Cost of Factory Loads

butch50 · June 19, 2005, 09:23 AM

I am wondering how it can possibly be less expensive to reload ammo vs factory costs.

Factory loads have the benefits of mass purchasing power and automated equipment don't they? How can we possibly buy components less expensively than them when the factories buy them by the train load?

I know they have to factor in the cost of new brass for every round and we don't - but what do you think they pay for a brass case when they buy them by the hundreds of thousands at a time?

I also realize they have to factor in labor (we don't) and the cost of overhead and equipment - but again when those costs are amortized over the cost of the gazillions of rounds of ammo that they produce per year, it doesn't seem like it could be much more than fractions of pennies per round.

Are the factories making a huge profit markup per round?

Edward429451 · June 19, 2005, 09:32 AM

Huge profit.Plus don't forget supply & demand. I read somewhere that only around 3% of gunowners / shooters are reloaders.

Bass Man · June 19, 2005, 09:41 AM

Well, bullets cost an average of $15.00 a hundred. Primers are about $2.00 a hundred and the powder is around $20.00 a pound with all of these depending on the kind you buy. There is about 7000 grains in a pound and say a .243 win. with a Speer 80 gr. spitz takes 36.5 grains of reloader 15. Thats 191 loads per pound which is about $10.50 per hundred. So your looking at about $28 a hundred and it costs $15 per 20 in the store. Plus you have a lot more options with bullet weights if you reload.

Russ5924 · June 19, 2005, 10:08 AM

Look at it this way how much do you pay to be entertained.Say a movie with the Wife/girlfriend or take in a football game .Is that all wasted money,don't know about anybody else I ENJOY it I like to reload.If you only shoot once a month or so it wouldn't pay to reload I shoot 10 to 12.000 rounds a year.Do you fish do you figure the price of the boat and everything else in to how many pounds of fish you catch.I did one year and found out the fish cost over $150.00 a pound (new boat),figure what a new car is going to cost over it's life

Edward429451 · June 19, 2005, 10:22 AM

Russ makes a good point. Hunting isn't cheap. Ever figured all the associated costs in a hunting trip? Thats some expensive meat. But worth it. I toss the associated cost out the window when figuring.

A practical way that I use is to figure cost of weapon only to poundage of meat. Most weapons pay for themselves with a single kill (big game). Associated costs are like uh, tuition.
\
Reloading is like money in the bank if you ask me. You may or may not actually save money right now. The practical skill and projection of future ammo prices & availability (!) makes it almost priceless in my mind. Not even considering the performance factor.

butch50 · June 19, 2005, 06:02 PM

I am not complaining about the cost of factory loads - after all I don't shoot thousands of rounds per year and my ammo purchases are not great big outlays - I am simply curious as to how much profit they are making off of each round. There just doesn't seem to me to be any way that an indiviual buying components at retail could possibly make cheaper rounds than the big automated factory buying components at deep discounts.

I might even want to set up my own ammo shop and go into business if there is as much markup as there seems to be

.

What do you think the out the door actual cost of say a 45 acp round is, before it goes out the door to the retailer?

siotwo · June 19, 2005, 10:36 PM

I bet the actual cost is about 1/2 of what we pay, retail. Figure that the distributor and the retailer have to make about 15-20% each.

snuffy · June 19, 2005, 11:29 PM

"I might even want to set up my own ammo shop and go into business if there is as much markup as there seems to be ."

One of the major costs not covered by anyone is the insurance and license costs. In order to produce ammunition you have to have a federal license from the ATFE as a manufauctreer. Then there's the tax for sporting goods. If you sell ammo without the license, expect a knock on the door from the ATFE. Have some dummas$ blow himself up with one of your rounds, then expect to get sued. Product liability insurance is extremely expensive.

I get asked constantly to reload a few for some buddies/co-workers. My answer is give me you rifle/gun, I'll load for you IF you shoot them ALL with me along! Or come out to my loading room, I'll show you how, YOU load your own with my supervision and my equipment and your components. Usually they decline and I get labeled as cheap or unfriendly! One guy took me up on the offer to load some here, he now has his own outfit.

frag · June 20, 2005, 01:58 PM

My 45ACP reloads cost $6-7 a box (50). The cheapest I've found around here is $12. That's a signifigant savings, cosidering I shoot a couple thousand rounds per year.

The 9mm reloads don't save me much, but I also like the experience. It's something my son and daughter can do with me on those cold winter evenings!

I'm just getting into the rifle loads, but I know I can reload 7.7 Jap and 7.5 swiss cheper than I can buy them!

StrikeEagle · June 26, 2005, 07:30 AM

Quote:

My 45ACP reloads cost $6-7 a box (50).

Cast your own from scrounged alloy, and you'll cut that in half... easy.

StrikeEagle

BillCA · June 26, 2005, 12:10 PM

Your initial question started me wondering if the savings had changed much in the last 25 years from when I first started reloading.

A little cost analysis...
Assume you want to reload for hunting season and your calibers are .30-06 and 7mm Remington Magnum. Your choice of load is nothing exceptionally fancy or "hot" loaded. I selected Midway-USA prices for my convenience and had to make a few estimates, but I think these are conservative results.

Calibers: .30-06 and 7mm Rem. Mag.
Brass: Winchester brand
Bullet: Winchester 150gr PowerPoint

Prices: .30-06 versus 7mm RM
Mfr Bullets $ 9.49 and $ 9.49 - box of 100
New Brass $ 9.49 and $12.49 - box of 50
Primer(est)$ 2.50 and $ 2.50 - Pkg of 100
Powder(est)20.00 and $20.00 - one pound (7000 grains)

Handloaded Ammo Prices:
.30-06: $0.357 per round ($7.14 per 20)
7mm M: $0.482 per round ($9.64 per 20)

Retail Ammo Prices:
.30-06: $16.29 per 20 ($0.815 per round)
7mm M: $21.29 per 20 ($1.010 per round)

Estimated Savings - 48% to 56%

Obviously you are contributing your time & energy to reloading the ammo, a cost not factored into the end result. You could spend that time working for the extra $$, however homo sapiens require some down-time from daily work and emotional sanity.

From a purely financial perspective, it makes sense to reload. If you're one of those on-the-go road warriors, it makes more sense to buy your ammo since it'll be difficult to find time to make your own with the attention to detail required.

**Unclenick** · June 26, 2005, 03:48 PM

Butch,

I think the components all make it to market with about the same margins as loaded ammunition, with the important exception that a lot of bulky cartridge packaging (a bigger expense than you might imagine) is avoided. Bulk brass and bullets just come loose in a box, bumping right up against each other.

Brass cost alone equals the cost of all the other components in a loaded cartridge. That applies to the factory as well. The fact you are recycling the brass is the main thing that cuts costs in half or more.

As to the fancy factory loading machines, they have to pay somebody to stand over them and pay for power to operate them. As a reloader, you donate your time and energy and don't have to pay a wage for it. If reloaders paid themselves for their own time, reloading wouldn't save much of anything in most cases.

The other reason for reloading that always seems to get lost in these cost analyses, but which is the main attraction for me is that handloads, correctly tailored, almost always outshoot factory ammunition. You can't buy that anywhere else except with your own effort.

Nick

butch50 · June 26, 2005, 06:30 PM

I am not taking a positon of any kind here, just curious as to the amount of markup on factory ammo. My hunch, and it is a hunch, based on 52 years of scrounging on this planet is that the factories make a significant profit over what we can reload for.

I realize that they have a lot of costs that we don't, but those costs are amortized over the total number or rounds produced per year, and if they are producing several million rounds per year those costs are going to be a fairly minor portion of the costs.

New brass would appear to be the largest single cost that we don't have that they do. Maybe transportation and taxes would come in second.

caz223 · June 27, 2005, 07:58 AM

As it was mentioned before, the brass case is the biggest cost contributor to the finished round.
Re-using the brass makes it worthwhile.
If I had to use new brass every time, I wouldn't have even considered reloading.
The cost savings wouldn't be there.

June 19, 2005, 09:23 AM	#1
butch50 Senior Member Join Date: April 15, 2005 Location: Republic of Texas Posts: 1,403	Cost of Factory Loads I am wondering how it can possibly be less expensive to reload ammo vs factory costs. Factory loads have the benefits of mass purchasing power and automated equipment don't they? How can we possibly buy components less expensively than them when the factories buy them by the train load? I know they have to factor in the cost of new brass for every round and we don't - but what do you think they pay for a brass case when they buy them by the hundreds of thousands at a time? I also realize they have to factor in labor (we don't) and the cost of overhead and equipment - but again when those costs are amortized over the cost of the gazillions of rounds of ammo that they produce per year, it doesn't seem like it could be much more than fractions of pennies per round. Are the factories making a huge profit markup per round? __________________ ‘‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.’’ ~ Mahatma Ghandi, "Gandhi, An Autobiography", page 446 ‘‘The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.’’ ~ Patrick Henry

June 19, 2005, 10:08 AM	#4
Russ5924 Senior Member Join Date: February 18, 2005 Posts: 1,874	Look at it this way how much do you pay to be entertained.Say a movie with the Wife/girlfriend or take in a football game .Is that all wasted money,don't know about anybody else I ENJOY it I like to reload.If you only shoot once a month or so it wouldn't pay to reload I shoot 10 to 12.000 rounds a year.Do you fish do you figure the price of the boat and everything else in to how many pounds of fish you catch.I did one year and found out the fish cost over $150.00 a pound (new boat),figure what a new car is going to cost over it's life __________________ Russ5924

June 19, 2005, 06:02 PM	#6
butch50 Senior Member Join Date: April 15, 2005 Location: Republic of Texas Posts: 1,403	I am not complaining about the cost of factory loads - after all I don't shoot thousands of rounds per year and my ammo purchases are not great big outlays - I am simply curious as to how much profit they are making off of each round. There just doesn't seem to me to be any way that an indiviual buying components at retail could possibly make cheaper rounds than the big automated factory buying components at deep discounts. I might even want to set up my own ammo shop and go into business if there is as much markup as there seems to be . What do you think the out the door actual cost of say a 45 acp round is, before it goes out the door to the retailer? __________________ ‘‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.’’ ~ Mahatma Ghandi, "Gandhi, An Autobiography", page 446 ‘‘The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.’’ ~ Patrick Henry

June 19, 2005, 11:29 PM	#8
snuffy Senior Member Join Date: May 20, 2001 Location: Oshkosh wi. Posts: 3,055	"I might even want to set up my own ammo shop and go into business if there is as much markup as there seems to be ." One of the major costs not covered by anyone is the insurance and license costs. In order to produce ammunition you have to have a federal license from the ATFE as a manufauctreer. Then there's the tax for sporting goods. If you sell ammo without the license, expect a knock on the door from the ATFE. Have some dummas$ blow himself up with one of your rounds, then expect to get sued. Product liability insurance is extremely expensive. I get asked constantly to reload a few for some buddies/co-workers. My answer is give me you rifle/gun, I'll load for you IF you shoot them ALL with me along! Or come out to my loading room, I'll show you how, YOU load your own with my supervision and my equipment and your components. Usually they decline and I get labeled as cheap or unfriendly! One guy took me up on the offer to load some here, he now has his own outfit. __________________ The more people I meet, the more I love my dog They're going to get their butts kicked over there this election. How come people can't spell and use words correctly?

June 20, 2005, 01:58 PM	#9
frag Member Join Date: November 15, 2004 Location: Independence, KY Posts: 59	My 45ACP reloads cost $6-7 a box (50). The cheapest I've found around here is $12. That's a signifigant savings, cosidering I shoot a couple thousand rounds per year. The 9mm reloads don't save me much, but I also like the experience. It's something my son and daughter can do with me on those cold winter evenings! I'm just getting into the rifle loads, but I know I can reload 7.7 Jap and 7.5 swiss cheper than I can buy them! __________________ "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. It smells like.....VICTORY!"

June 19, 2005, 09:32 AM	#2
Edward429451 Junior member Join Date: November 12, 2000 Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado Posts: 9,494	Huge profit.Plus don't forget supply & demand. I read somewhere that only around 3% of gunowners / shooters are reloaders.

June 19, 2005, 09:41 AM	#3
Bass Man Member Join Date: December 26, 2004 Location: Missouri Posts: 92	Well, bullets cost an average of $15.00 a hundred. Primers are about $2.00 a hundred and the powder is around $20.00 a pound with all of these depending on the kind you buy. There is about 7000 grains in a pound and say a .243 win. with a Speer 80 gr. spitz takes 36.5 grains of reloader 15. Thats 191 loads per pound which is about $10.50 per hundred. So your looking at about $28 a hundred and it costs $15 per 20 in the store. Plus you have a lot more options with bullet weights if you reload.

June 19, 2005, 10:22 AM	#5
Edward429451 Junior member Join Date: November 12, 2000 Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado Posts: 9,494	Russ makes a good point. Hunting isn't cheap. Ever figured all the associated costs in a hunting trip? Thats some expensive meat. But worth it. I toss the associated cost out the window when figuring. A practical way that I use is to figure cost of weapon only to poundage of meat. Most weapons pay for themselves with a single kill (big game). Associated costs are like uh, tuition. \ Reloading is like money in the bank if you ask me. You may or may not actually save money right now. The practical skill and projection of future ammo prices & availability (!) makes it almost priceless in my mind. Not even considering the performance factor.

June 19, 2005, 10:36 PM	#7
siotwo Senior Member Join Date: February 6, 2005 Location: The Woodlands, TX Posts: 217	I bet the actual cost is about 1/2 of what we pay, retail. Figure that the distributor and the retailer have to make about 15-20% each.

June 26, 2005, 12:10 PM	#11
BillCA Senior Member Join Date: November 28, 2004 Location: Silicon Valley, Ca Posts: 7,117	Your initial question started me wondering if the savings had changed much in the last 25 years from when I first started reloading. A little cost analysis... Assume you want to reload for hunting season and your calibers are .30-06 and 7mm Remington Magnum. Your choice of load is nothing exceptionally fancy or "hot" loaded. I selected Midway-USA prices for my convenience and had to make a few estimates, but I think these are conservative results. Calibers: .30-06 and 7mm Rem. Mag. Brass: Winchester brand Bullet: Winchester 150gr PowerPoint Prices: .30-06 versus 7mm RM Mfr Bullets $ 9.49 and $ 9.49 - box of 100 New Brass $ 9.49 and $12.49 - box of 50 Primer(est)$ 2.50 and $ 2.50 - Pkg of 100 Powder(est)20.00 and $20.00 - one pound (7000 grains) Handloaded Ammo Prices: .30-06: $0.357 per round ($7.14 per 20) 7mm M: $0.482 per round ($9.64 per 20) Retail Ammo Prices: .30-06: $16.29 per 20 ($0.815 per round) 7mm M: $21.29 per 20 ($1.010 per round) Estimated Savings - 48% to 56% Obviously you are contributing your time & energy to reloading the ammo, a cost not factored into the end result. You could spend that time working for the extra $$, however homo sapiens require some down-time from daily work and emotional sanity. From a purely financial perspective, it makes sense to reload. If you're one of those on-the-go road warriors, it makes more sense to buy your ammo since it'll be difficult to find time to make your own with the attention to detail required. __________________ BillCA in CA (Unfortunately)

June 26, 2005, 03:48 PM	#12
Unclenick Staff Join Date: March 4, 2005 Location: Ohio Posts: 21,061	Butch, I think the components all make it to market with about the same margins as loaded ammunition, with the important exception that a lot of bulky cartridge packaging (a bigger expense than you might imagine) is avoided. Bulk brass and bullets just come loose in a box, bumping right up against each other. Brass cost alone equals the cost of all the other components in a loaded cartridge. That applies to the factory as well. The fact you are recycling the brass is the main thing that cuts costs in half or more. As to the fancy factory loading machines, they have to pay somebody to stand over them and pay for power to operate them. As a reloader, you donate your time and energy and don't have to pay a wage for it. If reloaders paid themselves for their own time, reloading wouldn't save much of anything in most cases. The other reason for reloading that always seems to get lost in these cost analyses, but which is the main attraction for me is that handloads, correctly tailored, almost always outshoot factory ammunition. You can't buy that anywhere else except with your own effort. Nick

June 26, 2005, 06:30 PM	#13
butch50 Senior Member Join Date: April 15, 2005 Location: Republic of Texas Posts: 1,403	I am not taking a positon of any kind here, just curious as to the amount of markup on factory ammo. My hunch, and it is a hunch, based on 52 years of scrounging on this planet is that the factories make a significant profit over what we can reload for. I realize that they have a lot of costs that we don't, but those costs are amortized over the total number or rounds produced per year, and if they are producing several million rounds per year those costs are going to be a fairly minor portion of the costs. New brass would appear to be the largest single cost that we don't have that they do. Maybe transportation and taxes would come in second. __________________ ‘‘Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.’’ ~ Mahatma Ghandi, "Gandhi, An Autobiography", page 446 ‘‘The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.’’ ~ Patrick Henry

June 27, 2005, 07:58 AM	#14
caz223 Senior Member Join Date: May 15, 2002 Location: Michigan Posts: 1,429	As it was mentioned before, the brass case is the biggest cost contributor to the finished round. Re-using the brass makes it worthwhile. If I had to use new brass every time, I wouldn't have even considered reloading. The cost savings wouldn't be there. __________________ I'm not just a gun. I'm YOUR gun. (Hold me.)