I like how straight forward this is. As someone who is looking into reloading 300 blackout this is pretty sweet. I’d love to cast my own lead and all that could be fun.
300blk, its got to be the most versatile rifle round ever , free brass, any 30 cal bullet, or scrap lead casted, pistol powder, or even black powder if need be. its got to be on any preppers list as a must have rifle or upper.
This is pretty much what I'm already doing - remanufactured 223 range brass and my powder coated heavy cast lead bullets. I stocked up on powder and primers a long time ago, so I'm probably under six cents per round. I buy nice lead because as much as I like doing it all myself, I'm not that interested in running a lead smelting operation in the suburbs, but I save almost all of the penny from the HiTech coating. Powder coat is essentially free. I'm fairly sure that I'm shooting 300 BLK ammo that's cheaper than the cheapest bulk pack 22LR. I have a lot more trouble casting .223 bullets. I love shooting an AR in 300 BLK. Cheap. Fun. Awesome. Pick any three.
If this guy would have added 10 seconds to the video with a quick presentation how well his bullets shoot, this would have been a 10 out of 10 video. Now I have to rate it 9.995 out of 10. Great stuff! Thanks for sharing.
Man, looking back at those prices is crazy. I didn't know Cabela's even carried S&B primers, I use to work there. I only ever seen CCI, Winchester, and Federal primers.
Pretty awesome info! It's nice that he shows the bare-bones cheapest way to do things so you can kind of pick and choose according to your budget of time and money which parts of the process are worth it to you. Keep it up!
Free lead has become scarce, but if you consider your time to be valuable, I have two tips. 1: Just buy it at a scrap yard. At least one of the metal recyclers near you will probably sell lead for around 30 cents a pound. Moreover, you can get lucky and get Linotype or other hard alloy lead for that price. 2: Let all your friends know you are looking for lead. Repeatedly. Eventually, when they clear out grampa's garage and find some, they will think of you. Contractors who do roofing or plumbing tend to think of lead pipes, gaskets and sheeting as a hazardous nuisance that takes them an extra trip to get rid of. Your contractor friends might call you to haul away 300lbs of pretty much pure lead for free, in a format that melts extra easy. Finally, get either a lee lead tester, or look up the video I have on how to use art pencils to determine lead hardness. Consistent hardness is the key to good cast bullets.
I wish I could get free lead, but under $1/lb for unsorted wheel weights works out to only a couple cents per round for projectiles in the 200gr range.
go to a public range (BLM land type) during the work week in the morning and check the impact area. No need to even dig. Then youtube how to reclaim lead from fired bullets
Sir Lancealot go to the gas station and ask for tire weights......gas stations always have a bucket of old tire weights.They aren't allowed to toss them in garbage so they collect them and pay to dump them
Great stuff! Loved the cameos from the old pot and the muffin pan. Those two items tell me you really know how to scrimp and save, just don’t let the wife see this video.
I just got recommended this and I was so confused how he was finding primers off-the-shelf at Cabelas. Made so much more sense when I realized this was 4 years ago.
Fast forward to 2021, what was once 6c/round is now 18c/round. Not to minimize the info in the video. It's just that primers are hard to find now and people are paying a premium for them. Thanks for the video, sir!
I have to buy my lead, otherwise that’s pretty darn cheap! Last time I loaded ammo for six cents apiece was in the early two thousands. Primers were a penny a piece but I was competing and with larger charges so the powder put me there. Glad to see other enthusiasts that are money conscious (cheap) like me! Great video!
hey could you go through and do a detailed tutorial on this? I would love to know how you go about the neccessary parts and materials that you need to do to get a bullet. I'm trying to get into the reloading game and I wanna get plink and shtf ammo.
10 Cents a primer now. 100 bucks a K. Powder is around 30-35 bucks pound. Melting pot is 80 bucks that cutter and jig is around 60 bucks. Thrown in a bullet mold, 40.00 bucks and a bullet lube Sizer and dies you're looking at 250.00. That one round now cost over 465.00 bucks! You can find lots of this on Ebay used and save some money. I cast and reload all my stuff and have all this equipment.
This video is 7 years old as I write this, but this video is still relevant as 300 Blackout is more expensive than ever. Subsonic ammunition is around $80 a box of 20 in Australia, double USA prices, I have about 40 lbs of lead from roofing flashing and old sewage pipe (not looking forward to melting it) Time to buy a cheap reloading kit.
Yeah. Does not include the $1000's worth of stuff I have to reload, cast and powder coat, plus the time involved. I love reloading, but it doesn't really save money. It just allows more shooting.
As someone who wants to get more trigger time on my ARs & as someone who hasn’t reloaded before, but wants to get into it, this video is great. I have found some beginner kits for around $500, even on amazon. I would like to get 5.56, .300, and 9mm setup. I don’t mind paying for brass, though I think it can be had cheap at the range or even ebay. I hadn’t thought of molding my own bullets, that’s pretty awesome! Local tire shop would be a great source for the lead. So, yeah getting into this fresh, the first few boxes worth would be expensive, but then the price would average out pretty cheap after ~1000 rounds.
Great video - fast, funny and informative! I was born without the patience for this type of activity, but I'd love to ask my wife, "Honey are you using the muffin pan today? I need to make some lead ingots." LOL.
The follow up: How to make subsonic 300 BLK for 6 cents / rd in 2022. Step 1, build a time machine... I think with these methods you're looking at a bare minimum of about 17-18 cents / rd. Buying good economical bullets like Berry's I feel like I'm doing pretty good at about 50 cents / rd. With the 238 gr torpedoes from Missouri Bullet Company I can get it down to about 35 cents / rd.
That'd right guys, I cast my own 220gr bullets, so with today's primer cost between 10- 14 cents and powder I'm all in averaging $ 210- 240 per thousand. Still a hella lot better than over $1K per case for factory loaded ammo. Guys gotta have money to burn these days to afford to practice with factory ammo. Sure aint me lol.
I've reloaded 220 subs using leatherhead bullets, seating this shape of bullet makes a big difference in whether they will go into battery, more so than the 220 SMK I use.
Time is usually more valuable than materials. Would be a good idea to factor time to hunt down all this free stuff, gas, tools etc. What does that work out to? Just wondering.
I met a guy yesterday at Blain's Farm and Fleet who was complaining about the lack of 38 special ammo, and when I started to explain to him how inexpensive the reloading dies were and how little the brass, bullets, powder and primers would cost and how easy it is to reload 38 Special, he got upset because he didn't want to go through all the trouble of loading said ammo. That's a shame as its one of the simplest rounds to reload too. I also have a 38 S&W and that brass is expensive, so I buy 38 SPL and cut it down to make 38 S&W!
I purchase brass, powder, primers, and paid a lot for some top of the line high SD bullets, and even then I saved a bunch over the cost of store purchased ammo! If I shoot them and reload the brass, that makes the cost of brass 1/2 of what I paid, and brass that is shot subsonic should last a good long while.
I don’t know if you have the resources but I would love to see the projectile fired in slow motion from the muzzle. The reason being, I want to see if the coating actually stays on the projectile after it is fired and travels through the barrel and suppressor. Jacketed projectiles are a non issues but if the coating is scored as it travels, then the back pressure caused by the suppressor, or any gas system really, will just blow lead particles straight into your face. And I don’t really feel like wearing a respirator while I shoot.
At most rifle ranges you can ask guys for their 5.56 brass.its inevitable there will be a couple AR shooters and they always leave it.As long as you ask the shooter you shouldnt get in trouble for stealing range brass.
I value my time but plenty of people are willing to trade their time to save money on something like this, and now with the current situation this may be the only option for some.
I have heard of people having issues with lead-cast 300 BLK subsonics, such as their gas rings becoming welded together with lead and poor accuracy. Have you had any issues shooting your own cast subs vs store-bought or reloading with copper-jacketed projectiles?
That’s great you can do that that cheap, but my time is more valuable than that! I usually have a thousand to two thousand rounds or so ready for my AR at any giving time. If I get a 300 blackout I’m sure I can easily buy at least 500 rds...if I need more than that then we’re probably fuct to begin with! I guess I’m saying I’m not really a “prepper”. Lol 😆👍🏻
Interesting choice of powder and primer. Never looked at H110, does it cycle subsonic without suppressor? And then the SP primers... Lets start with flame propagation. .300 internal cavity is pretty small so we are at least not trying to fill a massive cavity BUT, at 8 gr a load you still have a lot of gap inside your case for powder to slop around in. Do you find a lot of variance when you chrono? Then wall thickness. Are your primers bulging or pushing out? Hodgdons handy reloading center puts H110 at a smooth 32 900 PSI which should actually be pretty doable for an SPP. Have you tried loading these primers with a faster/higher pressure powder? I ask because we are struggling for primers at the moment and i happen to have a few hundred S&B SPP left in my pistol kit, if i can use them without risk that would be fantastic. Finally. Of the brass that i have available only a few dozen chinese 556 cases converted to 300 without out-of-spec issues at the neck. Are you finding a lot of failure to feed issues with converted brass? Not sure how much tolerance there is supposed to be in a 300 chamber here but even if it chambers the variance here is surely going to effect consistancy? This again will fall back to your chrono results with converted brass...
@@rossdonaghy1748 everything has a draw back. 300 blackout used power sooo efficiency, conpare the grains used vs a 44mag and notice how much more kinetic energy you have using h110 at same grain load. Night & day. Of course comes at the cost of needed ridiculous spin. More spin, more friction, more leading, more attention needed. That being said the trade offs are worth it.
You forgot to factor in the cost of electricity to melt your lead, potentially gas to go get brass, and primers have now doubled in price. And you lightly mentioned equipment... dies and press, priming tool, your brass making tools, measuring tools, lead melting pot, and bullet mold. Sure you can amortize the cost of that equipment over the rounds you make but it’s going to take a few hundred rounds before that’s accounted for. I enjoy reloading myself but I just have to laugh when people think it’s some how some incredible cost savings, when for your average shooter the cost of the equipment far exceeds a year’s cost of ammo for them.
It takes a lot of consistent heat to melt led. Heat isn't free you didn't calculate that. Then there three fumes that will eventually kill you so the cost of a funeral needs to be added in.
Elijah, do you have any leads on some place for a hollow point mold? I've looked at NOE after seeing your video and couldnt find anything. Google search wasnt very helpful with anything thats actually sold either.
So subsonic is based off a heavier and slower projectile correct? What about a load to make black tip loads into subsonic ammo? Would you even be able to do it? Id love to see a ballistics test of it For say a .300aac-blk & .308. I dont want to try it but its always made me wonder.
