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Reload or "offload"

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Hey all! Introduced myself in the Intro board, but wanted to open this discussion up over here. I asked about this on the Reddit /njguns board but it got locked pretty quick as discussing any potential sale of "ammo" (which this isn't even, technically) makes them squeamish due to reddit rules. 

In my haste and desperation to get anything remotely resembling reasonably-priced 5.56 ammo, I mistakenly purchased 700x 5.56 bullets without realizing the sales listing was for "bullets" instead of "rounds" or "ammunition." Rookie mistake, but desperate times call for desperate measures and I clicked that checkout button faster than my eyes could read. I've been in situations before where I missed out on a good deal on ammo due to taking an extra few seconds...burned me here!

So now I have 700 quality Barnes M/LE TAC-RRLP 5.56 bullets sitting on my shelf with no idea what to do with 'em. I would sell them, but I'm not sure there's a market for this.

Is it worth trying to obtain the tools and learn the trade of reloading? What is the cost barrier for that? I do not currently possess the tools, really, or the skill, either. I know in the long run over 1000s of rounds fired that this would be economically viable, but that's certainly a ways away. 

Should I pursue reloading or should I just pursue offloading them to somebody who could use 'em?

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Did you save any of your spent brass?  It's never too late to get into reloading!

Start out with a single stage press setup at first.

Components are a bit hard to find. Primers are the hardest to find at a semi-reasonable price. Powder, a bit easier to get but I would highly recommend getting into reloading!  It will pay for itself much quicker than you think!:)

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Welcome,

You can certainly sell or trade them, the market is there. You can sell through this site as well. Not sure if you'd need to be a Premier (paid) Member to sell projectiles, or if they can go in the other section. No idea if you'd recoup what you spent or not. 

Do you want to reload? Some people enjoy it and find it a relaxing hobby. Do you do enough shooting or want to do precision shooting to justify the investment in time to reload? I'd estimate you'd need to spend another $300-$500 before you'd have what you need to reload your first round. Maybe less if you went with a handloader or found a used setup. As mentioned above it will be an effort to find what you need as well. Do you have a place to reload? I wouldn't want to reload on my kitchen table. Are you aware of the dangers of carelessness before, during and after the reloading process? You will be dealing with stuff meant to make an explosion. While they are are small amounts and perfectly safe when protocols are followed, the consequences can be severe when not. 

I'm not looking to deter you, just suggesting you have all of the facts first. I'm going under the assumption that if you are new enough to make the mistake you made, you are also new enough to not have a good understanding of what is involved in reloading.

There are many videos and websites that go in much greater detail. There's also a wealth of experience here.

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12 hours ago, JohnnyB said:

Did you save any of your spent brass?  It's never too late to get into reloading!

Start out with a single stage press setup at first.

Components are a bit hard to find. Primers are the hardest to find at a semi-reasonable price. Powder, a bit easier to get but I would highly recommend getting into reloading!  It will pay for itself much quicker than you think!:)

It's never too late, but right now isn't a good time. Shit is over priced and hard to find. 

It's a good time to learn everything about it you can, when things calm down hopefully you could make the jump if it's something you're interested in. But why buy all the equipment and supplies, load not nearly enough to make it worth it, then lose the "want" to do it and just end up buying factory ammo when it's available again. 

Reloading is a long term hobby, so I would figure that part out first. It's time consuming and complex. When most people like "simple". 

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So my $0.02

I don't know what you spent, but jacketed frangible rounds are a niche item and are likely pricey during normal times. When things calm down, I doubt you would be able to unload them without taking a nice loss. Right now your ability to move them is better, but projectiles are the one thing not in super short supply. Right now I can't get what I WANT, but I can get something that'll work. Which is basically the same thing you are offering. 

I can go and order 62gr bullets for $121 per k right now and the only wait is for it to actually be packed and shipped. Their inventory says they have over 1.1 million in stock, and they have had them up for a week plus. 

To turn it into loaded ammo, right now you would need a press (scarce), .223 dies (super scarce), various reloading tools and accessories (mostly available), small rifle primers (ultra scarce), .223 brass (limited, but available at a premium), brass prep equipment (because the brass you can find is likely not even cleaned, much less sized, trimmed, swaged, etc.), powder (limited, but if you aren't picky just requires some stalking to pick up), etc. 

During normal times, getting set up to reload rifle is minimally a $300-400 proposition. figure right now that is probably doubled. So you will be having to play the track it down game or pay scalper prices for each one of those, or you can just do that with a case of ammo and probably be in about the same place but have a few hundred more rounds. 

Right now, even with a lot of luck and patience, I couldn't reload 9mm for less than about $0.40 per round. Possibly not even that "cheap" because that was my best pricing a week ago. 

.223 is likely around $0.45-55 per round. IF you can get all the parts. Right now for that price I can get brass and bullets right now, and would have to stalk 8lbers opf powder. More realistically you will find powder in 1lb increments limited to two with full hazmat charge. which would put you at the higher end of that price range if not over. 

If you want usable ammo ASAP, you should just keep a look out for ammo and be prepared to pay $1 a round or more. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, raz-0 said:

Right now, even with a lot of luck and patience, I couldn't reload 9mm for less than about $0.40 per round. Possibly not even that "cheap" because that was my best pricing a week ago. 

I'm at 20 cents per round on 9mm.  Brass is free since I have tons, so primer is at 5 cents, heads at 12 cents and powder at 3 cents so 20 cents per round.

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20 minutes ago, JohnnyB said:

I'm at 20 cents per round on 9mm.  Brass is free since I have tons, so primer is at 5 cents, heads at 12 cents and powder at 3 cents so 20 cents per round.

What I can reload for out of my existing supplies is way less than that. But cheapest primers I’m seeing are $60 per k plus hazmat with a 5k limit. That’s about $0.07 per primer. Coated lead is at least $0.07 each. Jacketed is going to be around $0.12. Brass is going to also be about $0.07 a piece. If you can score an 8lb jug of powder is going to be about $0.02. If you are getting hit with full hazmat on a couple of 1lbers it’s going to be about $0.03. Worst case you are limited to a single pound which will put it at about $60 a pound and maybe $0.04 per round. 
 

that’s all a 10-50 day wait to receive it. 

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2 hours ago, raz-0 said:

What I can reload for out of my existing supplies is way less than that. But cheapest primers I’m seeing are $60 per k plus hazmat with a 5k limit. That’s about $0.07 per primer. Coated lead is at least $0.07 each. Jacketed is going to be around $0.12. Brass is going to also be about $0.07 a piece. If you can score an 8lb jug of powder is going to be about $0.02. If you are getting hit with full hazmat on a couple of 1lbers it’s going to be about $0.03. Worst case you are limited to a single pound which will put it at about $60 a pound and maybe $0.04 per round. 
 

that’s all a 10-50 day wait to receive it. 

Are you running Discord?

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5 hours ago, JohnnyB said:

Are you running Discord?

Yup. Projectiles aren’t awful. Google is still better at finding once fired brass. The powder comes and goes. And posting primer stock notices only goes so far when the cheapest in the last month has always been midway and they are at $60 per k. I saw $100 per thousand up there this afternoon. 

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6 hours ago, raz-0 said:

Yup. Projectiles aren’t awful. Google is still better at finding once fired brass. The powder comes and goes. And posting primer stock notices only goes so far when the cheapest in the last month has always been midway and they are at $60 per k. I saw $100 per thousand up there this afternoon. 

Some random brand was posted yesterday @ $1999 for 5k of spp. GFY, seriously. 

I've had some good luck on gun broker for brass, discord has been really good for powder if you need any. Primer notices only work if youre fast enough for site with limits, like midway, or shit that's ridiculously over priced. Any primer notifications for brownells are sold out by the time it's even posted in there. 

You were nice enough to post a well explained response to the OP, simply put.. right now is a terrible time to be expanding interests into  anything firearm related. It's one of those "if you have to" situations. 

 

I laugh becuase all the idiots on discord will be selling off all the over priced stuff once ammo normalizes. Look for discounts in 2-3years if you're really interested. 

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Sell it!  Even if you have to take a loss.  Reloading is a part-time job.  There are people who love it, and appreciate the benefits. But it doesn't get you ammo in bad times, because you still need to be able to find the components, which become scarce when ammo is scarce.  Larry Potterfield lists five reasons for reloading:  save money, improve accuracy, they don't make it anymore, the satisfaction of doing it yourself, and one more that I don't recall.

Eventually this shortage will die down, and when it does, I would recommend buying ammo whenever you see it at reasonable prices.  It lasts virtually forever, so just buy it and store it.  Over the last few years, I found myself buying whenever I saw a good deal, thinking that perhaps I was needlessly accumulating too much.  Turns out, there's no such thing as too much.  No one has enough ammo to last forever, but it's nice to have enough to last a long while. 

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7 minutes ago, Old Glock guy said:

But it doesn't get you ammo in bad times, because you still need to be able to find the components

I have to disagree with that point.  I built up my ammo stash by adding to it whenever I saw a great deal.  Luckily, I did the same with tons of brass, heads and even powders.  I screwed up with the primers and only got those as needed since I wanted them to be fresh.

When and if primers come back to normal, I will be stacking those deep as well. I will vacuum seal them with with a silica gel pack and they too will last almost forever. For now, I have plenty primers to last a few years and even though I know I overpaid for them, I did not pay even close to Gunbroker prices.

 

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2 hours ago, Old Glock guy said:

Larry Potterfield lists five reasons for reloading:  save money, improve accuracy, they don't make it anymore, the satisfaction of doing it yourself, and one more that I don't recall.

I reload for the first two reasons.  It saves me a ton of money, and the ammo is tailored to be more accurate in my guns than anything I can buy.   So I'd have to reload even if it cost more, but fortunately, it instead saves me a ton of money (and doesn't take much time, since it is mostly pistol ammo an a pretty fast progressive press).

One nice side benefit is that it saves a lot of space.   You can fit the components needed to load 2000 9 mm rounds (pound of powder, 2000 bullets and primers, and a few hundred cases you'll load repeatedly) in two shoe boxes.

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Good morning guys, these responses have been incredibly informative. After reading some of the initial responses, I've also put in more research on my end, as well, particularly on trying to source the additional comments and tools needed.

I can see both sides of the spectrum still, so definitely still a bit torn. But I am leaning that it makes sense to just sell the bullets at this time; I think it is more important for me to just get to the range and get rounds through my (new) guns. I do have a small stash of 5.56/.223 ammo, so there is the potential for me to shoot through it and get more brass for reloading; my bigger concern is the scarcity of the other components right now, which seem to be barely more available than loaded ammo. And as many of you noted, loading ammo is a time-consuming process, somewhat of a hobby in-and-of-itself; I am a DIY-inclined individual who may wind up enjoying it, but it would be a sizable hurdle to get myself to the point where I am actually able to start reloading. 

Certainly not talking any huge, life changing amount of money here selling off the 700 bullets, but anything helps and it can probably net me enough for a pair of backup irons haha.

 

 

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