YAGT: EDIT: Bought S&W M&P 15 Sport. Any "must have" accessories?

[lokiju]

If you care to brave it they have a BF deal on it for $5.49 a box, might give it a try myself just to see if I can score a dozen or so boxes

Not to bad for local. ¢27 a round plus tax.

Local pawn and gun place apparently has PMG brass casings 223's for what works out to be ¢31 a round.

OK for brass I guess.

 

[IGemini]

Man, beat me to it.

The major ammo it would be virtually impossible to justify reloading is .22LR which go for pennies per round. It's much easier to get started on it if you're using less-available ammo. My brother has been researching the process since he plans to reload for his more expensive hunting ammo (.35 Remington, 7mm-08, and ultimately 6.5 Grendel). It's cheaper but shifts your investment to time over money, especially if you're optimizing your rounds. Your money savings go way up once your savings can pay off the equipment (which can run upwards of $1k but can definitely be cheaper). You get a good start if you save your brass.

 

[Specop 007]

Man, beat me to it.

The major ammo it would be virtually impossible to justify reloading is .22LR which go for pennies per round. It's much easier to get started on it if you're using less-available ammo. My brother has been researching the process since he plans to reload for his more expensive hunting ammo (.35 Remington, 7mm-08, and ultimately 6.5 Grendel). It's cheaper but shifts your investment to time over money, especially if you're optimizing your rounds. Your money savings go way up once your savings can pay off the equipment (which can run upwards of $1k but can definitely be cheaper). You get a good start if you save your brass.

My buddies, who are brothers, both use the kit below. At first I chuckled. then I watched them use it. We shot in the morning, took a break early afternoon and drank beer (Yeah yeah) and they reloaded then we went back out and shot in the afternoon.

It makes for a great setup you can use damn near anywhere. You wont crank out 300 rounds an hour with it though but you dont have to reload very much to break even.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/650614/lee-breech-lock-hand-press-kit

 

[olds]

Unless you shoot a lot or are a competitive shooter, it doesn't make much economical sense to reload. If you have a friend that reloads, buy your dies, powder, bullets and use his gear. Buy him some beer.

I like Dillon's gear and customer service.
http://www.dillonprecision.com/

 

[Specop 007]

I'm always leery of advice from a blue koolaid drinker.

Hornady is the way to go.

 

[lokiju]

Thats hard to really nail down because theres so many variables. Having said that I'll give some general info on the matter and then address specific questions from there.

The break even point really depends on what caliber you are reloading and how much you invested in your reloading setup. I have a good friend who went with a VERY cost effective reloading setup and he has paid for it many times over. He was reloading 270 I think which is fairly expensive. I think he said it was something like 300 rounds to break even, and then he realized savings after that.

Now when you start looking at calibers where there are bulk/mil surp options available it takes a lot longer to break even.

For my reloads on 223/556 the easiest way to explain it is my cost to reload is roughly the same as the cost to buy Wolf ammo. The difference is in the quality. My reloads are a much higher quality ammo for the same price.

Now if you want you can also end up with a slight cost savings as well but to get the full benefit you almost have to buy supplies in bulk. You dont buy enough supplies to reload 50 rounds, you buy enough supplies to reload 5000 rounds.

So without spending half the morning really hunting down the best deals heres an example...

http://www.powdervalleyinc.com/

Ramshot TAC - 8 pounds - $125 (Less $20 hazmat and shipping)

Hornady 55gr FMJ - 1000 - $106

Wolf primers - 1000 - $15

So just so you understand the math theres 7000 grains per pound of powder. As a ballpark lets say you run 25 grains of tac per round.

125/8 = $15.63 per pound.
15.63/7000 = .0022 per grain*25 grains = $.055

Powder = .06
Bullet = .11
Primer = .02

So right there you're at 19 cents per round and thats not counting brass costs, time and equipment. That said that would be a much higher quality round than what you could buy for the same cost. That also doesnt factor in shipping and hazmat either.

You could shave that down a bit by shopping around and buying in larger quantities to get bulk discounts and such but it gives you an idea. I'd say if you REALLY shopped hard you could shave 5, maybe 6 cents a round.

But again, that doesnt account for your time or equipment. If you dropped $400 on your reloading setup and are saving 5 cents a round you have to pull that handle a long time to break even.......


TL;DR

Reloading for mil surp available calibers (9mm, 223) you have to be a very high volume shooter to break even if you desire plinking rounds. If you are looking for benchrest quality ammo the numbers change however but that doesnt seem to be your desired goal.

Man you really answered it all! Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking that would be the case.

I think I'll just get a casing catcher bag and just save all my spent shells for the possibility/option of doing it in the future. If I ever get a different kind of gun down the road that fires more expensive rounds then perhaps at that time it'd make more sense to invest in the gear and then also have the option for the 223/5.56.

 

[lokiju]

Side note for anyone that cares. In regards to the polymer lowers topic.

My co-worker just today said he put his thousandth round through his AR with Plum Crazy lower over the weekend and has had no issues with it.

 

[shortylickens]

Just went to my local range.
Rented an FN FS2000. Guy told me it could fire .223 with no problem.
Got 60 rounds of nice Remington stuff.
Jammed every three.
Got some 5.56 in its place. Worked fine.

Did the dude lie to me? Its their gun so I dunno why they'd want me to deliberately use the wrong stuff.

 

[Zebo]

Lots of pmags and good ammo. At least 20 loaded up 10 with Law Enforcement TAP and 10 with Prvi practice what I keep.

An ACOG TA11. Just works. Day or night all the time. Clear class and fastest target acquisition with it's huge eye relief. Almost like a red dot.

A good sling. Larue tactical two point is what I use.

 

[Zebo]

Unless you shoot a lot or are a competitive shooter, it doesn't make much economical sense to reload. If you have a friend that reloads, buy your dies, powder, bullets and use his gear. Buy him some beer.

I like Dillon's gear and customer service.
http://www.dillonprecision.com/

Doesn't make sense if you have a job either. Time is money not figured into reloading equation by most.

 

[Specop 007]

Lots of pmags and good ammo. At least 20 loaded up 10 with Law Enforcement TAP and 10 with Prvi practice what I keep.

An AGOG TA11. Just works. Day or night all the time. Clear class and fastest target acquisition with it's huge eye relief. Almost like a red dot.

A good sling. Larue tactical two point is what I use.

If you run into a situation where you need 600 rounds of TAP ready to go you are already in over your head, unless its in your BOB of course.

I keep 3 mags ready with Q3131A1. Then again, I live in a pretty rural area so I'm not overly worried about zombie hordes or bug out scenarios.

 

[IGemini]

Just looked into that C-15 polymer lower...looks really interesting. Been shopping around to build my own AR platform in the future, was $50-100 cheaper than the DPMS lower I was looking at.

Just went to my local range.
Rented an FN FS2000. Guy told me it could fire .223 with no problem.
Got 60 rounds of nice Remington stuff.
Jammed every three.
Got some 5.56 in its place. Worked fine.

Did the dude lie to me? Its their gun so I dunno why they'd want me to deliberately use the wrong stuff.

I'm guessing it's a feed issue. There are plenty of rifles that support both rounds but I think the F2000 is more suited for 5.56.

 

[Zebo]

If you run into a situation where you need 600 rounds of TAP ready to go you are already in over your head, unless its in your BOB of course.

I keep 3 mags ready with Q3131A1. Then again, I live in a pretty rural area so I'm not overly worried about zombie hordes or bug out scenarios.

It's only 300 and I don't know if you even been hunted or vice versa but sometimes that's not enough for 1. People don't act like paper.

 

[Texashiker]

Did the dude lie to me? Its their gun so I dunno why they'd want me to deliberately use the wrong stuff.

After a couple of quick google searches, it seems the FN FS2000 has a gas adjustment system like what the FN/FAL does.

This allows the shooter to adjust the amount of gas going into the blow back system. The bonus is the shooter can adjust the blow back for less recoil. On the downside, not enough gas may enter the system to effectively cycle the bolt.

 

[Specop 007]

It's only 300 and I don't know if you even been hunted or vice versa but sometimes that's not enough for 1. People don't act like paper.

Oh wow I fail at basic math!

300 or 600 I still hold by my initial statement though. Thats a lot of rounds to have ready to go in a civilian situation.

 

[davmat787]

OP: Are you are of these type of accessories for your AR? Close Quarters Offset mounts for your red dot so you can have both a red dot AND a more traditional scope at the same time? :awe:

http://www.firebirdprecision.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=36

 

[lokiju]

OP: Are you are of these type of accessories for your AR? Close Quarters Offset mounts for your red dot so you can have both a red dot AND a more traditional scope at the same time? :awe:

http://www.firebirdprecision.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=36

That hurt my brain to read

Cool product though.

Edit: After watching the video, not something for me. I'd rather do a swing arm with a red dot an magnification than hold my AR sideways.

The PA scope has a red dot and does 1x to 4x in one unit.

 

[lokiju]

I've been looking through all the black friday deals I can find and still don't see the S&W for any less that before. Buds still has it for the same price they did last week.

I was hoping to find some solid ammo deals but nothing I've found is any better that what can be found year round if you check all the price indexing and per round cost charts.

 

[lokiju]

Stopped by Academy Sports and they actually to my amazement had some American Eagle 223's left. They were $5.49 per 20 round box. Before tax cost of 27 cents after tax cost of 29 cents per round for brass is actually a cent less than the best online deal I've found and that deal required buying 1000 rounds plus shipping.

I grabbed 20 boxes. Nice little start to building up some ammo reserves before my 1st trip to the range with it.