is adding just a couple bucks to each pound of powder.
No, it pertains to primers as well. I try to buy local anyway, but hazmat fees really make me buy those components local. Check the reloading section in ammounition. Lots of ODT'ers sell 8lb jugs of powder for usually less than retail and no tax, usually.
The LEE book was the first book I got, you can get that book cheap online or probably on here. They are everywhere. I tried to read it when I first got started but got way confused. It used A LOT of words that I didn't know what they meant at the time. I would have killed for a glossary in it. Anyway, they assume you already know what everything is and how to reload. Starting out I didn't know anything about reloading. Once I learned the basics I reread it and it was very informative. Lyman seemed to speak in plain terms. Maybe I was just dumber than most.
A couple tidbits to consider as your ramp up-
I'm still using a single stage after 20 years of reloading, but since the component prices are relatively fixed, the bigger variable rounds per hour (load rate). I do my brass prep in stages. I'll tumble a thousand cases, deprime and trim/chamfer a few hundred at a time until they're all done, then another day I'll load for a few hours. I get around 80-100 rounds per hour this way. But a progressive will output 4-6 times that.
for 5.56/.223, go with a ball powder. In my experience, stick powder like RE15 stacks in the case too much and doesn't flow well from the powder dispenser. Ball, like my favorite Ramshot Tac, flows like water. It's easy to keep charge weight variation under .10grains.
Get a digital scale, but if you buy a kit that comes with a balance beam, keep it for back up. It needs calibrated just like the digital too, BTW.
buy powder in 4-8lb jugs, not 1 pounders, at least once you decide on a load- and don't spend all your time chasing loads, find something that works and use it.
Likewise for bullets. The best way to save a few cents per load is to settle on a bullet and shop for bulk deals.
stevespages (browse it all if you haven't) had a xls download with a lot of useful excel files with a cost per round calculator, ballistics tables that are pretty well written, etc.
http://stevespages.com/table3.html click the link named "download spreadsheets" under "other interesting areas" in blue
I'm still using a single stage after 20 years of reloading, but since the component prices are relatively fixed, the bigger variable rounds per hour (load rate). I do my brass prep in stages. I'll tumble a thousand cases, deprime and trim/chamfer a few hundred at a time until they're all done, then another day I'll load for a few hours. I get around 80-100 rounds per hour this way. But a progressive will output 4-6 times that.
for 5.56/.223, go with a ball powder. In my experience, stick powder like RE15 stacks in the case too much and doesn't flow well from the powder dispenser. Ball, like my favorite Ramshot Tac, flows like water. It's easy to keep charge weight variation under .10grains.
Get a digital scale, but if you buy a kit that comes with a balance beam, keep it for back up. It needs calibrated just like the digital too, BTW.
buy powder in 4-8lb jugs, not 1 pounders, at least once you decide on a load- and don't spend all your time chasing loads, find something that works and use it.
Likewise for bullets. The best way to save a few cents per load is to settle on a bullet and shop for bulk deals.
stevespages (browse it all if you haven't) had a xls download with a lot of useful excel files with a cost per round calculator, ballistics tables that are pretty well written, etc.
http://stevespages.com/table3.html click the link named "download spreadsheets" under "other interesting areas" in blue
A handy option is to do a group buy with some local friends to offset shipping and hazmat. The hazmat is set for up to 48 pounds or something, so to order six 8 pound jugs reduces it to $8 per jug/buyer. It can be a pain with people backing out, or whatever, but it CAN work. I usually bite the bullet and get 16 pounds of rifle powder, and settle on a powder that works for a few guns.
Awesome website. I bookmarked that for later on. I'll have to keep an eye out for some sales. I don't have any friends that reload so it will just be me. I'm going to try and get a progressive press when I see a deal. Thanks for all the information.
