If one is willing to shoot steel case the price difference is certainly not as great as reloads. But if you're talking brass I can reload for roughly $.23/rnd vs $.40/rnd new. For a simple single stage press plus accessories payback would be at roughly 3,000 rounds.
The problem for many people, and it's understandable, is that to get the best per-round prices on components, you have to buy them in great bulk.
That means primers by the 5000, powder by the 8# keg, bullets by the thousands. Partly that's to get the best price from the vendor and partly to spread out shipping and (if necessary) hazmat.
Buying primers 100 at a time is not the answer to saving money. Watching sales and clearance items, connecting them with shipping deals--those of us who are frugal pay attention to these things and we pounce when we see a deal. That, of course, requires us to have ready cash to do it, too.
Admittedly, that may not be possible for many people. I'm an empty nester--20 years ago, I would not have had the spare money to buy in bulk.
But here's an answer to that: find someone who *does* buy in bulk, and either do a group buy with them, or see if they'll sell to you at their price. My brother is just getting into reloading, and he's bought a couple thousand primers from me, some powder, some bullets--at the bulk price.
Given the likely nominee for the Democrats, I would not be surprised to see prices rise and supply to get scarce. Now is the time--not next fall. It's one of the reasons I got into casting....
