So, assuming by several hundred you meant somewhere between $200 and $500 and you spend $30 hours a year, you basically taking a job "paying" between $6.67 (below minimum wage) and $16.67 an hour to load ammo.
If that's a good deal for you, then perfect. If that's a bad deal for you, then it isn't.
Of course, that's leaving out side benefits, like being able to make your own subsonic ammo, if you shoot suppressed (which is more expensive than range ammo) and being able to keep rolling your own during a shortage crisis (though I guess you could stockpile cheap factory ammo to get the same benefit, substituting money for time during times of plenty).
I would ballpark the savings in the $500-$600/yr over bulk ammo. Probably higher if I factored in match quality 69gr/77gr .223; and yes, my 147gr 9mms (that's all I load) are used in a silencer (the jhps are fully jacketted, incl the base, so they're very clean for silencer use). and my cheapo 55gr .223s are about 1.5moa, better than most bulk m193 for instance. If you went apples to apples it would probably be closer to $1k-$1500 savings.
Asside from the ~18 hrs actually at the press, the rest is spent during times I'd just be sitting on my butt watching TV/movies anyways (doing things like sorting brass or filling primer tubes), so I'm not really giving anything up for that stuff.
While I don't really care what hourly wage I'm "paying myself," I guess you could approximate ~$600/20 hrs or about $30/hr if that's what matters to you. (If you factor in apples-to-apples quality, it would be $50-$75 / hr)
I hate reloading. It's a damn chore to me. If it wasn't worth it $-wise and because of compeition requirements, I wouldn't do it.
-rvb
ps. that's compared to on-line bulk prices. savings would be what? 2-3x compared to retail chains like Dicks?
-rvb
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