March 8, 2025

The 45-70 and the cost of ammunition

If you buy factory ammunition you will pay at least $2 per round. I have seen various sorts of "fancy" stuff selling for nearly $4 per round.

What about reloading?

We need cases, bullets, powder, and primers.

We will ignore the cost of time and of reloading equipment. We will also ignore the fact that cases can be reloaded multiple times.

I recently found a good deal and bought some new Starline brass, paying 55 cents per case.

A box of 1000 Winchester LRP (large rifle primers) sells for $80 these days, making one primer an 8 cent ($0.08 item).

A pound of "Varget" is $62 these days. Consider a 40 grain load and 7000 grains in a pound, you can load 175 rounds with one pound, making the cost of powder $0.35. Of course you save money if you are using a different powder and doing reduced loads.

You can buy Oregon Trail "laser cast" bullets, 250 for $83 You will add a $22 USPS flat rate shipping charge to that, so $105 for 250 bullets (405 grain) is $0.42 per bullet. If you can go somewhere and buy the off the shelf, $0.33 per bullet.

Or maybe you prefer Berry's plated bullets. They ship for free if you spend over $100. You can get 500 of their 350 grain for $163. So one of these bullets costs 0.33.

Add it up

Case -- $0.55
Primer  $0.08
powder  $0.35
bullet  $0.33
Total is $1.31

Some people say you cannot save money reloading any more, but these numbers indicate that statement to be untrue.

Teardown

I bought some 45-70 "teardown" ammunition, loaded with Berry's 350g plated bullets, paying about $1 per round. Given the above cost breakdown, these were hardly a bargain, since the above cost with powder removed is $0.96

But my 55 cent cost for brass was an excellent deal. I usually see new Starline brass selling for 85 cents and once fired range brass for 75 cents.

If I had been able to reuse the powder, it would have been quite a bargain, but my efforts in that direction did not work out. Trying to work with unknown powder is risky, and perhaps even stupid.

How long does brass last?

"45-70 brass lasts forever!" seems to be the answer. I see claims of 17 and 20 reloadings and going strong. Another guy says he lost count at 50 reloads. A fellow says he has reloaded his Starline 16 times with no issues. Another guy says he has some 20+ year old cases going strong. Another: "I have cases I have reloaded dozens and dozens of times that are still good enough for national match accuracy. And: "I have a couple hundred Remington and Winchester cases that I have been loading for over 20 years and probably have 40 or 60 reloads in each.

So, it is like pistol brass, you reload it forever until you see case mouth splits. Mostly you just lose pistol brass, but this is less of a problem with 45-70. Don't bell the case mouth any more than you have to. Crimp lightly or not at all. Don't necessarily full length resize, consider a 45-70 neck resize die.

Conclusions

My first reload will cost me $1.31 per round. After that, I have reusable brass, already paid for and so subsequent rounds will cost me $0.76. This is certainly better than paying at least $2.00 per round for factory ammunition, but it still is a fairly expensive gun to shoot.

For comparison, a quick look at .223 prices show that you can get ammunition for prices like $0.42 per round if you shop around and buy in bulk. Typical full price ammunition is $0.75 per round and you can certainly pay more for fancy stuff.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / tom@mmto.org