Seeley Swan Pathfinder by Philip Gregory 6/13/2019
I know most of you reading this do not hand load your own ammo. Let me attempt to convince you that you should. These are my reasons.
First is always economy. It doesn't matter what cartridge you want to load, once you have the empty cartridge case, that you will throw or give away if you don't reload it, you will be able to load it for at least a 50 percent savings. If you cast your own bullets (primarily for handgun cartridges) the savings is approximately 90 percent.
I have saved ammo components all my life. I am still loading and shooting powder I bought 30 years ago. You can imagine what I paid for the powder at that time. Who knows what components or factory ammo will cost 10 or 20 years from now or if they will be available. You can buy components at today's prices and use them 10 or 20 years from now when the prices may be even more outrageous than they are now.
Second. Once you have all the equipment you need to load one cartridge, all you need to load the next cartridge is a set of dies (cost $36) and a shell holder (cost $10). You might not need the shell holder because many cartridges use the same one.
More:
https://www.seeleylake.com/story/2019/06/13/opinion/should-you-handload-your-own-ammo/4911.htmlBack in the 70's when I got serious about learning pistol marksmanship I would shoot a box of 50 of my reloads every week. We shot at one of the many sand pits. After each shoot I would pick up the bullets that the rain would bring to the surface. No telling how many times those bullets would be remelted, cast, lubed, loaded and shot again. I was loading 38 Specials for cheaper than the cheapest .22s were going for. My load was 3.2gr of Bullseye pushing a cast 158gr. bullet. I was using an undersize Unique mold that didn't require any sizing. And I was doing "Pan and Cookie Cutter" lubing. My cases(range surplus) were lasting almost forever. My major expense was the primers I was buying by the 1,000s.
