to spend a minimum of $200, and that is for absolutely minimal reloading.
In early November 2004, you could purchase a box of 25 12-gauge 2-3/4-inch Kent Multi-Sport Game & Clay shells for $3.95 from Ballistic Products. For $200, you can buy 50 boxes (less shipping) of these Kent shells for the about the same price that you can begin reloading! And how long will it take you to shoot 50 boxes of shells? Economically, the decision to begin reloading may not make sense for you at this time, if ever.
The infrequent shooter would be better off saving his money and either ordering from the internet or picking up a box of shells at his local dealer on his way to the range. Sleuthing through the aisles of a Box-Mart, you may turn up an occasional, miscellaneous $2.95 box of #7-1/2 or #8, often of foreign or unknown manufacture. There will be no telling in advance where it will have been produced or how it will perform. Some brands do not list velocities or give much specific information about components on their boxes.
When you shoot a muzzleloader, every shot is handloaded. The advent of breechloading guns in the nineteenth century allowed for factory production of complete shells.
One reason many shotgunners give for reloading shotshells is to save money. You can save money by reloading. Perhaps a better reason however is so that you can take personal charge of the loading process. You can customize loads and build shells to suit your gun’s mechanical preferences, and for the weather conditions.
I have never been certain that low cost is a good reason to buy something, although until I win the lottery, it remains a factor in most of my buying decisions. The saying caveat emptor applies with shotshells just like it does with automobiles or hunting dogs. On the other hand, if you shoot often – and “often” means once or twice a week, I suppose, firing half-a-dozen boxes of shells – you can certainly save money by reloading. You will soon bring the cost of your average load down to $2 or even less as you locate cost-effective vendors for buying raw materials in bulk, re-use your own hulls and perhaps even reload for a couple of friends. All of this amortizes the cost of your gear rapidly, even though most reloaders find that he or she soon buys more complex gear, experiments with more diverse loads, shoots more frequently and perhaps even builds a reloading room off the carport or in the basement.
Practically speaking, the people who shoot often enough to get the best value out of their reloading gear are usually target shooters: trap, skeet and sporting clays enthusiasts. To become good at these games, to consistently break 90 percent or more of thrown clays, often takes years of practice, lessons and continuous shooting. In the process, enthusiasts shove a whole lot of shells into the chamber, a minimum of several boxes every trip to the range. A day of sporting clays shooting can be 100 birds and many shooters like to warm up with a quick, 25-round of 5-Stand or even a game of wobble trap. Outings like this empty six boxes of shells in a hurry, perhaps twice that if the shooter is addicted to multiple gauges!
Personally, I think that the people who enjoy shooting most and who stick with it the longest, making it a lifetime sport, are those who have a diverse range of interests. They are clay shooters and they are hunters, too. Reloading is ideal (for many reasons) for these committed gunners.
Let’s be honest. Unless someone has a great deal of time and hunts every game bird at every possible opportunity, from turkey to dove and ducks, with a few trips to the deer woods thrown in with slugs or buckshot, the average legal and ethical hunter will not shoot half-a-dozen boxes of shells a year. Therefore, unless a shotgun hunter is a really lousy shot, the best economic decision is to NOT reload.
The hunter-only gunner should study game loads, pattern his shotguns, and then buy the very best shells he can find because, by pulling the trigger so few times a year, relatively speaking, he can afford to pay almost any price for a box of high quality shells. In this case, $18 for a box of 10 magnum buffered 2-3/4-inch Bismuth No-Tox shells is not an economic hardship. You will not shoot enough times during a year to make a recognizable dent in your family budget.
A 12-gauge shotgun is the standard in North America and perhaps around the world as well. There are still plenty of 10 gauges and millions of sub-gauge 16-, 20-, 28- and 410-bore guns in the hands of shooters, though. Folks who shoot sub-gauges – because they enjoy the challenge, prefer the softer recoil, or perhaps because they’re training a spouse or youngster usually find that shell costs are higher than for their 12-gauge. For instance, for Winchester AA 2-3/4-inch #9 target loads from CheaperThanDirt.com, 12- and 20-gauge boxes of 25 shells cost $5.51 whereas 25-shell boxes of 28-gauge and 410 bore are $6.53. That’s a difference of $1.02 per box or 4¢ a shell. Shoot the day of sporting clays with a practice event that we mentioned earlier and the difference per gun can be as much as $6.12. Depending upon how much you and your family shoot, this difference can quickly become significant and can be an influential factor in deciding whether to reload.
Since his retirement as an official of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, biologist Don Friberg has had more time to hunt. For cornfield shooting where long shots are customary, #5 shot makes a good knock-down load. For hunting with dogs in open grassland, #6 is fine and if your dog hunts close, perhaps even #7-1/2.
Even though you would logically think that bigger shells containing more powder and more shot would cost more, this is not the case. Does a bikini cost more than a one-piece bathing suit, even though it requires far less cloth? All things being equal (same manufacturer and similar quality of cloth and production methods), the bikini costs more. The laws of supply and demand inform us that because many more 12-gauge shells are purchased than sub-gauge shells, manufacturers gear up their primary production for the 12-gauge. Although sub-gauge shells are not necessarily be an afterthought – they are still commercially important – they will be secondary on the assembly line and sold in smaller volume. Hence, sub-gauge shells cost more.
As far as savings are concerned, you can reasonably argue that reloading shells saves time and effort. Consider going to the store for a $10 box of Federal #4 turkey loads. Depending on your home set-up and reloading accessories, you may be able to punch out half-a-dozen turkey shells and then re-set the bar for your #7-1/2 or #8 league trap loads in 10 minutes. That’s convenience!
Clay target shooters have a reputation for shooting many more shells than hunters. On a good day of deer hunting you may shoot one or two times. A dove hunter could use two boxes of shells to take his limit if there is a breeze. A sporting clays shooter, however, will burn up five boxes of shells on a normal day!
CONTROL, CONVENIENCE AND EXPERIMENTATION
I believe that a much better reason to reload than making a decision solely on the cost of a box of shells is that manufacturing your own gives you greater control over your shooting. If you are a careful reloader – and you should not approach a reloading press in any other manner – you can produce loads that are completely consistent from one shell to another. Consistency is important to groove your shooting and to give you the confidence that when you pull the trigger, you know exactly where your shot will go (how it will pattern) and how quickly it will arrive where you have pointed it.
Once you identify your needs and shooting interests, you can easily program your reloading gear to produce the exact shells you need. Reloading gives you both consistency and versatility. It is quick and easy to make changes and to build, for instance, a dozen shells to experiment with a new load recipe or put together a dozen shells for an unexpected afternoon of pheasant hunting where a limit of birds is two. If you are shooting a course of sporting clays and find it irritating to change screw-in chokes between stations, you can load up different batches of #7-1/2, #8, #8-1/2 and even #9s. Knowing the course, you know the diversity of clay presentations