Cyrano4747
Well-known member
I haven't updated my spreadsheet in a while, and component costs have absolutely gone up in the last ~5 years or so, but this should still be ballpark enough accurate for conversation. When I last updated my component/reloaded cartridge cost spreadsheet (what, you don't have one of those?) the costs for my 8mm Mauser Varget load were as follows:
Brass: $.56
Powder (47gr Varget, price calculated based on the cost of a 12lb jug five or six years ago when I bought a bunch): $.17
Bullet (150gr Speer Hot Cor, bought a ton on sale, I'm now using more expensive bullets because I ran out those cheap ones so this is more these days): $.21
Primer (oh my god I'm glad I bought 10k primers back when I did): $.03
My cost per round if I'm using new brass is about $.97, and my CPR with reloaded brass is about $.41. I peg that against whatever I can find for cheap commercial, back when I put this sheet together it was Prvi at ~$.70/rd, although I think that's about double now. Generally speaking if I can reload with used brass for cheaper than the lower tiers of brass cased commercial, I do that, and if new brass ends up being more expensive than commercial I just buy commercial and re-use those cases for my own loads.
But larger point being, the powder is a fraction of the cost. Usually about half of the projectile cost, and that's assuming used brass. If you're already pulling the bullet to ditch the dodgy brass you're already well into territory where the powder cost is getting dwarfed by other components.
edit: Ok, I just looked up varget and apparently Powder Valley actually has some. $316 per 8 lb jug instead of the ~$200 I bought my stash for, which hurts, but that's not insane. 7000 grains per lb * 8 = 56,000 grains in a jug, which makes the $316 jug (ignoring shipping, hazmat, let's assume a local buy) come out to $.0056 per grain. Multiply by 47 and the current cost for my reloads would be $.27 per shot.
Still half the cost of a new case, and still cheaper than the ~$.30/projectile that you find most 170-200gn 8mm mauser at when it's not on sale (quickly googling and I can confirm that I'm seeing Prvi projectiles - not the best but usable - for $.36 without looking hard. I could probably do better with a little shopping around).
Basically it's not worth saving a quarter per trigger pull for me to deal with mystery meat powder.