fair price for reloads

[KJr]

everyone wants me to load for them...what is a fair price for 380's, 357's, 44's and 9mm?

[Farmland]

Personally don't do it! The liability risk is too high. Even if you don't do anything wrong you can be held liable. For example lets say your friend accidentally leaves a few patches in the barrel. He uses your reloads and the gun explodes.
Guess who is going to be responsible.

I do not recommend selling reload to friends or anyone else.

[medalguy]

+1 on Farmland. There's just too much liability in reloading. As he says you are liable for ANYTHING that might happen, whether your fault or not. You know the drill, sue everybody in sight.

Not to mention the problem with reloading and paying the federal excise taxes and the record keeping. Not enough money in it at all.

[jaguarxk120]

You need a federal licence for reloading, also insurance to protect you from your friends who blow up their guns with your reloads:barf:. After all your making a fortune from selling the reloaded ammo.
If you decide to reload for them a fair price would be $10.00/ round (not box) just to start, prices will go up soon.

Not worth it -- tell them to reload their own!!

[DiscoRacing]

i reload for one good friend... we shoot together.... i dont charge him tho... but he does donate me ten bucks per box of 50

[jgcoastie]

I reload and have a very small group of friends who shoot with me and often shoot my reloads. I do not currently, nor have I ever received monetary gain from such activity. Most of them will just buy me components here and there to offset the cost of them shooting my ammo. All of them have signed notarized waivers which basically (in legal-speak) say this:

"I'm using handloaded/reloaded ammunition that has been produced by (my name) with full understanding that they are not factory-loaded ammunition and expressly release (my name) of any and all liability in regards to any injuries to self or others, property damage, and/or death as a result of me using this ammunition."

I would not advise that you sell your reloads to anyone. Lots of tax law hoops and such that you'd have to jump through... Not to mention the liability factors in play here... You're basically selling a product and are therefore liable for defects in such... Even/especially if those defects cause property damage, injury, or death.

[oneounceload]

It is against Federal law to reload and sell them to the public for profit without a federal license....notwithstanding the already mentioned potential lawsuits

This is NOT something you want to do

Now, if your friends want to buy their components, come over to your house, use your equipment to load their own, that is a different story

[LuckyStrike]

For the .380's and 9mm's I would encourage an 8$ donation per 50 rounds from all my friends. And for the .357 and .44 loads I would encourage a $14 donation per 50. If you are making anything nicer than plinking rounds such as hollow points or hunting loads I would raise up the price due to expenses and time spent producing the loads.

[zxcvbob]

How much do you need to charge to recoup your $2250 International Small Arms license fee paid to the State Department? (it's more if you actually export anything)

Besides, starting a small business doing something you enjoy is a great way to suck all the fun out of something that was once a good hobby.

[NWPilgrim]

I would never sell reloads, per the tax and liability issues already stated. The only people I allow to shoot my reloads are family, and mostly when I am with them. I keep a small stock of factory ammo on hand just for lending to friends or family when I can't be there with them. Sometimes they will by me components to help out, but it would be what I need at the time, not necessarily what they are shooting.

Basically, anyone I would let shoot my reloads are people I would gladly GIVE it to rather than charge. Anyone I felt that I needed to charge I would not want the liability.

[BigJimP]

Like others said - don't do it.

For most of us - the only liability insurance we have - is the liability insurance we have on our homeowners or renters insurance / but it won't cover you when you're selling reloads .... Buying commercial insurance for "relaoding" will be expensive, if you can find an agent or a company that will even consider it ( I'd be shocked if you could get a policy with a $1 Million liability limit for less than $ 25,000 a year - and I would expect it to have a deductible for at least $ 2,500 or maybe $ 5,000 ). And if someone dies / or loses eyesight, etc - $ 1Million might not be enough insurance to protect your personal assests from being in-play..... ( and the cost of defending the lawsuit, might be "inside" the limit / so it costs $ 250,000 just to settle - you only have $ 750,000 left to pay a claim ...

Having your friends sign a waiver - just proves you know its dangerous / and if someone gets hurt badly ...it won't be worth the paper its printed on probably. Is it better than nothing - maybe / maybe its making it worse...

The business issue of this aside / licenses required, etc .... think how bad you're going to feel if someone gets hurt / whether it was your fault or not. Even from a practical standpoint - if you did screw up - they blow up a
$ 3,000 handgun / can you afford to just buy them another one ...vs deal with a deductible ....and how many claims do you think they'll tolerate before they raise your rates "big time" / or outright refuse to renew the policy for the next year ......

And you want to take on all this risk ....make up a business plan. If you could make $5,000 a month gross profit (if you charge $ 4 a box profit over your components, you'd need to load 1,250 boxes of ammo a month ) .... depending on type of press you have 1,250 boxes is 62,500 rounds so how long will it take you to load 62,500 rounds ... at 500 rounds an hour that's 125 hours a month .... and with insurance, taxes, etc for overhead it'll cost you about $3K a month at least in overhead - so the net profit might be
$2,000 a month.

First of all - where are you going to find 125 man-hours a month / that's an extra 31 hours a week ? Do you want to work 16 hrs a day on Sat and Sunday every weekend .... Can you really sell a box for $ 4 more than what you pay for components ... What's the plan / if your market dries up - or some moron says he'll load for your customers at $ 3 a box and undercuts you - because he has no insurance and doesn't care ......

Its a bad plan .....

[Russ5924]

I don't even trust another reloader let alone buy from them. When I let some one at the range try one of my guns I make sure it is loaded with factory ammo. You are just putting your self in a very bad situation just don't do it

[snuffy]

I reload and have a very small group of friends who shoot with me and often shoot my reloads. I do not currently, nor have I ever received monetary gain from such activity. Most of them will just buy me components here and there to offset the cost of them shooting my ammo. All of them have signed notarized waivers which basically (in legal-speak) say this:

That piece of paper would only be good for emergency TP in the bathroom. It would get blown out of court in the first 5 minutes.

The reason you don't see a lot of reloads being sold is; you can't make any money doing it! Bigjimp spelled it out very well. Load for yourself and just tell them to come over, do it themselves, or loan them some equipment to try it out for themselves.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

The reason you don't see a lot of reloads being sold is; you can't make any money doing it! Bigjimp spelled it out very well. Load for yourself and just tell them to come over, do it themselves, or loan them some equipment to try it out for themselves.

Keyword being....THEMSELVES

[Unclenick]

All the above warnings aside, custom loading was one of the growing businesses just before the recent economic decline. It was one of those things that garnered investment from groups of doctors and others looking for something to invest in.

You might ask how that is possible, given all the above information about the cost of licensing and such? The answer is that it isn't done for 9 mm or any other common rounds. This business was developed for two markets: one was the growing number of nouveau riche benchrest and varmint shooters who bought their guns from custom rifle smiths who developed load recipes that went with the rifle. These folks will pay a custom loader to load to the recipe spec. Some of these same folks have apparently become interested in is Cowboy Action Shooting. With that comes an interest in antique guns that fire obsolete rounds no longer commercially available. They'll buy custom turned brass for several dollars a case and then, being more involved with the costumes than the shooting, need a custom loader to reload for them. The last group are more ordinary CAS sports who just don't know how to get the custom brass and other stuff, so they bring in the gun and pay $100 a box for the custom loading operation to get the cases, work out the load recipe, then sell them they ammo and recipe. They then reload the cases themselves until they need replacements.

The key to all the above is either the wealth level of the gun owners doing the purchasing, or the scarcity of the desired round. These factors allow the custom loading operation to charge the price of .50 BMG ammo for loads and reloads, and that's how you can actually make money at it. If you were then to load for friends at a lower price on the side, the paying customers would be covering the insurance and other overhead. Short of getting into that kind of investment, I have trained friends to reload on my equipment and let them roll their own with me scrutinizing their work. That's a good way to spread interest in the hobby while making sure they own their mistakes. None of them has loaded very much on my gear before buying their own.

[Sidewinder72]

Personaly I would never reload for resale. When I reload I like to have the gun on hand for checking reloads. Just me, but for friends and shooting buddys a donation sure helps.

[BigJimP]

I believe in "mentoring" new loaders / people interested in reloading - helping them establish good safety and quality procedures, helping them pick a loader, understand the differences in some of the different machines ....

and I've done that with a number of guys .... even held a quick 1 hour class to give people an idea of how things work, how to reload ( used photos and some handouts, etc )...

but loading and selling them is a very scary operation / and personally, I have way too much too lose from a $5 Million lawsuit ...that may not have even been the fault of my reloads... ( don't ever equate justice with who's right, who's wrong - and somebody that just plain wants some money .... regardless of whether they should have been responsible for their own actions or not ....). Its sad - but its the way things are... ( and there is no real money in it anyway ...).

[amamnn]

My carefully considered price since about 1980 has been --whatever the cheapest Lee kit is for his cartridge --plus enough beer to keep me interested while I give him the benefit of my sage advice gained over decades of handloading, as he does it himself.

[KJr]

I knew this was a good forum

The answers above are examples of how important it is to research, before action.

Thanks to everyone that replied.

No Reloads For Sale!

[James R. Burke]

I reload for two very close friends. I use there guns to work up the load so they are done correct. I dont charge them for it. Just the componets. Everyone is correct the liablity is on you, and you alone. I would not do it. Just way to much to lose, and you sure would not make much from it. Take everyones advice, and just dont do it.

[lomaxanderson]

and you supervise...get them into it so we have more people supporting our hobby! Soon they will want to get their own equipment...and they can donate refreshments,components or range time.

[wingman]

What a shame, america and freedom slipping away. Goodbye common sense.

[oneounceload]

Common sense says you do NOT violate Federal laws or expose yourself to unnecessary risk from lawsuits for a few dollars

[uncledewey]

I purchase remanufactured .45 ACP by a well established firm and pay $7.85 + brass for 50 SWC. This company even sells JHP to several police departments, I would assume for practice rounds.