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Sidearms & Scatterguns Cheapest 9mm - Reload or Steel
- Thread starter treillw
- Start date
Surely that hour you spent reloading could have been spent doing something productive.
Dry firing
Shooting
Family time
Etc
I imagine some of the reloaders are like me and enjoy the reloading time alone in the shop. I consider this productive time.
I like Blue Bullets. Xtreme bullets are also a good option. I prefer the 124gr RN.
Dry tumbling only.
Running a case feeder and a bullet feeder on a Dillon 650. Prefill 10 primer tubes and 1000 rds in an hour is not unreasonable.
And Shipping at the LOW rate of $69 LOL...
I get it, at some point in time past, present, or future you can get 9mm for about the same price as we reload for. As I've said, if factory 124gr comes down to ~$200 locally, I'll start practicing with that. But I'll still reload for matches, no questions asked.
But look at the last 3 years... to say the 9mm ammo market was a little variable is an understatement. Meanwhile, even in the same crazy span for primers and shit, I was still able to find primers and powder, and still made all my reloaded ammo for significantly cheaper than you could buy any 9mm at the same time.
I also never had to change my load or worry about shitty ammo from some random country. I just walked out to my shop, loaded some primer tubes, and started making ammo. Provided I checked more often at the local places, I found primers with relative ease.
Like others have said, I don't hate the process, and often enjoy it. It's also so little time investment for 9mm, that it hardly makes me wish I had that time for anything else. I put my kid to bed, go crank 200-600rds out depending on the night, and tinker around in the shop for a bit.
There's also probably a reason that 90%+ of all competitive pistol shooters reload.
HAHAHAHA
This, a million times over. I went through all of covid without a single worry about where or when I would get rifle or pistol ammo, or how much it would cost me.
I reload 9mm on a 750 with case and bullet feeder. Once you have it tuned up it’s not bad and I probably load around 800+ an hour. So what? I don’t really save anything over steel cased ammo and I can’t notice a difference in the ammo on the range.
Once I’m out of small pistol primers I’ll permanently set up the press for 223 and trim on press. 9mm is a waste of time, IMO. The 750 with accessories ain’t cheap. I probably have over $3k into mine. Maybe more. That’s a lot of practice ammo.
Once I’m out of small pistol primers I’ll permanently set up the press for 223 and trim on press. 9mm is a waste of time, IMO. The 750 with accessories ain’t cheap. I probably have over $3k into mine. Maybe more. That’s a lot of practice ammo.
I’m in a similar conundrum. Having two Dillon 550’s, dies and conversion on hand. With those available, I bought my last 3k of 9mm from a commercial reloader. The reason was I focused my time and component purchasing on cartridges that he is not producing (38 spl and 357 mag competition).
It all comes down to priorities and availability.
It all comes down to priorities and availability.
Have you tried the SWAGE IT piece for the 750? I'd love to set up a toolhead for deprime, swage, resize, and trim all in one go.
No disagreement here. That being said, since I shoot competitively, I'll ALWAYS load my match ammo. Even Federal Syntech "competition" ammo I've seen fail chronograph. I'll rely on my own loading for that.
However, as 9mm comes down as it is, I'll probably shift over to buying it if it gets cheap enough and move the 750 over to 223 and 550 over to 38/357.
Either way, I'll never get rid of my 9mm reloading ability because when the last 2-3yrs happens again, you can bet I'll be cranking out 9mm again lol.
You may already know this, but Dillon says the use of a swager on a 650 voids the warranty. I think they say the same thing about 750's. I run swagers on 2 x 650's and have no problems. Funny, they say nothing about swagers on 1050's or 1100's, but they offer no warranty with them anyway.......
And FWIW, if I had it to do all over again, I would have started by buying the larger Dillon press (IIRC, the 1050 at the time). Jeebuz, everything is cramped in the 650 and I assume it's not much better on the 750's.
You may already know this, but Dillon says the use of a swager on a 650 voids the warranty. I think they say the same thing about 750's. I run swagers on 2 x 650's and have no problems. Funny, they say nothing about swagers on 1050's or 1100's, but they offer no warranty with them anyway.......
And FWIW, if I had it to do all over again, I would have started by buying the larger Dillon press (IIRC, the 1050 at the time). Jeebuz, everything is cramped in the 650 and I assume it's not much better on the 750's.
LOL, how the hell are they gonna know I run a swager? IF I ever send it in, I'm sure as shit not leaving the swager on there.
Yepper. Same holds true with Autodrives
I sent my older 650 back to Dillon about 4 years ago. I wouldn't normally have done that, but there was (I don't know if they still do it) an unpublished program where they'd tear it down, clean everything spotless, replace minor worn parts, rebuild it and ship it back to you (freight prepaid by them). I think it was somewhere between $90.00 and $110.00. Mine came back looking like new. Best ~ $100.00 I ever spent. In order to get the deal, you have to ask for it.
I skipped out on the swager for the reasons threadcutter mentioned. I've also read mixed reviews.
I take thousands of 9mm cases and dump them into a 5g bucket, then have my son sort them, removing any odd cases and 9mm norma, which has a tiny little flash hole that makes it impossible for me to deprime. I have a frankford arsenal swager, but I don't find I need it with 9mm cases.
Once they're sorted, I'll toss in a tumbler with walnut media just long enough to get crud off of them then dump them right into the case feeder.
I don't really mind loading the 9mm once I get a nice rhythm going. I'm just lost when I hear people advocate for loading 9mm. At 10 cents for a primer, free cases, maybe 3 cents for powder and 7 cents for a projectile there's no savings and the variation on the dillon powder thrower all but guarantees I'm not getting better ammo than factory.
To each his own, I guess.
Really? Where do you get quality 9 mm for less than $180/thou delivered? Because that's my material costs for reloading.
I wouldn't consider my 9mm reloads high quality. More like good enough. I'm seeing around .2 grains variation over 1000 rounds, give or take.
The cheapest I can do on components at the moment is about 20 cents. A quick search on ammoseek is turning up rounds as low as $.153 Even if the shipping runs $50, we're still breaking even. This is ignoring the amortized cost of the 750, case feeder, bullet feeder, powder check die etc and my time. It's also ignoring shipping on the components.
The numbers just don't work out... for me, at least. I like to blast steel with a shot timer. I'm not looking for uber precision. If you're shooting bullseye or something maybe it's a different story.
Maybe you're not buying smart. My 180/1000 is on dock, all up. Equipment amortization is 0 since my shit is old.
Maybe. Even if I could squeak out another $20 in savings per 1000, it's still not worth it. I shoot maybe 800 rounds per month.
I have enough components to load another 7k or so. After that, I'm out unless primer prices drop.
Digging through the pieces of this old Dillon 450. There isn't a die to flare the mouth of the brass to accept the bullet. However, it looks like the powder dispensing insert on the press might do this job. Can anyone confirm that while Dillon is closed for the evening?
Thanks!
Thanks!
I do add a pinch of lemishine, sometimes if I remember.
Why no pins? Because cases clean just fine without them and it's one less thing to fuck with.
I keep meaning to try that. Seperating the pins from the brass is quite time consuming.
I've never used them. I kept reading about them then I thought to myself: self, the cases will tumble against each other in hot soapy water. I bet they clean themselves too.
So when I bought a rotary tumbler, I didn't immediately buy pins. I just loaded it with dirty brass, hot water, some dish soap (brand doesn't fucking matter either), and a pinch of Lemishine.
Shit came out the cleanest I've ever seen brass. Prepped 300 cases and my fingertips were nearly perfectly clean. Prepping the same amount of walnut tumbled brass would have left my hands looking like I had been stoking a boiler with coal.
Way too many people read too much and copy what they see on the internet. It's amazing what you learn when you question what you read and say fuck it we'll do it live.
You are selling me on purchasing them loaded, but this one site wants $500 for shipping!
Yes, the powder funnel is also the flaring die. You will adjust the amount of flare by screwing the die it’s self up and down while a case is in the shell holder.
These videos are for the newer 550c, but if I remember correctly should cover a lot for the 450 also.
Product Videos| RL550
Dillon Precision: Reloaders, Reloading Equipment, Bullet Reloading, Bullet Reloaders
www.dillonprecision.com
Another good source for information/help withDillon products the Brian Enos’ forum.
Here is my math....
0.081 | Bullet |
0.090 | Primer |
0.018 | Powder (4.5 grain powder) |
0.189 | Total Cost for my reloads |
0.2298 | Purchase (344.70 for 1500) |
41.290 | Savings per 1000 |
Just make sure you start the checkout process and see what shipping is if you’re buying anything offline.
I’ve gotten 90% of my stuff from stores so no shipping but my local ammo prices are more expensive than online.
You can get Blazer aluminum from SGammo for $229/1000 and that’s FREE shipping cause SGammo is the tits.
Not to stir the pot. But reloading is a hobby that I enjoy and that got me into casting as well. I still buy some factory ammo. Although I do miss ammo prices from years ago.
With factoring in lead, powder, and primer (lead at what I paid, and powder primer at today's prices) it is still cheaper obviously, but if I factor it with what I paid for powder/primers..... Now as a hobby of mine I do not factor in time as it's something I enjoy.
I will say that with the "old" ammo prices, it wasn't worth loading 9mm specifically to me. But I enjoy making big heavy HPs for my PCC suppressed and I couldn't always find those in store. There's no right or wrong answer.
With factoring in lead, powder, and primer (lead at what I paid, and powder primer at today's prices) it is still cheaper obviously, but if I factor it with what I paid for powder/primers..... Now as a hobby of mine I do not factor in time as it's something I enjoy.
I will say that with the "old" ammo prices, it wasn't worth loading 9mm specifically to me. But I enjoy making big heavy HPs for my PCC suppressed and I couldn't always find those in store. There's no right or wrong answer.
Oh I'd love to get back to $190 cases of 124gr PMC or Blazer brass. That would make life easy. I could load 2k rounds for matches of my hand loads and then practice with the cheap stuff.
Well, actually... I really miss when I could make 1k 9mm reloaded for $105..but thats probably gone forever.
Unfortunately I’m inclined to agree with you. I’m afraid $14 for 1K primers is a pipe dream and $35 for 1K is long gone as well.
Even when primers were .03 each, with a 140gr projectile and powder I could load 1000 for $80-90. Of course I’m still technically loading at that price, but I can’t replace my supplies for that, so I just calculate it with todays prices.
Those of you who talked me into reloading, help a brother out....
Pretty sure I need to just seat it deeper, but my OCD would like confirmation.
Odd that it's so much deeper than in the book - I'd expect more standardized chamber size. Maybe this bullet has a rounder nose than typical I guess.
www.snipershide.com
Pretty sure I need to just seat it deeper, but my OCD would like confirmation.
Odd that it's so much deeper than in the book - I'd expect more standardized chamber size. Maybe this bullet has a rounder nose than typical I guess.
9mm Gallant 125 GN Lead Reload Problems
Loading up some rounds for my new Sig Macro, my first 9mm - 125 grain coated lead round nose bullets by Gallant bullets. I pulled load data from my hornady reloading manual for 124 grain round nose copper projectiles - 1.150" COAL & 4 to 5 grains of unique. As far as I understand it, lead vs...
www.snipershide.com
Those of you who talked me into reloading, help a brother out....
Pretty sure I need to just seat it deeper, but my OCD would like confirmation.
Odd that it's so much deeper than in the book - I'd expect more standardized chamber size. Maybe this bullet has a rounder nose than typical I guess.
9mm Gallant 125 GN Lead Reload Problems
Loading up some rounds for my new Sig Macro, my first 9mm - 125 grain coated lead round nose bullets by Gallant bullets. I pulled load data from my hornady reloading manual for 124 grain round nose copper projectiles - 1.150" COAL & 4 to 5 grains of unique. As far as I understand it, lead vs...
The book is all about bullet shape, in that gun used. Lots of variability in bullet shape and length, etc. There is also a lot of variation in chamber length. I commented over there a little more.
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