Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Its so hard to stay focussed on the day-to-day nuts-n-bolts of preparedness when I get distracted by the latest schemes, scams and outright outrageousness that oozes out of Washington. But, its exactly because of those weasels and their fellow travelers that the missus and me need to have our ducks in a row.
Did a cursory inventory of primers the other night. We’re good on pistol but light on rifle. Okay on powder, but could be better. If youre like me and wanna be able to reload for everything with minimal headaches, pick up some IMR 3031 and some Unique. With IMR 3031 you’ll be able to reload, for the most part, any rifle cartridge you may need. Same for Unique – it’ll work in just about any handgun cartridge. Are there better powders? Absolutely. Are there any with that amazing versatility? Not many. An 8# keg of 3031 and an 8# keg of Unique will let you reload almost any cartridge you come across.
Don’t reload your own ammo? Then, my friend, you are a fool. I don’t take namecalling lightly but if, in this time of uncertainty, you havent bothered to take the steps to secure your ammo supply then youre just being foolish. The money you would save alone makes it worth it. Example: I have customers that shoot weird stuff like .378 Weatherby or .416 Remington Mag. This is stuff that’ll set you back $70 for a box of 20 cartridges. Or, put another way, more than $3 per cartridge. Now, assuming you saved your brass, all you need is powder, primer and bullet. Fifteen cents worth of powder, four cents worth of primer, and maybe forty cents of bullet. That $70 box of cartridges now costs $12.00. Take the $58 you saved and buy more reloading components.
I have in front of me catalogs from the major manufacturers. All of them sell kits that provide you all the equipment you need, less dies, to reload. Some are cheaper than others, some are more expensive, some are better quality, some are lower quality, all will do the trick.
Lee Challenger Press Kit, with dies – $53
Lee Anniversary Reloading Kit – $120
RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme Kit – $407 (total BS..I sell them all the time for $300)
Lyman, Redding and a couple other outfits all offer similar kits.
I tell customers, if youre not sure if you want to get into reloading and don’t wanna spend a lot of money just to find out youre not into it, buy the Lee kit. If you don’t like reloading, youre not out a lot of money; if you do enjoy it and plan to stick with it, get yourself the RCBS kit.
Lets say youre someone who just wants to be prepared ‘just in case’. You own a couple 1911’s and a .357. You want to have the fixin’s to make your own ammo in case someday ‘they’ say you cant have any more. Here’s your shopping list:
Lee Challenger Kit with Lee dies in .45 ACP and .38/.357
A powder suitable to both cartridges…Unique will work in both. You’ll get about 1000 rounds per pound.
Large pistol primers for the .45, small pistol magnum primers for the .357. At least 1000 of each.
Lee bullet mould for .45 ACP and .357, with handles
Lee bullet sizer for .452” and .358”
Lee bullet lube
Lee lead furnace, dipper, ingot mould
Cartridge cases, .45 ACP , 500 pieces
Cartridge cases, .38 Spl or .357 Mag, 500 pieces
All of this will fit into a milsurp rocket case…a container about half the size of a dorm fridge. With a setup like this you could keep your pistols fed for as long as your primers and powder last. (Yes, you could make your own black powder and possibly re-use your primers…but thats alot more work than I’d wanna do.) Bullets are easily made from scrounged lead (wheelweights, linotype, old lead pipes, etc). This is the absolute cheapest setup that would work without getting into the super-cheap Lee Loader or Ideal 310 tools. The quality of the equipment is okay, but if youre on a budget this is the way to go. If money isn’t an issue swap the Lee gear for RCBS. 1000 primers and 1# of powder is a bare minimum. A ‘case’ of primers is 5000, and a ‘keg’ of powder is usually 8#….thats enough primer and powder to provide you with a lot of pistol ammo. And this doesn’t take into account the possibility of what you may scavenge from odd ammo that you cant use.
That is, in my opinion, the least amount that would give the most result. Even then it’s still a couple hundred bucks. But whats it worth to you to be able to have ammo for your guns in five years? Or fifty years? Stored properly this stuff will last a long, long time. I routinely use powder and primers ten or twenty years old. I’ve used primers as old as I am and never had a hiccup.
Now, ignoring the tinfoil-hat-quotient of the above paragraphs, here’s another reason for you to reload: economy. Assuming you’ve saved your brass or picked some up off the ground at the range (or scrounged through the garbage cans there like I do) your brass costs $0.00 after the first firing. If I load for my .38 Special and I just use a cheap lead bullet, Im at about $6 a box of 50 to reload for it. Want to do the math on your own? Here’s your factors:
Brass – After firing it once, its cost becomes $0.00
Powder – Divide price of powder per pound by 7000 to get cost per grain of powder ($20/7000 = $0.002 per grain…10 grains of powder = two cents)
Primer – Bought by the thousand, around $0.03 @
Bullet – Cheap lead bullets for as little as six cents apiece, all the way up to high performance jacketed stuff at twenty cents each.
Figure youre going to save at least 50% off the price of factory ammo. Or, put another way, you can have twice the ammo you would normally be able to purchase.
Safety issues? Sure…use the wrong powder or use too much and you’ll wreck your precious firearm. So RTFM and double check your data and you’ll be fine.
I started reloading when I was 19. I loved guns and had no money for ammo so the only way I could afford to shoot was to reload. In that time I have seen powder go from $13/# to $20/#, primers go from $12/m to $25/m, and bullets go from as low as $.05/@ to $.20@ and it is STILL cheaper to reload them all.
So…get yourself a reloading kit, find a buddy who reloads to show you the ropes, and start saving some money and securing your ammo supply.
