Thanks for the reply. You have confirmed what I suspected regarding savings through reloading. You can't just buy in bulk. You have to buy in BULK to make reloading cost effective. Thankfully, my friend has a nice progressive press that he said I could use. We will see how that works out and if it messes up any of the reloading he is doing. That will save considerably on the initial outlay of cash. The only remaining question is where will the money come from to shoot THAT much even if I save money on reloading.
Less than you might think. Again, buy 5000 primers from Guns Unlimited, one 8lb keg of powder from the same place, and get together with two friends who each need 4000 bullets---that'll get you the three-case price from Montana Gold. That's more than enough components for 4000 rounds.
One way of looking at it is this: If you do the above, your cost is around $6.50 per 50 rounds if you reload, and buying factory loads is about $9.50 per rounds (for cheap plinking ammo). So, you are really only saving about $3.00 per box. That doesn't sound like much, right?
Another way of looking at it is
this: You can make
~125 rounds for the price of buying
100 rounds. ---one quarter more rounds for the same price. If you shoot 4000 rounds in a year, you'll save $240 and you'll
still have enough powder left over for next year (and most of the following year), plus 1000 primers left. (I'll note that'll mean your price per 50 rounds the following year will be about $5.06. So you'll save more. And have enough powder for 3/4 of the following year, plus half of your primers already paid for.)
What you have to do in exchange? Pay in terms of time reloading. That's it. I don't know about you, but I'll make that payment with a good progressive press. Spend an hour a week for 10 weeks, and you'll have your 4000 rounds all loaded up---saving yourself almost $250 plus having all the ammo you need for the year. If someone else has the press, so you don't have to buy it, so much the better.
If you don't have the press, about two years of shooting like that will pay for it---and every year after that will save you that amount of money. If you end up shooting more than 4000 rounds, it'll just pay itself back sooner, and you'll save more.
Plus, you'll have better quality control for your ammo (at least compared to the cheap ammo whose factory prices we are using for comparison).
