What are peoples' costs for reloading .44 Magnum

[Tiktock]

I just bought a .44 Mag and will hopefully be reloading by the springtime. I have been running numbers and I am having difficulty trying to spec out loads and components that make reloading worthwhile. Most specs i see by people put brass cost at free, but there arent many people who throw out .44 mag cases at my range.....

Who here relaods .44, and what loads/components are you using? I'd like to cost everything out to figure out if ill even shoot enough .44 to make reloading pay for itself in less than 5 years

I also know it will be a huge advantage to be able to play with loads with a .44 mag, where i can load small .44 special plinking loads all the way up to full power loads (dan wessons supposedly can handle pretty much any .44 mag load you can create as they are beefier than a blackhawk)

 

[dwarven1]

Buy some factory ammo for your first bits of brass. Also, check eBay - I don't know if they've banned brass or not, but if they have, try some of the other auction sites.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Buy some factory ammo for your first bits of brass. Also, check eBay - I don't know if they've banned brass or not, but if they have, try some of the other auction sites.

Ebay has banned brass case sales.

Since you live in a free state, I suggest you visit www.starlinebrass.com and pick up new high quality brass .44 Mag cases for $137.35/1000 or $78.95/500. If you're careful, you'll get many loadings out of them. It will, in the long run, end up being cheaper than buying factory ammo and reloading the brass. Another benefit is that your cases will all be the same length, which is important when you're crimping revolver rounds.

If you want light loads, you can get 240gr plated bullets for about $120/1000 or lead for $65/1000. For full power loads, you can find decent quality jacketed bullets for less than $150/1000.

 

[dwarven1]

Yeah, they said that they were going to ban everything "that helped a gun fire a shot", but you can still get grips, stockes, etc... I just didn't know how far their hypocrisy extended.

 

[EddieCoyle]

Also, if you want to load the big boomers, you're going to need to spend about $100/1000 for powder and primers. If you buy new brass, use good bullets, and load heavy, your cost will be about $400/1000 the first time through, then $250 or so for each additional loading.

Plinking reloads (using your previously fired brass) with lead bullets will cost you about $110/1000.

 

[Tiktock]

$400/1000 would actually still be relatively cheap in comparison to factory ammo. I cant find much less than 28$ per 50 unless i want to use really dirty ammo....so at that cost, it would run me $560/1000.....ill shoot factory until i can afford a reloading setup and by that time, i should have plenty of brass to load. Once i get bit of freed up money, ill start looking at reloading setups and used stuff at shops.

Thanks for the info!

 

[BIG GUN]

I do a lot of 44mag shooting. I used to load hot stuff, mostly cast bullets, but now have settled on 10 grains of either Unique, or Universal, yeilding around 1050 fps or so, and very accurate.
I cast and use either a 250 grain Thompson gas check Keith style semi wadcutter, or plain base bullet. wheel weights work well, but for the full house stuff, I use linotype.
Cost is around a $0.5 per round once you have the brass.

 

[1776]

44

Has anyone loaded 44 for Cowboy Action Shoots using Triple 7 and cast lead?

 

[Buckster]

Cost of relaoding

I found a spread sheet last year that does an excellent job of calculating the cost of reloading and is very easy to use, you just input the values, cost of heads, primer cost, 1lb powder cost etc.. it will tell you how much for reloading a box of pistol, rifle & shotgun shells. PM me if you would like a copy of it.