Any savings to be had with reloading 9mm on hand press?

[OKCHunter]

The ideal approach is to have the reloading components on hand in case of supply disruption /ammo shortages but to shoot factory when it is plentiful and cheap. A side benefit to shooting factory ammo during the "good times" is you can add to your brass supply for when times are tough.

 

[NikatKimber]

If you shoot brass, you can beat it by quite a bit reloading. Like mentioned above, if you shoot cheap steel cased ammo, it's much tighter. I just did a quick comp, and you can beat steel cased 9mm and .223 by about $25 or so per thousand rounds.

No way in the world I would load 1000 rounds of 9mm or .223 on a hand press for $25.

However, you start looking at more specialty rounds, the equation changes. If you want to shoot 147gr 9mm, I can beat that by $50-$60 per thousand. I'd spend a weeknight on my progressive to save $50. But I can knock out a k in about 3 hours or so if I already have the brass ready. But if the brass isn't prepped, you can add 50% more time (double for rifle brass, especially mil 5.56) to prep a thousand rounds.

So if you include the time, if you value the time more than about $10-12/hr, you're losing money. For me, that time would likely be spent watching TV or browsing OSA anyways, so not like I'm going to be making money during that time.

 

[glowworm]

I've just got into reloading and only reload .38 specials so far but have been thinking of getting some 9mm does. Trouble is 9mm is so cheap already and I'm not sure if it's even worth it. Anybody have experience with this? I'm using a Lee hand press.

If you are using a hand press, I'm thinking that reloading 9mm is a poor idea economically. If you enjoy doing it, then so be it, but your time is worth something, and the number of rounds you can crank out with a hand press is pretty darn small per hour. While there are sure to be folks that disagree, I see a hand press best used for those few rounds you need to be perfect, developing loads at the range, and I suppose, also for those without the funds to do it any other way. Watch a couple videos of a well run progressive cranking out 9mm reloads and you'll have a hard time cranking that press to resize/decap, flare, seat, and crimp.