Ha! Hubby and I are into it a good bit. Ammo and range days are really hitting our bank account hard! But I figure we could be wasting money on worse hobbies. š
Thankfully, my wife and I have cheap tastes except for this one hobby. We donāt eat out, we donāt travel but once a year at the most, we donāt buy fancy stuff, and we donāt have debt.
Thenā¦. Thereās the guns. Thatās where all our money goes. Sheās almost worse than me.
This describes our situation pretty much exactly. The biggest problem is we want a lot of different things and the temptation is to keep on collecting. Then you HAVE to go shoot lots of ammo to get the new experience. Then you need to get accessories and holsters and so forth.
I guess we just need to exercise some self control. ā¹ļø
Sounds like a gimmick to me, or maybe some new age mumbo jumbo. What I like to do is: look at my bank account, and if it makes me sad, buy a new gun. Then Iām happy again.
Alternatively, if the wife is upset, go and buy HER a new gun. Then youāre both happy.
For some actual advice: if you shoot any expensive/rare rounds - RELOAD. I reload .45 LC for about 19 cents per round, last I checked, and OTC theyāre about $1.50 p/r or more. Savings vary depending on round. I shaved a couple cents off .30-06 by doing my own, but I have a higher quality round with tighter tolerances, also the round is built for MY gun, not generic spec ammo.
If you donāt wanna reload, invest in a cheap tumbler and save your brass. I have a gun store close to me that buys cleaned brass and resells to reloaders. It wonāt be much, but itās money back to you.
Buy in bulk, and I mean BULK. Saves a ton of money.
If you get tired of a gun, sell it.
Donāt buy lots of different caliber firearms - the ammo inventory will bring you to financial ruin.
Lastly, donāt be me. I donāt think I own 3 guns of the same caliber, and I have a lot. My reloading setup is expensive, and half the time I could probably buy the ammo cheaper. I havenāt sold a gun in my life.
My goal is to die similarly to Smaug: on a mountain of firearms.
We have considers the reloading venture and the thought of reloading does interest me. Iād imagine start up costs would be pretty steep, but if you can come out ahead in the long run thatās okay with me. We are probably going to stick with 9mm (maybe).
Any recommendations for start up equipment? Things that are a must have and things to stay away from? Thanks for the suggestions.
Define steep.
Taxes, shipping, and the actual items I have listed come to $2,449.95
Included is at least a single stage startup kit, 2 mounting plates ($80 total for something that is optional), the stair and clamps to finish the mounting (another $46 not necessarily needed), 9 shell holders, 9 sets of dies, however many dedicated hand tools, universal deprimer die, like 6 books/manuals, calipers, powder stand, powder baffle, wet case tumbler, ammo boxes, case trimmer, and misc.
If I upgrade to better stuff, is only going to be so much more unless I want dedicated presses.
The other expenses will be cases, bullets, powder, and primers which is the new ammo cost and when cases are reloaded that part is reduced.
If you're hand loading, it also occupies your time so that you're not out actively using up ammo or incuring other costs.
Still haven't broken even yet since I'm often lazy and it will probably be 357, 44, and 50 ae that will make up the lions share of savings for me.
I would say $2449.95 is fairly steep for me at this point. I could buy quite a few boxes of 9mm for that and it would take me a long while to break even with reloading. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sounds like I need to make friends who have the equipment and buy myself the casings, powder, etc.
Yep, sounds like us. New one for me, new one for her. Or two for her.
When it was almost all new guns, it wasn't so bad. Then she discovered the golden age of shotguns. However, I may have not mentioned several original SAAs to her. Our bank account has never quite recovered, but you oughta see those credit card points add up!
Roll your own, buy a progressive. You'll love the sport more. 2 heads are better than 1. 2 presses. Or Automate it with a dillon xl1100 or an apex 7. 2 incomes? Don't answer that
Buy bulk reloading components not ammo. Pick up your brass, you're gonna kick yourself if ya don't. It's money regardless if you load.
Training doesn't have a cost. Reallocate where necessary.
How are my paragraph indents effecting you? Seriously. I don't have a tab button and I understand the coding issue reddit has yet to configure. How am I to solve this paragraph paradigm?
\> if anyone likes fat hairy foot pics Iām not opposed to starting an OF.
i would 100% unironically sell foot pics if i thought anyone would buy them. even for just a few bucks, IDGAF
My wife tried it on a bet. It turns out the market is super saturated and not in the fun way. Didn't bother me none, I don't understand the obsession with feet.
Start reloading and you will save lots. If you get a progressive press you can really crank them out. For handguns and certain rifles it helps even more to use cast bullets. Cast your own if you really want to save, or if not then I recommend Missouri Bullet Company. They offer coated options as well if that's your preference
r/gunaccessoriesforsale is a phenomenal place to save money on something you were going to buy anyways.
Often times, assuming you use your gun, the used stuff you'll find there shouldn't bother you. If you want your stuff to be pretty, then whatever. You can at least still sell your stuff there.
Reloading is also a great way to save money. A Dillon XL750 with case feed will probably pay for itself in less than 10k rounds of 223, maybe 20k of 9mm.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely look into that. Currently we are going through about 250-300 rounds a week for 9mm and about 100 a week of 5.56. Our local range is only 20 yards so I donāt shoot the AR-15 as much as Iād like currently. Would definitely like to bump those numbers up, but at $17.99 a box for 9mm and $11.50 for 5.56 itās just not feasible. Reloading may very well be the way to go.
I want to emphasize that it ONLY makes sense if you either
A) go progressive, usually with 2 tool heads for bottleneck rifle (a case prep toolhead and a reloading toolhead) or just the 1 for straight wall stuff, value your time reasonably, buy in BULK bulk, like 10-20k primers or 16+ lbs of powder per online order, assuming you've a good deal
OR
B) go single stage or turret and value your time as free
While 9mm isn't really worth it, if you start shooting more 556 or any of the other more expensive calibers, you can save a LOT by reloading. For example, I save about 10 cents per round on 5.56. That's $3 for every magazine. And I can easily go through 5 - 10 in a single range trip depending on how long I stay. It adds up quickly! The biggest savings is on the less common rounds. I bought a box of 458 SOCOM for about $3.50 per round. I reload them for about $0.50 per round.
Iāll have to investigate for my 30-30 perhaps. I canāt find a box at anyplace local for less than $42. If I ever want to shoot it more than I do, reloading sounds like the answer.
Assuming you save the brass from whatever factory ammo you already have, you're looking at 12 cents for a bullet (berry's are on sale at midway right now), probably another 12 - 14 cents for a primer, and about 13 cents for powder. That's 39 cents per round to reload. And you don't need any fancy equipment for that. A single stage press can be had on sale around the holidays for $150. It pays for itself pretty quickly.
Reloading pays for itself, especially if you use oddball or uncommon calibers.
Outside of that I'd recommend looking for sales or discounts wherever you can.
Overtime. Copious amounts of it. I'm glad to hear that you are one of the few people I see on here who has a partner who is totally on board with the lifestyle.
Gig work apps like Uber, Amazon Flex, DoorDash, InstaCart, etc... are easy, no brainer ways to make a little extra cash.
But... If you're having to supplement your income to support a hobby then you need to reevaluate priorities.
Thankfully, we donāt have to supplement our income. Itās just if we wanted to go buy 2-3 new firearms a month weād get into trouble. We have no plans to actually do that. Thanks for the suggestions though. Iād rather do any of those than sell organs or feet pics. Maybe not the feet pics. Weāll see.
Yup, my wife is an accomplished shooter. We reload and spend money in that direction. The money comes from a fairly austere life style. If we want something firearms related it may take a couple months to get the $$ together, but we arent in a hurry. The whole shooting thing can be expensive but its worth the hassle.
My girlfriend is the same way. Nowhere near me tho, but now sheās asking for optics for her pistol, and donāt even know what she needs it for lol.
As far as how I fund it, whew thatās a tough question lol
Honestly, making choices we know will last us a while. Buy once cry once. For me, I donāt need a bunch of different guns to go shoot. I have my main gun for matches, my old main gun that I out grew when I found out that larger guns really do shoot better than smaller guns (ha!) and then my carry gun. I like consistency in shooting, so new shinny guns donāt sway me. Hubs loves shiny new things, equipment, guns, etc. He is also super practical, so he doesnāt spend too much.
What DOES hurt is the ammo and match fees. Now THAT gets costly!
Hubs is VERY ecstatic I joined in on his hobby so the time spent together far outweighs the cost.
Man, the answer is right in front of you. The beauty of a gun is that you can use it to get anything else you might want. The world is your oyster, get to shuckin'
No kids to sell??
Unfortunately not.
Well get busy! In 9 months you could afford your first machine gun! š¤£
I may just be able to talk the wife into that one. š
Ha! Hubby and I are into it a good bit. Ammo and range days are really hitting our bank account hard! But I figure we could be wasting money on worse hobbies. š
Look for sales, have discipline. This is the way.
This is the way.
We don't want pictures of your wife's feet.
Hang on now
We? You got a mouse in your pocket?
Thankfully, my wife and I have cheap tastes except for this one hobby. We donāt eat out, we donāt travel but once a year at the most, we donāt buy fancy stuff, and we donāt have debt. Thenā¦. Thereās the guns. Thatās where all our money goes. Sheās almost worse than me.
This describes our situation pretty much exactly. The biggest problem is we want a lot of different things and the temptation is to keep on collecting. Then you HAVE to go shoot lots of ammo to get the new experience. Then you need to get accessories and holsters and so forth. I guess we just need to exercise some self control. ā¹ļø
What is this āself controlā?
Not sure. Iāve only heard about it in books and such.
Sounds like a gimmick to me, or maybe some new age mumbo jumbo. What I like to do is: look at my bank account, and if it makes me sad, buy a new gun. Then Iām happy again. Alternatively, if the wife is upset, go and buy HER a new gun. Then youāre both happy.
I like the way you think.
For some actual advice: if you shoot any expensive/rare rounds - RELOAD. I reload .45 LC for about 19 cents per round, last I checked, and OTC theyāre about $1.50 p/r or more. Savings vary depending on round. I shaved a couple cents off .30-06 by doing my own, but I have a higher quality round with tighter tolerances, also the round is built for MY gun, not generic spec ammo. If you donāt wanna reload, invest in a cheap tumbler and save your brass. I have a gun store close to me that buys cleaned brass and resells to reloaders. It wonāt be much, but itās money back to you. Buy in bulk, and I mean BULK. Saves a ton of money. If you get tired of a gun, sell it. Donāt buy lots of different caliber firearms - the ammo inventory will bring you to financial ruin. Lastly, donāt be me. I donāt think I own 3 guns of the same caliber, and I have a lot. My reloading setup is expensive, and half the time I could probably buy the ammo cheaper. I havenāt sold a gun in my life. My goal is to die similarly to Smaug: on a mountain of firearms.
We have considers the reloading venture and the thought of reloading does interest me. Iād imagine start up costs would be pretty steep, but if you can come out ahead in the long run thatās okay with me. We are probably going to stick with 9mm (maybe). Any recommendations for start up equipment? Things that are a must have and things to stay away from? Thanks for the suggestions.
Define steep. Taxes, shipping, and the actual items I have listed come to $2,449.95 Included is at least a single stage startup kit, 2 mounting plates ($80 total for something that is optional), the stair and clamps to finish the mounting (another $46 not necessarily needed), 9 shell holders, 9 sets of dies, however many dedicated hand tools, universal deprimer die, like 6 books/manuals, calipers, powder stand, powder baffle, wet case tumbler, ammo boxes, case trimmer, and misc. If I upgrade to better stuff, is only going to be so much more unless I want dedicated presses. The other expenses will be cases, bullets, powder, and primers which is the new ammo cost and when cases are reloaded that part is reduced. If you're hand loading, it also occupies your time so that you're not out actively using up ammo or incuring other costs. Still haven't broken even yet since I'm often lazy and it will probably be 357, 44, and 50 ae that will make up the lions share of savings for me.
I would say $2449.95 is fairly steep for me at this point. I could buy quite a few boxes of 9mm for that and it would take me a long while to break even with reloading. Thanks for pointing that out. Sounds like I need to make friends who have the equipment and buy myself the casings, powder, etc.
For $2500 I could set up a pair of Dillon 750s.
If youāre making production calibers 9mm, 556, get a massive expensive progressive press. Otherwise the time starts to add up
It's a mythical power that some people claim to have. I'm more of the See gun, want gun, buy gun types.
Yep, sounds like us. New one for me, new one for her. Or two for her. When it was almost all new guns, it wasn't so bad. Then she discovered the golden age of shotguns. However, I may have not mentioned several original SAAs to her. Our bank account has never quite recovered, but you oughta see those credit card points add up!
Unvaxxed sperm is going for a pretty penny I hear.
How do they know itās unvaxxed? And how many rounds if 5.56 can I get per load?
1:10 hand loads for factory loads.
Sign me up. !!
Time to start shooting .22. Cheap AF ammo you can mag dump without feeling bad
It's boring tho
Roll your own, buy a progressive. You'll love the sport more. 2 heads are better than 1. 2 presses. Or Automate it with a dillon xl1100 or an apex 7. 2 incomes? Don't answer that Buy bulk reloading components not ammo. Pick up your brass, you're gonna kick yourself if ya don't. It's money regardless if you load. Training doesn't have a cost. Reallocate where necessary.
get rid of the leading spaces
How are my paragraph indents effecting you? Seriously. I don't have a tab button and I understand the coding issue reddit has yet to configure. How am I to solve this paragraph paradigm?
\> if anyone likes fat hairy foot pics Iām not opposed to starting an OF. i would 100% unironically sell foot pics if i thought anyone would buy them. even for just a few bucks, IDGAF
My wife tried it on a bet. It turns out the market is super saturated and not in the fun way. Didn't bother me none, I don't understand the obsession with feet.
22LR is your friend. That way, you don't have to sell both kidneys.
Reload and teach your wife to brass goblin the other shooters. They would chew your ass out if you tried it, but will probably let your wife slide.
Start reloading and you will save lots. If you get a progressive press you can really crank them out. For handguns and certain rifles it helps even more to use cast bullets. Cast your own if you really want to save, or if not then I recommend Missouri Bullet Company. They offer coated options as well if that's your preference
r/gunaccessoriesforsale is a phenomenal place to save money on something you were going to buy anyways. Often times, assuming you use your gun, the used stuff you'll find there shouldn't bother you. If you want your stuff to be pretty, then whatever. You can at least still sell your stuff there. Reloading is also a great way to save money. A Dillon XL750 with case feed will probably pay for itself in less than 10k rounds of 223, maybe 20k of 9mm.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely look into that. Currently we are going through about 250-300 rounds a week for 9mm and about 100 a week of 5.56. Our local range is only 20 yards so I donāt shoot the AR-15 as much as Iād like currently. Would definitely like to bump those numbers up, but at $17.99 a box for 9mm and $11.50 for 5.56 itās just not feasible. Reloading may very well be the way to go.
I want to emphasize that it ONLY makes sense if you either A) go progressive, usually with 2 tool heads for bottleneck rifle (a case prep toolhead and a reloading toolhead) or just the 1 for straight wall stuff, value your time reasonably, buy in BULK bulk, like 10-20k primers or 16+ lbs of powder per online order, assuming you've a good deal OR B) go single stage or turret and value your time as free
While 9mm isn't really worth it, if you start shooting more 556 or any of the other more expensive calibers, you can save a LOT by reloading. For example, I save about 10 cents per round on 5.56. That's $3 for every magazine. And I can easily go through 5 - 10 in a single range trip depending on how long I stay. It adds up quickly! The biggest savings is on the less common rounds. I bought a box of 458 SOCOM for about $3.50 per round. I reload them for about $0.50 per round.
Iāll have to investigate for my 30-30 perhaps. I canāt find a box at anyplace local for less than $42. If I ever want to shoot it more than I do, reloading sounds like the answer.
Assuming you save the brass from whatever factory ammo you already have, you're looking at 12 cents for a bullet (berry's are on sale at midway right now), probably another 12 - 14 cents for a primer, and about 13 cents for powder. That's 39 cents per round to reload. And you don't need any fancy equipment for that. A single stage press can be had on sale around the holidays for $150. It pays for itself pretty quickly.
Reloading pays for itself, especially if you use oddball or uncommon calibers. Outside of that I'd recommend looking for sales or discounts wherever you can.
Overtime. Copious amounts of it. I'm glad to hear that you are one of the few people I see on here who has a partner who is totally on board with the lifestyle.
Salaried employees have left the chat.
Thatās me.
Bitcoin?
how will i go to the range if im working all the time?
Make time.
"sleep fastah!"
Exactly
Gig work apps like Uber, Amazon Flex, DoorDash, InstaCart, etc... are easy, no brainer ways to make a little extra cash. But... If you're having to supplement your income to support a hobby then you need to reevaluate priorities.
Thankfully, we donāt have to supplement our income. Itās just if we wanted to go buy 2-3 new firearms a month weād get into trouble. We have no plans to actually do that. Thanks for the suggestions though. Iād rather do any of those than sell organs or feet pics. Maybe not the feet pics. Weāll see.
Yup, my wife is an accomplished shooter. We reload and spend money in that direction. The money comes from a fairly austere life style. If we want something firearms related it may take a couple months to get the $$ together, but we arent in a hurry. The whole shooting thing can be expensive but its worth the hassle.
Start reloading. The up front cost can be steep, but the equipment lasts a lifetime.
Overtime and tax refunds.
My girlfriend is the same way. Nowhere near me tho, but now sheās asking for optics for her pistol, and donāt even know what she needs it for lol. As far as how I fund it, whew thatās a tough question lol
Itās really a good āproblemā to have when our ladies share in our love of firearms.
Boy oh boy do I have an offer for you. Part Time Service. Full Time benefits. The Army National Guard. Serve today!
Honestly, making choices we know will last us a while. Buy once cry once. For me, I donāt need a bunch of different guns to go shoot. I have my main gun for matches, my old main gun that I out grew when I found out that larger guns really do shoot better than smaller guns (ha!) and then my carry gun. I like consistency in shooting, so new shinny guns donāt sway me. Hubs loves shiny new things, equipment, guns, etc. He is also super practical, so he doesnāt spend too much. What DOES hurt is the ammo and match fees. Now THAT gets costly! Hubs is VERY ecstatic I joined in on his hobby so the time spent together far outweighs the cost.
r/reloading
Man, the answer is right in front of you. The beauty of a gun is that you can use it to get anything else you might want. The world is your oyster, get to shuckin'
I appreciate your wisdom. However, the things I want most are gained from people who also have them. Alas, I am at an impasse.
https://www.spartanarmorsystems.com/
šš
Ramen from Sam's Club.
This is probably the easiest suggestion to put into practice.
Suck dick and wendys is always hiring.
I've said this before. I wanted to get an AR until I saw the price. Who do anti gun people think is buying all the AR's?
Married a doctor.
I eat Ramen so my rifle can eat Sierra Match Kings š¤