ammunition-reloadingI’m curious what kind of savings can be had by reloading my own spent rounds. For instance, I shoot about 500 rounds of .22LR and about 300 rounds of 9mm Luger each month.
In general, you shouldn’t expect to save anything. In most cases, any cost benefit to reloading is quickly surpassed by the extra rounds you will shoot when you realize you can afford to shoot more.
It varies as the cost of components adjusts. For shotgun, it’s pretty much no savings. For handgun and long gun rounds I’d say on average you can save between 10-20 cents per round depending on when you buy the components. You really need to buy in bulk - go to gun shows to get supplies when possible. When my friend last priced it out for us, I think it cost about 150$ for 1000 rounds of .45 ACP and most of that was for the bullets (this was about a year ago).
Savings from reloading really depends on what calibers you’re talking about. Some calibers provide much better savings than others. Regarding the two calibers mentioned in your question, rimfire rounds like .22 LR are generally not reloadable. The 9mm is reloadable, but it’s a caliber where the savings are pretty marginal, on the order of a few cents a round.
Personally, I stopped reloading pistol ammo when I switched from .45 to 9mm. The amount of work required for the savings just wasn’t worth it.
A lot of reloading that people do now isn’t to save money (unless it is a large or obscure round). Everyone that I know who reloads does it for competitive shooting purposes. They always want to tweak their gun and ammo to attain maximum performance. Some types of bullets are fired better out of some brands of barrels over others. Also, shooting matches have the concept of “power factor” which is a factor of bullet weight * muzzle velocity. If you are shooting a standard 9mm or 38super load you will be in the minor class, although there are competitors which will load some really hot rounds to get a much faster muzzle velocity which will push them into the major class.
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