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So I am looking into reloading for both rifles and handguns, and in anticipation of the purchase of a K31 rifle as well as for my existing PA-63 (in 9x18 Makarov), am looking at reloading costs.

Holy cow, is rifle brass expensive. I'm looking at prices on the Midway site, and the only available brand is Norma. The description claims that this is superior quality brass. So I check ammo prices, and it seems like it's considerably cheaper to simply buy Wolf or Prvi Partizan and shoot it than it is to buy new brass.

The Prvi Partizan loaded ammo goes for $11.99/box of 20 and the Wolf at $14.99/box of 20. Norma brass by itself costs $19.99/box of 20. Is the difference in quality as drastic as the pricing here? Midway has no listings for bullets for this caliber, but from reading elsewhere, .308 bullets are what you use. 170-180 grain spitzers seems to be the normal load for this caliber, and $20/100 seems to be about the normal price for these. Loading from new brass puts the cost at $1.20/round for bullets and brass alone. Loaded Prvi Partizan comes in at $0.60/round and the Wolf comes in at $0.75/round for comparison.

I'm finding the same situation with 9x18 Makarov, though to a lesser degree. Since this handgun ammo has gone up in price along with everything else and it's getting harder to find brass-cased ammo in this caliber, I thought it might be prudent to look into reloading this as well. I can buy S&B loaded ammo locally for $13.99/box, which comes out to 28 cents/round. Midway has Starline 9x18 Makarov brass for $15.99/100. The cheapest bullets they have are actually Hornady XTP, which go for $11.49/100. Not including the relatively neglegible costs of powder and primers, this makes for 27.5 cents/round. It hardly seems worth it to buy new brass to save half a cent per round, and even that would be lost in powder and primer costs, as well as the labor it would take to reload.

Obviously, once you shoot, you have brass to reload, and costs go way down. It's a lot easier to start a brass collection by simply collecting brass at the range, but the calibers I'm talking about aren't exactly something you find laying around every day - so that's not so much an option for me. My real question is this: unless they're loading for precision shooting (which I can't imagine anyone doing for a Makarov or K31), why would anyone ever buy new brass for these calibers?

You need to make sure your brass is reloadable with the K31. Originally K31 used ammo with a primer that is different from what we normally use in the US, a Berdan primer I think. So if you buy K31 ammo and aren't careful you may be buying ammo with the wrong kind of primer, which in turn makes it difficult to reload. Buy brass generally eliminates the problem since it is generally made for the common primer, I think its called a boxer primer. Having said that, I buy Wolf ammo on Midway which has the boxer primer. Or you can buy ammo from Graf's that also has the boxer primer.

As far as 9X18 goes, none of the once-fired-brass internet sites that I frequent lists it. You best bet is to simply start your own pool of it by saving all your fired brass. If you simply have to start reloading for it now, then bite the bullet and spring for a hundred rounds of new brass.

If you shoot something else that you don't want to reload, you may be able to cut a deal with a range for swapping it for any 9X18 once fired brass they might have on hand. Be careful of this, though, because some of the range fodder they might have might be steel cased.

stroo wrote:You need to make sure your brass is reloadable with the K31.

Only the Swiss military surplus GP-11 ammo is berdan-primed. All other 7.5x55 brass is boxer-primed.

I got into a goodly supply of Hornady and Graf's brass for the K31. IIRC, Graf's -makes- Hornday's brass, so it's basically the same stuff.

Checking Graf's website ( http://www.grafs.com/ ), I don't see any of their in-house production brass for the Swiss right now, but they've got Prvi brass for $37/100. It's the same brass used in the Wolf Gold line.

by my calculations it is cheaper to buy factory ammo, than to buy the components and make it yourself. for example, if you shoot 9mm or 45 it's probably cheaper to buy a case of Winchester and pick up your brass.

Mil-Surp is typically BERDAN and not reloadable..