Caliber cost comparison

[88E30M50]

While surfing for ammo this morning, I decided to do a quick comparison on the cost of some standard calibers to see how they stack up against what we 'know' the differences are. If you do a little bit of looking around INGO, you'll find that common knowledge often recommends 9mm because it's cheap. .45 acp is often complained about because it's expensive and some calibers are down right slammed because it's too expensive to shoot (10mm, .45GAP).

This is not a scientific survey at all, but as of 21Nov13 LuckyGunner.com lists these prices for FMJ (10mm is JHP) practice ammo:

9mm Box of 50 115g brass cased PMC $20.50 or .41 per round.
9mm Box of 50 124g brass cased UMC $25.00 or .50 per round.
357Sig Box of 50 125g brass cased UMC $31.00 or .62 per round.
40S&W Box of 50 180g brass cased UMC $24.00 or .48 per round.
10mm Box of 50 180g brass cased Privi $25.00 or .50 per round.
45ACP Box of 50 230g brass cased PMC $25.50 or .51 per round
45GAP Box of 50 230g brass cased UMC $27.50 or .55 per round

All of the above had plenty of stock on hand. The thing that surprised me was that if buying commercial new ammo online, I can practice with 10mm JHP for the same cost as with 124g 9mm FMJ. Also, it runs counter to our 'common knowledge' that you can shoot .40 S&W 180g cheaper than you can run the same brand 124g 9mm. For plinking, most will just buy what's cheapest, but for practice, most will try to shoot the same weight bullet that they carry, or at least as close to it as you can get.

As expected, the .357 Sig and .45 GAP are at the high end of the scale, but not by enough to make them too expensive to shoot. I don't know how often the average shooter shoots, but back when I was buying commercially it would be about 3 times a month on average, with each trip using up 1 or 2 boxes. An additional dollar or two per box would not have made a big enough difference to drive my choice of calibers. The difference in cost between calibers today would not impact the number of rounds I bought. I would not save enough by shooting a 9mm to buy two boxes of ammo instead of the one of .40 or .45.

All this goes out the window when it comes to buying locally though. A lot of local shops are more than happy to over charge for some calibers. I think I paid $40 for a box of 50 rounds of target ammo when I bought my first 10mm Glock last year.

The take away for me from this was that the cost of ammo should not always be a deciding factor in what you buy. It costs money to run anything and the cost of running a handgun is not that different from caliber to caliber.

 

[Tydeeh22]

this is why majority of folks reload.. my current batch of 115 grain HP 9mm costs me 14 cents a round.

 

[88E30M50]

this is why majority of folks reload.. my current batch of 115 grain HP 9mm costs me 14 cents a round.

I hear ya on that! You've got your costs down pretty well. When I reload 9mm, I'm paying more than that for the bullet alone when I reload 115g Powerbond plated. I think I'm running at around .21 per round. If I buy LRN, I can drop it some but I still don't think I'm hitting the .14 per round now days.

 

[Booya]

I've kind of always wanted to get into reloading, but trying to determine the actual cost vs savings (for someone that shoots as often or not as I do) has been the hold up. Especially, because I know people that already have the equipment and know how far beyond myself at this point.

Let's say I want to reload just standard 9mm for practice. If I was doing at the same cost as Tydeeh22, I would probably (estimated) have to reload around or over 2500 rounds before I broke even on the cost of the reloading equipment alone. Now, let's say that I'm good enough that I'm reloading a round every 1.5 min, that's 62.5 hours I've spent reloading or between 25-30 days going every anywhere from 1.5-3 hours a night (after work and kids...etc). All this still doesn't include the time and cost I spent going to get the equipment, brass, primers, power, media... Then time spent prepping or tumbling (whatever is needed or not varies). So now, I've spent a month or more and quite a bit of money making all the 9mm I'll likely use in a year.

For roughly the same price and zero time, I could have just purchased the ammo and been done with it... < Dilemma.

Now I also know that if I did get into it, I'd be reloaded several calibers (incurring more cost), but I'd also be very likely enjoying my time doing it, so it's not like the time was wasted. That said working full time plus some and having 3 kids, my time is just as important (if not more) then the cost savings I would see after a year, possibly two, of reloading it myself. I want to get into it, it's just hard to justify. Someone sell me, explain what I'm missing...

 

[MiNDRiVE]

That is my main issue with getting into reloading. I can't seem to justify the time spent reloading.

 

[88E30M50]

The benefit of reloading goes beyond the cost savings and when you come down to it, there really is no cost savings. If I have room in my budget to spend $100 per month shooting, I'll spend that money either on 4 boxes of ammo or on 8 boxes of reloads. I don't spend less, I shoot more. For me, the hobby of reloading gives me a whole different level of understanding that I never could have had when I was buying ammo. Even now, on the couple of calibers that I don't reload, I don't enjoy shooting them as much because I don't know exactly what I'm shooting.

I had posted the original thread in Handguns because I wanted to discuss the cost of ammo when choosing a caliber. If we go down the road of discussing reloading, we may need to have this moved to the Ammunition / Reloading forum. I don't have an issue with that, but was more wanting to talk about choosing a gun based on the cost of running it. I've often advised folks to buy a 9mm pistol because they will be able to afford to shoot it more, but I don't think that's accurate right now. I was surprised to see that if I were buying commercially, I could run a Glock 20 cheaper than I could run a Glock 21, yet I've also advised against 10mm unless someone reloads bases solely on the cost of ammo.

 

[USMC-Johnson]

I can get boxes of 500 9mm for about 23 cents a round and 40 cal for about 25 cents per round...so the only reason i'm going to start reloading is for rifle cartridges for accuracy and consistency.

 

[EvilElmo]

You'd have to shoot a lot to justify the time spent reloading from a purely cost basis. However, if you actually like reloading (like me) it's a productive way to enjoy a hobby.

 

[dhw9am]

Where I live, Ohio, you can buy 9MM - 115 gr. brass cased ammo, all day long for $16.99 - $17.99 per box of 50.
With rare exception, I think on line suppliers are really over charging.

 

[ru44mag]

I just bought 115 gr Remington 9mm for $14.77 for a box of 50 rounds. I few weeks ago, I bought Federal 9mm $22.99 for a box of 100. If you can stand to go to Wal-mart. I'm saving all my brass, with plans to reload in the future.

 

[chezuki]

My 125gr LRN 9mm reloads come out to 9.5¢ per round. Hard to beat that, even with .22 at today's prices.

 

[USMC-Johnson]

i hate giving up my source but check out freedommunitions.com awesome prices and for cheaper than WWB you get decent ammo. It isnt match grade stuff but it is actually a full power load vs the WWB that would barely cycle my glock