Henry Rifle Forums

This is from another forum - I didn't know whether to laugh or respond respectfully and rationally. (I responded):

Ah, the false economy of reloading. I get a laugh every time. Reloaders conveniently never factor the equipment, storage space, learning curves, setup, time, voided gun warranties, and the cost of the "kabooms" that are more common with reloads and almost never with factory ammo (and factory ammo companies or the gun companies will replace the gun). [Reloaders never have "kabooms" yet nearly every "kaboom" story shared on the internet involves a reload.]

And then there's the known false economy of taking valuable components (time, primers, brass, powder, and bullet) and using expensive equipment to churn out items of ZERO economic resale value. Nobody smart will shoot or buy someone's reloads. So if you spent $5000 turning out ammo, and have a huge hoard of ammo, but fall on hard economic times, you will be unable to sell it at any price. Conversely, if someone has the same amount of factory ammo, he can sell it for basically market price and it might appreciate over time. I bought thousands of rounds of various ammo a decade or two ago, and they have doubled in value. The same is not true for the reloader.

If it's your "hobby" then fine. Stop pretending you're 'saving money' because if you are employable, you likely are not saving money sitting at a reloading press.

I've done the math. Honest reloaders will tell you they don't save money; they just enjoy it.

I guess if you remove the "time value of money" then I can shoot for free. I just work a bunch (not factored of course) then buy the ammo with my earned wages (not factored) and it's magically free from the time I worked and wages I earned.

Heck, pretty much everything in life is free if you don't factor your time. Fishing, walking across country instead of flying, farming is free, working is free, driving is free... it's a stupid thing to state, yet reloaders never manage to factor their time.

I like reloading.

Me, too!

Me, too.

I got out of reloading because of the time thing, but, absolutely, I think it is more than a bit hypocritical to count time reloading as an expense when this same guy very likely overlooks time shooting at the range as a shooting expense. Don't know anyone who loves shooting that counts time shooting as an expense, or, for that matter, time spent fishing, playing music or any other hobby as an expense. Yeah, way over the top and out of line.

I guess I shouldn’t spend $1,000 on a vegetable garden and countless hours to harvest $50 worth of vegetables.

I bet you think about that 2 Gene everytime you go some place and order a sandwich and they put one of those slices of tomato on your sandwich thats light green and hard as rock.

Haters be haters.

I like to save money reloading and I like to reload.

Supposed to rain & snow this weekend, guess I'll waste a bunch of time and money...

Ojaileveraction wrote: ↑

Wed May 15, 2019 10:25 pm

Haters be haters.

He's just jealous that I have all the 45 Colt ammo....

reloading is hobby , and it is also an acquisition of knowledge, not an expense of time.

 

Yea - the OP of the post got laid away pretty quickly and didn't respond further.

I actually agree with a lot of it.
Even without factoring in time costs reloading for the more common calibres wont save you much if any money.
Good savings to be had reloading less popular rounds and plenty of reasons to load other than cost but dont kid yourself you are doing it to save money. Even if you are saving some money chances are you will end up shooting more and still spending the same.

I don't reload. I don't trust myself to sit still long enough to make it worth while, including basking in enjoying it. Too many things distracting my attention span. Easier for me mentally to just go buy the ammo.

Mags wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2019 12:42 am

I don't reload. I don't trust myself to sit still long enough to make it worth while, including basking in enjoying it. Too many things distracting my attention span. Easier for me mentally to just go buy the ammo.

^This

I put 200-300 45 colt loads down range almost every week. My loads cost $.17 per round not counting brass and I get 20+ reloads per stick. Factory 45 colt runs in my area about $.75- $1 per round. So I could spend $300 every week or $51. It take me less than an hour to turn out 300 round on my Dillon 550. Even factoring in the Dillon, it doesn't take long to pay that off several times over. But in all honesty, there is no way I could afford $300 a week in ammo. So not only do I shoot more by reloading I do it for a lot less. I run Unique because it's economical, I buy bulk bullets from Bayou Bullets and primes by the case. All of this drives down the cost per round. I use to do it all on a single stage and that took all week to make up the three hundred rounds, hence the Dillon. My time was worth that purchase alone.

I don't reload and don't begrudge those that do. If you like to do it, do it. It kinda' reminds me of when we built our house some years ago. We also built an in-ground pool and spa. Folks kept telling us that "you'll never get your money out of a pool" and "some people won't buy a house with a pool." Ok, fine. But I LIKE TO SWIM IN THE POOL AND GET IN THE SPA. You don't put in a pool to get your money out of it. You put in a pool because you LIKE TO GET IN A POOL!!

Just my observation but ... re-loaders typically don't reload because they are thinking about selling their re-loads. They are usually not doing intricate economic calculations about how many 9MM's do I need to produce offset by my capital outlay and factoring in my projected labor costs and taking into account any 'bad' loads I get to break even on today's Cabela's prices on 9MM ammo.

Sheesh! Re-loaders reload because they LIKE TO. That's fine enough for me.

Before cartridges were invented everyone was a reloader.