The firearm thread

**jono035** · 2nd December 2009, 18:26

There is a guy listing an M1 Garand on gunstuff... Except for the fact that he erroneously calls the en bloc clips "stripper clips" it looks pretty good... best part of $3k though, yikes.

**Indiana_Jones** · 2nd December 2009, 19:44

Just made up about 25 rounds of 7.62x54R, while enjoying some Lamb's rum (treated myself seeing it is my birthday)

-Indy

**Mr Merde** · 2nd December 2009, 20:01

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

Just made up about 25 rounds of 7.62x54R, while enjoying some Lamb's rum (treated myself seeing it is my birthday)

-Indy

Happy birthaday young man.

Dont get pissed and reload.

1 at a time please.

**Indiana_Jones** · 2nd December 2009, 20:03

Originally Posted by Mr Merde

Happy birthaday young man.

Dont get pissed and reload.

1 at a time please.

Cheers,

And when I say "enjoying a drink" I meant in the English way, as in having a tumbler of rum, not the Kiwi meaning of "half a bottle in 30mins" lol

....And one at a time.......does it matter what order? lol

-Indy

**jono035** · 2nd December 2009, 21:02

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

...not the Kiwi meaning of "half a bottle in 30mins" lol

?? I don't see the point otherwise!

Happy birthday mate.

Good work on the 25x 7.62x54R... (I just made up 150x .44 magnum rounds *cough*)

**Indiana_Jones** · 2nd December 2009, 21:21

Originally Posted by jono035

?? I don't see the point otherwise!

Happy birthday mate.

Good work on the 25x 7.62x54R... (I just made up 150x .44 magnum rounds *cough*)

lol I would of made more, but havn't got anymore cases yet.

Anyways it's cheaper to buy the shit over the counter lol

-Indy

**jono035** · 3rd December 2009, 06:26

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

lol I would of made more, but havn't got anymore cases yet.

Anyways it's cheaper to buy the shit over the counter lol

-Indy

Really? Whats the cost per round for assembled ammo vs primers/powder/projectile?

**Indiana_Jones** · 3rd December 2009, 07:13

Originally Posted by jono035

Really? Whats the cost per round for assembled ammo vs primers/powder/projectile?

Depends on how many times you use the case and how much they cost

Say $150 for 100 cases, $1.50 a case
$60 for 100 projectiles, 0.60c a projectile
$10 for 100 primers, 0.10c a primer
$70 for I can't remember how much powder so I'll leave that one out

So that's at least $2.20 a round for the 1st go, but by the 5th you'd be making your money back

Over the counter it's around $1 each, maybe less or more, depends what you get and where.

-Indy

**jono035** · 3rd December 2009, 08:00

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

Depends on how many times you use the case and how much they cost

Say $150 for 100 cases, $1.50 a case
$60 for 100 projectiles, 0.60c a projectile
$10 for 100 primers, 0.10c a primer
$70 for I can't remember how much powder so I'll leave that one out

So that's at least $2.20 a round for the 1st go, but by the 5th you'd be making your money back

Over the counter it's around $1 each, maybe less or more, depends what you get and where.

-Indy

That'll be 500 grams or 1lb (454g) of powder most likely. If you're loading 45 grains then thats 3 grams or 170 loads per container for $0.41 each... Yeah I can see where this is going wrong :P

For case costs I just assume that I'll be able to reload the case a number of times and then divide the cost over that, so assuming 10 reloads per case thats $0.15 extra per round. Don't know if that is reasonable for rifles but we'll assume you're loading lightly and not stressing the hell out of the cases...

So yeah,

$1.25 per round by my figuring...

I guess I'm a hell of a lot better off with pistol reloading because I've been buying everything in bulk... 2kg of powder, projectiles 1k at a time, primers 1k at a time etc. Not to mention with simpler projectiles and less powder, more of the cost of the round lives in the brass.

The cases and primers aren't worth worrying about, the big costs are the powder at 40c and projectile at 60c... The powder doesn't get all that much cheaper in bulk really, maybe 10-15% cheaper, so only a 5c per round saving. I'd be seriously looking for somewhere to get cheaper projectiles... Have you seen anything online about people shooting gas checked lead projectiles?

**Wolf** · 3rd December 2009, 08:20

Well, the weather looks like its fining up on Saturday 5th so the burning question is:

Is the shoot/barbecue on?

What say our hosts?

**Drunken Monkey** · 3rd December 2009, 08:35

Originally Posted by Indiana_Jones

Depends on how many times you use the case and how much they cost

Say $150 for 100 cases, $1.50 a case
$60 for 100 projectiles, 0.60c a projectile
$10 for 100 primers, 0.10c a primer
$70 for I can't remember how much powder so I'll leave that one out

So that's at least $2.20 a round for the 1st go, but by the 5th you'd be making your money back

Over the counter it's around $1 each, maybe less or more, depends what you get and where.

-Indy

And that's assuming your spare time isn't worth anything...

**Mr Merde** · 3rd December 2009, 10:19

Originally Posted by Wolf

Well, the weather looks like its fining up on Saturday 5th so the burning question is:

Is the shoot/barbecue on?

What say our hosts?

Its on,

Bring what you need.

Let Mars rule the day

**jono035** · 3rd December 2009, 10:30

Originally Posted by Drunken Monkey

And that's assuming your spare time isn't worth anything...

Very true, but that gets to be a fuzzy area.

I enjoy my time spent reloading, which is probably why I've done so much of it so far. For me I am also in a situation where I have very limited income currently (studentness) with no hope of being able to earn any extra (student allowance) and more spare time than I would while working.

It is good to make sure that you get good 'value' out of your time, but bear in mind that spending less money is effectively untaxed income. You also have to be realistic about how much extra money you could actually earn in your spare time. Second job gets taxed quite a lot and may require a big block of extra time, rather than an hour per weekend. Longer hours at your current job may not be possible or may get to be frustrating/tedious which will not represent good value to you or your employer. All of these things will also be a fixed time commitment and will most likely be completely inflexible.

Reloading is good for me because I can do it whenever I want, I can listen to music or have the TV on in the background while reloading, it is effectively untaxed income and chiefly because I enjoy the process of it and look at it more as an extension of my primary passtime, rather than a way to simply save money.

You have to realistically ask what you would be doing with that time otherwise. I don't watch TV at all and I feel my life has improved dramatically because of it. I also rarely watch movies without doing something else at the same time and there are reloading processes that would fit that perfectly.

Rant over.

Edit: To be honest I think that if I had kept my shooting at the same levels as before I was reloading, it would probably work out to be a good value use of my time, anyway. $0.21 vs $0.70 for 9mm and $0.50 vs $1.50 for .44 magnum, reloading 50 rounds saves me $25 for 9mm and $50 for .44 magnum, if I can reload 50 rounds in an hour then I'm better off doing that than working for $38 an hour given my working tax bracket.