Buy brass or loaded ammo?

[m1ajunkie]

I have been pondering lately which would be more cost effective and provide the best training.

Should I buy brass to load ammo for my .308 and 6.5cm, or would I be better off buying loaded ammo to shoot and then reload that?

I am thinking about buying loaded fgmm 175gr 7.62x51mm ammo to run through my lmt mws to practice/ shoot matches and then reload that brass several more times. Seems to me like doing so will provide me with great factory loaded ammo to load a similar load to so that I can hopefully use reloaded ammo and the fgmm interchangeably. Same deal with the 6.5 CM just using hornady loaded ammo. Buying brass and loading from there may be a little cheaper which is why that is what I have been doing since I started reloading.

What do you other reloaders do? Any reason not to do one of these options?

 

[High Binder]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

I only buy brass. The last thing I want to do is shoot a bunch of $$$ factory loads that weren't specifically made for my rifles just to get the brass.

 

[insight3b]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

I bought a butt load of XM855 and Xm80 back when it was widely available. Now I have buckets of brass

 

[pharm762]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

If you are not doing precision I would buy the ammo as well then reload that.

 

[Broken_Reticle]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

For me it was cheaper at the time to buy factory .308 loads then it was to buy new brass. So I used the factory loads to get used to my rifle and zero my scope then I have been reloading that brass and working up my loads. It has worked awesome for me so far..

Now that I am loading also for my .223's I am kinda doing the same. Looking for ammo on sale, shooting it and policing other people's brass when they come to my place to shoot.

It works out pretty good, as you don't always feel like you have to load some to shoot. Sometimes it is nice to grab up a couple hundred factory rounds and go have some fun.

 

[Rob01]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

Can't speak for the Fed 308 but I can tell you the Hornady factory 6.5 Creedmoor is plenty accurate for precision work. It's what I use to shoot matches and has served me very well.

 

[turbo54]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

Basically, it costs ~$0.75/round to make/fire your own ammo (assuming premium bullet and powder), not including barrel wear.

When you can buy loaded ammo for ~$1/round, it is a pretty good deal. Especially if that load shoots nice in your rifle.

 

[aloreman]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

Depends. I buy alot of once fired brass for cheap. I got a deal on remington 223 ammo at dicks once it was 7.99 a box of 20 then buy one get one half off. Bought 500 rounds and shot it for practice ammo. cost me 2.00 per 100 more than buying new brass

 

[Hookturnr]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

It truly depends on the caliber and whether or not your gun likes factory ammo. I've got a 300RUM that has NEVER seen a factory loaded round ($23.00 avg. to load 20, $58.00 avg. for 20 factory rds.) but I've got a 30-06 that shoots sub MOA with nosler trophy grade and I found it at $25/bx a while back. I bought up a couple hundred rounds of that and will handload the nosler brass once I run out of factory rds. I've got 2 25/06's and one gets nothing but handloads but the other gets hornady custom 'cos i cant find a handload that shoots better in it. Try the factory stuff in your guns and if it's accurate enough, then make the decision.

 

[Kentucky Jelly]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

6.5 brass has sold for 50 cents apiece on here recently.. That is $10 bucks off a box of loaded ammo. Pretty hard to beat that cost even if reloading.

Disclaimer: I got a decent amount of 6.5 brass cheaper, and will be loading my own. I wanted to try out different bullets.

 

[Josh Elam]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

I have around 2500 of once fired .308 brass. I'm new to hand loading but I have worked with a few hundred of black hills and federal as well as 2 firings on lupua brass. I'm working with lapua mainly from now on. It's just so much nicer and way more consistent.

 

[ChaosKid]

Re: Buy brass or loaded ammo?

If you buy brass, it is not going to be fire-formed to your chamber, so your still going to have to shoot it once in a less-than-optimized condition. You can achieve uniformity by sizing and trimming virgin brass and weighing powder, but the primary objective of the initial firing will still be to seek out your chamber configuration.

If your're buying factory ammo that uses good brass for reloading, I think it makes sense to shoot that and save yourself the time it would take to size, trim and powder-charge virgin brass for fire-forming. If you want to go the Lapua brass route, it makes sense to just buy the brass and start from scratch.