Private Ammunition Purchases Per Year?

[lee n. field]

Speaking of, anyone use a Lee Pro-1000 for .223/5.56?  a little bit of googling has come up with a pretty mixed bag of positive and negative opinions....  I've got a single stage classic cast as well, but if I'm gonna be shooting that new AR pretty regularly, I'm gonna need something with better output.  And I really don't wanna shell out a whole lot more money at this point...

I haven't used one with .223.  On pistol cartridges, the Pro 1000 is just enough headache I'm contemplating a Loadmaster. (FS Reloading has them for ~$210).

[AmbulanceDriver]

I've got my Pro 1000 set up for .45 ACP right now, and while it was a bit finicky at first (have to get the adjustments *just* right) it now works like a champ.   

[French G.]

There were years where I was responsible for 30K+ per year. Those days a case of factory .45 was lucky to last two weeks in my trunk. PMC .223 was $150/1000 and the Tula garbage was cheaper. Then I started reloading.... These days, not so much. Reloaders have been packed away since 2005 waiting to see light. I went for three years shooting my accumulated reloads and rimfire. 2007 I probably got 20K worth of rimfire down range.

[Hutch]

I hate to sound like that guy, but as far as progressive press users are concerned, there are those that have Dillons, and those that wish they had Dillons.  If you can find the bucks, get one.  If you can't, keep saving.  Srsly.

[kgbsquirrel]

Stumbled across a "woh is us" article about the SSA buying 170k rounds of ammo and it reminded me to come back to this thread and see what the polls are up to.

Thus far (using the same previous guestimations):

43 people - 120,500 rounds made/bought per annum.

[slingshot]

I buy quite a bit of 22LR ammo.  But in center fire, it is probably in the 1000-2000 round count area and sometimes I don't consume all of that.

[Hawkmoon]

You have a Loadmaster?

I have a single stage press, a turret press, a Lee Pro 1000, and two (2) Loadmasters.

When I was competing, I went through 150 to 250 rounds of .45 Auto per week, plus whatever else I might have played with (9mm, .22LR, maybe a touch of .380 Auto or 9mm Makarov, maybe some rifle stuff once in awhile). Now that I've had to lay off the competitions, my consumption has gone down considerably.

[Hawkmoon]

I hate to sound like that guy, but as far as progressive press users are concerned, there are those that have Dillons, and those that wish they had Dillons.  If you can find the bucks, get one.  If you can't, keep saving.  Srsly.

Then there are those who have Hornady Lock-N-Loads, and those who wish they had Hornady Lock-N-Loads.

Seriously, if you talk to enough reloaders you'll find that just about as many people have problems with Dillon equipment as with most of the others. Dillon, though, puts out a neat magalog with photos of scantily-clad young women holding guns, so Dillon has more mystique than all the others combined.

The ammunition you produce on your expensive Dillon is no better than what I produce on my sub-$100 Lee Turret Press.

[Hutch]

Never said the ammo was better, I said the Dillon product is superior by any reasonable measure.  Feel free to interpret that "reasonable measure" means "those measures Hutch finds useful".  There is an absolute, ironclad, 100% warranty on the Dillon product, and I've never once heard or read of anyone dissatisfied with their Dillon's effectiveness, beyond, "Gee, I wish I'd have gotten the 550 instead of the Square Deal" sorts of carps.

[kgbsquirrel]

Hmm. The only presses I have right now are an old Lee Anniversary single stage, and my massive RCBS .50BMG single stage. I was thinking about getting a progressive press some time just for the sake of speeding up some of my pistol and rifle plinking loadings, but I've never been satisfied with volume powder dumps. I really like my powder measures to be exact to the tenth of a grain. Are progressive presses and exact powder dumps mutually exclusive?

[Jamisjockey]

Since we're on it....what's the best consistently priced source of .223 or 5.56 around?

[lee n. field]

I hate to sound like that guy, but as far as progressive press users are concerned, there are those that have Dillons, and those that wish they had Dillons.  If you can find the bucks, get one.  If you can't, keep saving.  Srsly.

#insert big smiley here

[zxcvbob]

I have a Hornady LNL-AP and a Forster CoAx and I used them about equally.  Also several other single-stage presses in semi-retirement.  I have a C&H press set up for large primers, so I use that for .45 Colts, .41 Mag, and .30-06, but I don't load those very often.  My LNL-AP is old enough that the cartridge ejector on it totally sucks and I finally got disgusted enough that I took it off.  They've since fixed that problem, and I could get mine retrofitted but I would have to pay to replace or modify all the shell plates.  OTOH, when I bought mine they had a promotion going on where I got a free 1000 .308 match bullets, and I didn't pay all that much for the press.  My biggest complaint with it is the lack of leverage when seating primers, but I'm not sure any progressive press handles that well.

I keep the progressive press set up for .38 Specials all the time and load everything else on a single stage -- except when I need to run a bunch of 9mm, then it stays set up for 9mm until I need to run a big batch of .38's.  

If I had to start completely over with reloading equipment, I'd probably get a Dillon SDB and a Forster CoAx, even though that means I'd need 2 sets of some of the pistol dies.  The extra set of Lee dies just isn't that expensive.

[Hutch]

KGBSquirrel, take it for what it's worth from the BlueKoolAde drinker (guilty, your Honor).  It even meters Unique good to a tenth.  None of that "how do I get my Lee to quit leaking fine-grained powder" bullpoop for us smugly self-satisfied Blue Man Group members.  Is there a smiley emoticon for the raspberry/Bronx cheer thing?  If so, consider it placed here.

ETA: JamisJockey, start at Cheaper Than Dirt.  The cheapest is almost always steel-cased Roosian stuff.  After that, it's a crap-shoot, but PMC Bronze, brass-cased and boxer primed, is usually a good bet.  I've tried to stick w/ Federal or American Eagle for my hoarding efforts.  I went out with a noob to the range last week who had gotten his first AR recently, and then went to the LGS and bought them out of he Fed/Lake City M855 green tip.  Eighteen ammo cans.  You read that right.  18x420 for his FIRST purchase.

[never_retreat]

I have not been shooting much in the last couple of years. I used to hit the pistol range twice a week and trap almost every Sunday.
I rolled my own except for 22lr and 12ga bird shot. It was not worth loading.
Best guess was about 10,000 rounds reloaded a year and 3-4 thousand rounds of 12ga bought. 22lr is random because I would usually buy 5,000 rounds at a clip and it would last over a year.
List I load
45acp
9 mm
38
357

.223
306
30-30
270 win

I keep my feeding schedule simple because out of 40 different guns they all eat the same stuff.

[Sergeant Bob]

Since we're on it....what's the best consistently priced source of .223 or 5.56 around?

I'd have to say UMC FMJ (available at WallyWorld and other fine stores) and Federal SS193, 5.56? for about the same price.

[kgbsquirrel]

I'm bumping this one back to the top simply because the more polling data I can collect the more accurate an assessment we can build of the private ammo purchases/handloads.

[birdman]

This year was a down year for me,
Probably:
2-3k 5.56
3k 45
1k 22LR
0.5k 308
1-2k 5.7
1k 9mm
0.3k 338LM.

All but the 338 I buy, the big gun I reload.
So about 10k/yr for me.

[cosine]

I'd guesstimate that I've purchased around 1500 rounds of .22LR and 800 rounds of 9mm this year.

[birdman]

I'm surprised there are only 14 total votes in the 4k+ range.
On the other hand, I'm not surprised that it's almost one third of the voters here :)

Not really a bell-curve though, more maxwellian in nature in terms of population. 

[Jamisjockey]

With the addition of the AR, my ammo consumption and purchasing seems to be on the increase.  I've already got a stash of 1k for it now.

[AZRedhawk44]

I hate to sound like that guy, but as far as progressive press users are concerned, there are those that have Dillons, and those that wish they had Dillons.  If you can find the bucks, get one.  If you can't, keep saving.  Srsly.

Ayup.

My bench is decorated in green, red, orange, grey and blue.  RCBS, Lyman, Lee, Giraud and Dillon.

The only blue press I have right now is a Dillon SDB, and I load all my handgun ammo on it.  My rate is around 250 rounds an hour.  It's awesome.

I do my rifle more meticulously though...

-clean
-deprime
-clean again
-trim
-prime/powder
-seat
-crimp

I don't have a Dillon 450 or 550 or whatever to do my rifle ammo on, and with the 2-phase cleaning and trim operation, I'm not confident that a Dillon will save me oodles of time or convenience.  I'm lucky to get 50rds an hour from my rifle process for match loads.

Maybe some day I will get a blue rifle press.  I do like how the SDB works.

I have to give kudos to Dillon for having a priming system that doesn't suck *expletive deleted*ss.  Lyman's system for their turret press sucks.

[Fly320s]

I run a Dillon 550 for 9mm, .40, .45, and .223.  It is great for volume loading. I probably won't use it for match .308 loads as those require more attention to detail.

[zxcvbob]

I've just about convinced myself that steel .223 cases (the ones with boxer primers) are reloadable and never need trimming.  So when I collect enough of them I might start loading .223 on a progressive press.

Currently I load .38 Specials and 9mm on a progressive (Hornady) and everything else on a single stage press -- either a Forster Co-Ax or sometimes a C&H model 333.  I even reload .38's and 9's on a single-stage if the progressive is all set up for the other one already.

I'm also thinking about making some custom dippers for my favorite revolver loads so I can make up just a box of 'em without fiddling with the scale and powder measures.  For example, a fired 9mm case is just about perfect for dipping Herco powder for 158 grain .357 Magnums without any trimming, just put a handle on it.  40SW and 45ACP cases (etc) can be trimmed down to make bigger dippers, .32's can be cut down to make small ones.  The hardest part is not making too many of them, and labeling them properly.

[Gewehr98]

To somewhat defuse the "My progressive press is better than yours" bit, I'll throw this out.

On my reloading benches there is a Dillon Square Deal B, a Dillon 550, and a Dillon 650.  Shooting competitively really drove the Dillon decision, and it was a good one.

To balance it out, there is also a Hornady O-Frame, a Hornady Lock-N-Load, an ancient RCBS O-Frame, and a C-H 4-position linear tool press. (Odd, but way cool!)

IOW, there's room for all sorts of different colored reloading tools in my house. 

In my range bag there's also a Huntington Die Specialties handheld press. 

If I'm doing just 20 rounds for a given toy, more often than not I'll knock them out with the hand press.