Is reloading cost effective

[pinfireman]

On 17/10/2018 at 20:33, mrpip said:

Has anyone experience ie costing of loading steel cartridges, currently paying £240 per 1000 Hull 32 gram 5,s cheapest available around me, not taking time into consideration. 

It should be cheaper than loading lead, as steel is £1 a kilo cheaper than lead to buy.  However, if you get 9 friends to agree a shot size in steel, approach Lyalvale, and buy a ton!  You should get a reasonable discount for that amount!

[pinfireman]

1 hour ago, Stonepark said:

 

Manufacturers make a box of cartridges for about £2.50, the remainder if the cost to us shooters of £7.50 a box is margin between manufacturers and shops with most of it i believe sitting with manufacturer.

 

If you doubt this you only have to consider is why these companies are all held privately (and off shore) with limited accounting.

 

There is a  price fixing racket going on with some reloading supplies, especially powder which the large cartridge companies get in for £15/kg (Vectan A1 for instance), which is also available online in the US for $38/£30/kg in 500g tubs without special offers or hazmat delivery and yet it costs us £76/kg for the same 500g tubs also without delivery.

 

lead is bought in at £1.50/kg or thereabouts and adding antimony/tin, heating up and dropping, cost to manufactuer of shot is circa £1.80 a kg at most. We pay at least £3.50 a kg for shot which is not  unreasonable margin and is reflected in other commercial products elsewhere.

Whilst i accept reasonable margins, when we are being overcharged for some components we really do need to complain to the likes of the office of fair trading.

 

I make my 410 loads with all new shop bought components for about £180 and they are 21g loads.

£300 for 18g loads is a bit steep.

 

Lead is now £3-75 kg from Clay & Game, and Steel is now £3-00 kg. Steel is imported from China, and is cheap to produce there. Powder is the biggest rip-off , I was in the USA 5 months ago, and saw how low the prices were there for powders made in the EU !

[motty]

3 hours ago, Fen tiger said:

How much is considerable ?  If you look at a similar load in a chedite case aliant powder and equal shot charge its going to be close to the rhinos on price, in going on buying everything in Now not using components stockpiled for sometime, in that case i could load for half the rhino 10 price. at around £1 a shot, look at prices  powder £40+ a pound (roughly 170 loads ) for aliant propelant then cases wads and shot primer the rhinos are quite close on price, you would have to change for cheaper powder or buy big amounts to build in any discount into the equation to mean much on hard cash.

Even with new primed cases I can make them for around 80p per cartridge. Using the same cases again, the price goes down to around 60p.

This is for a load that is possibly 3 grams of shot shy of a Rhino load.

[Fen tiger]

59 minutes ago, motty said:

Even with new primed cases I can make them for around 80p per cartridge. Using the same cases again, the price goes down to around 60p.

This is for a load that is possibly 3 grams of shot shy of a Rhino load.

20-25 p a bang is a saving but at £12 for five kilo you only just get around 100 48 gram loads ok chedites are cheapish  but you got wads Aliant powder thats over £40 for charging 175 cases then you got time its a saving but i think its marginal , and i think for many when they look at the outlay for press scales etc many would simply opt to buy ammo . Not sure what they can be discounted down to the rhinos but 18 months back cecil coats was selling out of season for a tener a box but think they are closer to £11 now . I dont think they are a perfect load but i would buy a couple of boxes no hesitation if i was pushed for time. I think thats it realy TIME!  how do you vallue it , oh! and dont forget the initial outlay on equiptment, .  Dont get me wrong i am all for reloading everything! and i think it has benefits but financially i dont see that aspect a practical saving in most cases which after all was the question asked of this thread.

[motty]

52 minutes ago, Fen tiger said:

20-25 p a bang is a saving but at £12 for five kilo you only just get around 100 48 gram loads ok chedites are cheapish  but you got wads Aliant powder thats over £40 for charging 175 cases then you got time its a saving but i think its marginal , and i think for many when they look at the outlay for press scales etc many would simply opt to buy ammo . Not sure what they can be discounted down to the rhinos but 18 months back cecil coats was selling out of season for a tener a box but think they are closer to £11 now . I dont think they are a perfect load but i would buy a couple of boxes no hesitation if i was pushed for time. I think thats it realy TIME!  how do you vallue it , oh! and dont forget the initial outlay on equiptment, .  Dont get me wrong i am all for reloading everything! and i think it has benefits but financially i dont see that aspect a practical saving in most cases which after all was the question asked of this thread.

I get what you're saying, but if time was costed into the equation, then almost all reloading isn't worth it. Like I said, I can put together a good 1 5/8 oz steel load for around 60p. That makes a good saving over several years, obviously taking into account the price of my press (that is a long forgotten cost). I can load any size I fancy. I have several 1 5 /8 oz loads of 2s, 3s and 4s ready for ducks. You can't readily find those loadings.

I don't reload to try to save money. I have bought hw13, hw18 and bismuth for the geese over the past few years. I am comfortable paying out a little extra for what I consider to be the most effective shot, though I tend to use it more sparingly at times.

[Fen tiger]

I reload for the same reasons you do, and i do prefer reloads , Im not too up on new component costs currently i have stock in hand from some time ago and i do know the chedites are cheaper than federals or remington hulls so i supose this must help. .

[gotgcoalman]

Only reload 12ga subs.

powder is £46/lb of alliant red dot.

shot from krank is £36/7kg

wads from same supplier but can't remember the price.

federal 209a primers £5/100

is it cost effective?

It doesn't matter because I get better patterns with the home loads than factory bought.

Which = more clean kills.

[Guest cookoff013]

1 hour ago, gotgcoalman said:

Only reload 12ga subs.

powder is £46/lb of alliant red dot.

shot from krank is £36/7kg

wads from same supplier but can't remember the price.

federal 209a primers £5/100

is it cost effective?

It doesn't matter because I get better patterns with the home loads than factory bought.

Which = more clean kills.

For the same money you probably could be shooting 42g subs. But either way, any homeloads beat factory!

[Diss4111]

13 hours ago, gotgcoalman said:

Only reload 12ga subs.

powder is £46/lb of alliant red dot.

shot from krank is £36/7kg

wads from same supplier but can't remember the price.

federal 209a primers £5/100

is it cost effective?

It doesn't matter because I get better patterns with the home loads than factory bought.

Which = more clean kills.

You are paying way over the odds, I buy Fiocchi primers for 34.50 a 1000, Shot I make but FES is around £4 a kilo. Red Dot is about the most expensive powder you can buy, Vectan AS or CSB5 are equivalents and a lot cheaper. FES Envirowads are about the cheapest around too

[db58]

Got too the shooting range cases and wards for free 

[motty]

1 hour ago, db58 said:

Got too the shooting range cases and wards for free 

Free wads?

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Does anyone use 2nd hand wads?

[Continental Shooter]

i wouldn't ...

The base is most definitely deformed and won't keep the gases making it a completely different shell than you intended to load;

[Vince Green]

2 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Does anyone use 2nd hand wads?

I have no doubt its been tried

[gotgcoalman]

3 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Does anyone use 2nd hand wads?

I go bin diving at clay grounds for "treasure" (once fired cases.)

And have been known to use scavanged wads for "packing"

only select the most intact ones though 🙄

Built my recipie around red dot as RFD didn't have any Vectan at the time so I've stuck with what I know works for me.

At 15 grains/load it lasts a while 😎

[Guest cookoff013]

Is that 1oz subs? Because that would explain the exotic primer!

[gotgcoalman]

 

48 minutes ago, cookoff013 said:

Is that 1oz subs? Because that would explain the exotic primer!

Again the primer is what the RFD had in stock at the time and the load was built around what was readily available.

Pellet count using 32g #4 isn't alot,but when 90%+ is hitting a 30" circle @ 40 yards .

Between neutron619 and your good self I have a very effective load.(from the forum that went titsup)😀

rabbits and corvids at up to 50 yards hate it 😎

 

 

 

[Guest cookoff013]

Ahh.

Yeah. The pellet % is phenominal. Tested with #4.

Good to know, success is oout there.

[db58]

On 23/10/2018 at 14:00, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Does anyone use 2nd hand wads?

Yes I been using them now for a long time iv add no problem with them 

On 23/10/2018 at 17:39, gotgcoalman said:

I go bin diving at clay grounds for "treasure" (once fired cases.)

And have been known to use scavanged wads for "packing"

only select the most intact ones though 🙄

Built my recipie around red dot as RFD didn't have any Vectan at the time so I've stuck with what I know works for me.

At 15 grains/load it lasts a while 😎

Iv been reloading for a bit now make my own shot so it’s only the primers and the powder to buy 

[pinfireman]

On 23/10/2018 at 14:00, TIGHTCHOKE said:

Does anyone use 2nd hand wads?

Back in the 70,s when my pal and I were shooting pigeons  on a big scale, (my pal brought up a family on his pigeon shooting, and a bit of keepering) we used to pick up Remington Power Piston wads at  2 of our local clay grounds (along with the cases). Put the wads in an old pilliowcase, a warm (not hot) wash with a little  detergent, 5 minutes in the tumble dryer, and they were ready to use again! Not perfect, but useable! We did not notice any drop in kills when we used them.  Other wads were  not good enough to do this..........

Edited October 27, 2018 by pinfireman
spelling

[Stonepark]

Came across this in my travels..... note the bold underlined black text.......

 

Phillip Plowman and Paul James Assume Operations and Marketing Roles for Kent® Cartridge

Kent^® Cartridge has announced that Phillip Plowman, Director of Operations at Gamebore, has assumed additional operations responsibilities for Kent Cartridge North America. Plowman has 35 years of production and quality experience at Gamebore and brings a wealth of knowledge to Kent.

In addition, Kent has announced that Paul James will now be handling commercial marketing at Kent. James has 15 years of marketing experience with worldwide shotshell sales as Commercial Director for Gamebore. He will continue with his role at Gamebore while taking on the new responsibilities at Kent.

Phillip Plowman	Paul James

“Phil and Paul have led the way at Gamebore the last few years,” says Alan Corzine, President and COO at Kent Cartridge. “Through their efforts, Gamebore’s profitability has tripled over the last 5 years. Their assistance at Kent will take us to new levels in terms of production and distribution.”

Founded in 1997, Kent^® Cartridge produces a line of high-quality shotshells for hunters and competitive shooters, including Bismuth Non-Toxic, Silversteel^®, Tealsteel^®, Fasteel^®, Elite Target^™, Diamond Dove^™, Steel Dove^™, First Dove^™, Fast Lead^®, Ultimate^® Turkey, ProTrial^® Field Blanks, Tungsten Matrix^®, and Elite Bio-Fiber^™.

 For more information, visit the Kent Cartridge web site at www.kentgamebore.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kentcartridge.

 

January 2018, News Briefs

[Diss4111]

32 minutes ago, Stonepark said:

Came across this in my travels..... note the bold underlined black text.......

 

Phillip Plowman and Paul James Assume Operations and Marketing Roles for Kent® Cartridge

Kent^® Cartridge has announced that Phillip Plowman, Director of Operations at Gamebore, has assumed additional operations responsibilities for Kent Cartridge North America. Plowman has 35 years of production and quality experience at Gamebore and brings a wealth of knowledge to Kent.

In addition, Kent has announced that Paul James will now be handling commercial marketing at Kent. James has 15 years of marketing experience with worldwide shotshell sales as Commercial Director for Gamebore. He will continue with his role at Gamebore while taking on the new responsibilities at Kent.

Phillip Plowman	Paul James

“Phil and Paul have led the way at Gamebore the last few years,” says Alan Corzine, President and COO at Kent Cartridge. “Through their efforts, Gamebore’s profitability has tripled over the last 5 years. Their assistance at Kent will take us to new levels in terms of production and distribution.”

Founded in 1997, Kent^® Cartridge produces a line of high-quality shotshells for hunters and competitive shooters, including Bismuth Non-Toxic, Silversteel^®, Tealsteel^®, Fasteel^®, Elite Target^™, Diamond Dove^™, Steel Dove^™, First Dove^™, Fast Lead^®, Ultimate^® Turkey, ProTrial^® Field Blanks, Tungsten Matrix^®, and Elite Bio-Fiber^™.

 For more information, visit the Kent Cartridge web site at www.kentgamebore.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kentcartridge.

 

January 2018, News Briefs

That can't be possible, there's no money in cartridges, they are a loss leader 

[Guest cookoff013]

Yeah, a loss leader

[Guest cookoff013]

Why dont anyone refuse to buy cartridges because its killing the industry? I mean a loss leader, no profit. Id hate to fuel the fire by buying shells that actually cost more to make than they sell for. Just think, those rfds having to go to foodbanks. Because i wanted shells. 

 

😊