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Can you reload 9mm for less then Walmart WWB?

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Paradiddle

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You can buy Winchester White Box 9mm for $15.75 per 100 all day long at Walmart.

I realize this is plinking ammo - but it works great in my guns and shoots just fine for IPSC and IPDA.

What are you guys able to reload 9mm for? Seems like I'd have a tough time beating this. I don't currently reload, so I would be starting from scratch.

Thanks,

Jeff
 
I just started loading for 9mm using GA Arms 125 gr. lead bullets.

Bullets run around $48 / K
Primers run around $24 / K
Powder is probably less than $15/K
Once fired brass is abundant and free if you're willing to stoop. :)

That comes to around $8.70 per 100 rounds.

The lead bullets feed just fine in my CZ with no apparent leading.
 
9mm is very easy to load cheap, 9mm bullets are about half the price of 40 S&W or 45 ACP. If you buy in bulk from Midway you can get jacketed 9mm bullets for about the same price as plated.

My cost with Berry's plated 9mm is about $9 per 100. I can buy the bullets from Cabelas in Boise for less than directly from the manufacturer.

Alliant's max load for Unique with 115 grain 9mm is 5.5 grains which would yield around 1270 rounds per pound of powder.
 
Excellent. I've been picking brass up for a while now so I have a supply and you can always be a range chicken and get more.

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Oh Heck yes...Absolutely!!! Using W-231, WSP primers and Remington 115 grain or 124 grain bulk JHP...What? 5? Maybe 6 bucks a box of 50 rounds? And they are the equivelent of Remington Green box 9X19...
 
If your starting from scratch Buy A Few Good Loading Books and the best loading equipment you can afford.
It will last you a lifetime and give you great enjoyment.
And soon you'll be loading other calibers.
Enjoy!
 
I figure right now my 9mm reloads are costing about $2.50 per 100, so yeah, I can beat that price, but then I'm really cheap. I scavenge brass from the range and cast my own bullets. The perils of two kids in college...
 
Two more factors you want to keep in mind: upfront investment and time – they’re both related.

First you need to ask yourself, how much are you planning to reload?

Many people will try to sell you on a single stage reloading press. While single stage presses have their positive features (simplicity and price, for instance), volume is not one of them. A single stage press runs very slowly, and there’s a lot of time consuming setup required. So they’re great for running out small batches, but not for quantity. So if you’re looking to churn out 500 rounds for a weekend, and it takes you an hour to reload 50-100 rounds, you have two problems. First, you’re going to go stir crazy, spending 5-10 hours sitting in front of a reloading press, and probably give up. Second, you’ll find that if you paid yourself a wage (not even what you make in your ‘real’ job, but even $10/hour that you could make working a second retail job), the time you spend negates any savings you might gain reloading. You might as well get a job on day a week at the local big box store chain and use your paycheck to buy ammo.

The alternative is buying a progressive reloading press. The benefit is that a progressive press minimizes (or nearly eliminates) any setup required, and can reload a large quantity very quickly by automating most of the steps in the reloading process. The downside is these machines can be very expensive, especially when all the accessories that make them worth while (like an automatic case feeder or self indexing feature) are added.

Myself, I plan to shoot 12,000 rounds of .45ACP annually. I know from material costs that I can save about .12/round reloading .45ACP. So reloading I would save about $1,440/year.

With that kind of volume, I had no problem investing a large progressive press (Dillon XL 650 – I’d highly recommend it) because it reloads more than 500 rounds/hour. At that rate it will take me 24 hours to reload my annual supply. If I spent that 24 hours working a retail job at $10/hour, I’d make $240. And the press and all the accessories cost me around $1000 upfront.

So even taking into consideration my investment and opportunity costs, in the first year I’d still save $200 reloading ($1440 - $240 - $1000), and each year after that I’d save about $1200. Plus I have all the non-monetary benefit of reloading (creating custom loads, inventory control, relative immunity to price influxes etc).

So do the math, and see if it makes sense for you.
 
I bought several thousand 9mm cast bullets last year for about 3¢ each. Primers are about 2¢, and the powder is just over .5¢ per round. The brass is free because I use it over and over, and I scrounge brass at the range faster than I lose it or wear it out.

So that costs about $5.60 per 100 if my time is not worth anything. The cost will go way down when I run out of bullets and start casting my own (like I do already for .45LC and .38SPL.)

Bob
 
For 100 9MM rounds it costs me right now:
Primes: $2.10
Powder: $1.46
Bullets: $6.12 (Winchester FMJ/FN)
Brass: Free
Total for 100 rounds 9MM reloads = $9.68
That's a 40% savings over 100 rounds of Win White Box @ $15.75
 
Just to throw time into the equation, On my Lee Turret, I can get about 200-250 9mm loaded in an hour. This assumes everything goes fine, I don't drop primers, run out of bullets or cases, etc.

So, depending on how much you shoot per range trip, the time commitment is minimal. It drops if you have a progressive press.
 
The short answer is .... yes. :D

Free 9MM brass. it's so nice of the non reloaders to leave it for us.

115 Plated or FMJ is pretty cheap bought in bulk.

Powder and primers are still a good deal, despite primer cost rising the way it has.

Buy smart when getting the equipment. No need to go hog wild. A Lee turret is probably the cost effective way to go and will load great ammo.
 
Can you reload 9mm for less then Walmart WWB?
Yep. Free brass from the local range guy, plus I paid $25 for 1000 primers, $16 for a pound of #7 powder, and cast my own 124gr lead bullets, 75 pounds of lead cost me $20.
Lessee, 75 pounds, divided by 124 gr, (7000 grains per pound), leaving a little room for error, that's 4200 bullets, and cost per each is roughly .005. Lee Alox lube is cheap, betcha I could do all those with what I got with my sizing dies.
Now, loading for lead, a good mild load is 7.4gr, same math as before, 945 bullets per pound, hmm, about .017 per round. The primers, hurt, no two ways about it, .025 per. Add in about $.50 for electricity to run the casting pot per hundred,(which is usually how many I do at a time, anyway.) , and lesse, add that, carry the five, watch the decimal, and...$5.30 per 100. I don't add time, because this is a hobby, and I enjoy myself. It's a fun and productive pastime that I enjoy.
 
If you shop around you can save a lot buying in bulk. You can buy primers for $16 per thousand, powder for $12 per pound and bullets fairly cheap. 9mm is one of the least money saving rounds and still well worth the trouble. Right now I only load 9mm for $70 per 1,000 and 223 for around $90 to $100 per 1,000 depending on where I find the bullets. A lot of people will say you won't save money reloading because you will shoot more. Well I shoot more and still save money.
Rusty
 
I can't reasonably recover brass. The numbers using Starline on a "one time only" basis don't work out.

I only reload revolver rounds and shotshells.

Heck, even ultra-uber-super-duper premium .40S&W (Federal HST) is 299.00 per case of 1K, delivered, right now, price as of 9/27/07. I could probably sneak under that with GoldDot, Starline, primers and powder plus my time but not by much. Any savings would lose its luster as I watched the Starline sail into somebody else's stash.

Revolvers!
 
All the 9mm brass I'd want is on the ground, mine for the taking, so that's a good cost saver.

I like reloading 147gr hard cast lead FP for shooting steel plates. I did this even when I was buying CCI aluminum Blazer for <$8/100 from Academy. Back then these reloads were under $5/100, not really worth the effort for the savings, but I like the way they shoot. Not all reloading is for economy, sometime its the performance for the purpose that makes it worthwhile.

Now that you are doing real good to be below $15/100 for any 9mm factory ammo, I'm shooting a lot more of my reloads at <$9/100. But I sure do miss the cheap Blazer, I'd shot up well over 10,000 rounds of the stuff while it was cheap.

Savings are much greater for .357, .40, .45, .44 etc. reloads are pretty much all I shoot in these except when I need more brass, now that the <$12/100 Wolf ammo is no more.

--wally.
 
+1 here, I reload a TON of 9, and it's running me about $9 per 100, that's with 115gr plated RN over titegroup and winSP primers. I don't include brass costs because it's pretty nebulous, some is cheap, some is free, and of course I use it more than once.
 
I can do lead cast boolits for about $4-$5 a box of fifty, and Rainier plated will cost me about $5-$6 per box of fifty.

The real savings for me is .45acp. 9mm is the grind out and save a little. .45 I can cut my cost about a third of factory WWB.

Of course having free range brass makes it worthwile.
 
Way 'long time ago (mebbeso 2 years), you could buy CCI Blazer at Academy Sports for $3.88/box. I quit loading 9mm then, at least for a while. I'm in a real dry-spell for shooting time and opportunity here lately, so if I ever get back to regular shooting, I'll eventually have to start loading 9mm again.
 
Excellent - thank you guys for the great replies. I was planning on dipping my toes in the water of reloading with the Lee Classic Turret setup from Kempf.

I primarily shoot 9mm and 38. I know I can save with 38 since WWB is $25 per 100 and doesn't make minor in IPSC. Now that I know I can save on the 9mm I'm even more excited about reloading.

Thanks,

Jeff
 
The Walmart near me sells 9mm 100 rd bulk pack WWb for $25.00 the $15.00 bulk packs are long gone here,
Click to expand...
Wow, thats crazy. It's still around $16 here. I just got back from four days in Buffalo NY and it was $16 at Wally World there also.
Rusty
 
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