I have been reloading since the mid-1960’s. I reload for everything I shoot. Also cast the bullets for many of them. I form cases for a few of them. Cost per shot ranges from about 15 cents to about 50 cents each.
I have been asked many times to sell some (especially after Sandy Hook), but I have ALWAYS turned them down. I don’t need the liability.
I knew a guy many years ago (Pre Dillon progressive presses) who had a Class 4 license. He and a few other Class 4 licensees got together, bought a farm to shoot on and a Hollywood progressive press to supply their guns. They owned a number of legal machine guns between them. He said that they could afford to buy a farm, machine guns, and a progressive press, but they could NOT afford to feed their guns with store bought ammunition.
I asked him if he could reload 600 of them per hour like the sales literature said. He said that it could be done, but there had to be one guy pulling the handle, one guy loading the primers in the tube, and one guy loading cases into their tube in order to make that happen. Otherwise, the loading was much slower because you had to stop every 10-15 minutes to supply (refill) the machine. Most of the time they had a get-together (a reloading party) to reload their ammunition. Everybody worked. From memory, they only loaded for 9mm and 45ACP.
Our daughter and son-in-law gave us some deer jerky at Christmas; he shot the deer with a cartridges that he reloaded. I also reload cartridges and cast bullets. We both had to admit that with the cost of our equipment and supplies that neither of us was sure whether we had recouped our capital expenses.
I have a number of presses including hand held, single stage, turrets and full progressives. I find assembling cartridges to be an enjoyable pastime and it enhances the enjoyment I get shooting also. Any time that I purchase a new gun I always also get the dies necessary to reload the cartridges.