During our recent snow (we got over 10" Tuesday night and Wednesday), I decided that some handloading was in order so I got to work and loaded up 700 empty 30-06 cases for our M1 Garand and Win Model 70 and 1,200rds of .223 for our 20" AR and new Savage 10 GXP3.
I resized, decapped, and trimmed all 1,900 tumbled cases on my Dillon 650 with casefeeder and Dillon trimmer and swaged the primer crimp with my Dillon Super Swage in just about 4 hours including breaks. Then I reloaded them at the rate of 400rds per hour (my std for rifle rounds) for just over 5½ hours including breaks. So, after only a single work day's worth of time, I produced 700rds of 30-06 worth $525 that cost me $168* and 1,200rd of precision long range .223 worth $1,020 ($17/box of 20) that cost me $243**.
Let's see, that means that I paid a total of $411 for components and made ammo worth $1,545 or a real savings of $1,134!!! The bullet, powder, and primer costs are all current prices except for the TAC which I got at $80/keg some years ago. (With the current price of TAC at $130 per keg, the .223 would have cost me more like $266 with the higher powder price vs the $168 so if I'd just bought the components, I would have still saved a whopping $1,036.)
Did I mention that I love reloading?
* 30-06: Bullet - M80 147grn surplus @ 13.6¢/rd , Powder - WC846 (BLC-2) @ 8.0¢/rd , and Primer @ 2.4¢/rd = 24.0¢/rd (Brass was Greek once fired [crimp in] from surplus we shot and collected)
** .223: Bullet Hornady 68grn HPBT @ 14.5¢/rd , Powder TAC @ 3.8¢/rd , and Primer @ 1.9¢/rd = 20.2¢/rd (Brass was LC once fired [crimp in] I collected at our range after Denver SWAT's DNC practice in 2008)
