Our daughter and son-in-law gave us some deer jerky at Christmas; he shot the deer with a cartridges that he reloaded. I also reload cartridges and cast bullets. We both had to admit that with the cost of our equipment and supplies that neither of us was sure whether we had recouped our capital expenses.
I have a number of presses including hand held, single stage, turrets and full progressives. I find assembling cartridges to be an enjoyable pastime and it enhances the enjoyment I get shooting also. Any time that I purchase a new gun I always also get the dies necessary to reload the cartridges.
> “We both had to admit that with the cost of our equipment and supplies that neither of us was sure whether we had recouped our capital expenses.”
I don’t worry about having recouped the cost of tools. I shoot a number of odd (in other words, expensive) calibers. Just because I can. Here are a few of them:
41 Long Colt — I shoot them in CAS, so $100 per shoot (for 60 commercial cartridges) would not do.
9.5 x 57 M-S — They cost about $10-$15 each cartridge when you can find them. Kynoch only makes them once in a while.
.32 Long Colt — Not the .32 S&W, .32 S&W Long, or .32 Colt New Police. Boxes of NOS go for $150 to $200 each.
32-20, 38-40, 44-40 — All of which are costly.
All the others I shoot are somewhat easier to get and less costly than the above (except right after Sandy Hook), but there is still a cost savings for them.
A few years ago, I rented a Rhino handgun at the local gun range, just to try it out. Glad I did. The trigger pull on it was terrible. Anyway, I had to buy factory new ammunition from the range in order to shoot it. The cost for a box of factory .357 Magnum ammunition just about gave me a heart attack. I had probably not bought any factory .357 Magnum for 35-40 years. I have 2 or 3 .50cal ammo boxes of handloads, but they would not allow to use them.