Re: what would you pay for brass prep?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Adician</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'd be willing to pay $90 per 1000, as long as there were a deal on bulk prepping... </div></div>
Hi, thanks for the input.
Let's just keep it at $80 plus you pay shipping both ways for $21. You're now into it for $101.
We're talking pretty much 5.56/223 and 7.62/308 here, to keep the Giraud cost down to two caliber cutters and two case holders.
I'd venture a guess that 5.56/223 will be the bulk of what's sent in vs. 7.62/308.
5.56/223 has more military/crimped in primer headstamps than 7.62/308, as we have PMC, Pivi, LC and whatever freakin' crap ATK/LC/Federal is crimping on their production runs. The .30 cal military brass is pretty much confined to LC, which is crimped. I'd no doubt see LC only, military 7.62 in any given 1000 ct. batch, but also a lot more commercial brass, which won't need to be decrimped. You will probably save time on .308 vs. .223, due to the amount of crimps in any given 1k batch sent to you.
After you do your initial cleaning, one is going to have to quickly inspect and sort those thousand pieces, checking for neck splits and then segregating them into commercial and military batches.
Since the Dillon SuperSwage 600 is sensitive to specific headstamps for removing crimps, you're going to have to 'batch out' those varying mil headstamps, because you'll have to readjust the swager to handle them, in order to properly get that crimp rolled back.
Sorting 1000 pieces of brass will take an hour, I'd imagine, so there's another hit that has to be taken into account.
Since you're 'bulk' lubing them, you'll have to use something like Dillon's spray lube, which is $8 a bottle. I don't know how many thousands of cases a bottle can do, but you're going to be shooting for 5,000-6,000 cases a week, so let's say a bottle per week.
In addition, you're cleaning each batch, twice, one being loaded with lube and your media will load up quickly, so you'll need to have a lot of it on hand, going forward, so there's an added expense which needs inclusion into your 'cost/benefit' analysis.
I just looked and the CV-2001 is $185 and the large media separator is $76, so $261 before shipping--calling it $300 after shipping..
A Giraud with the two case/cutter setups is what, $500-$550 shipped? The SuperSwage 600 is $97, so call it $110 shipped. Forgoing the KenLight, another $500-$550, you're looking at $960 that is part of your nut and needs to be paid for. Media and a few bottles of polish and lube throw you over $1000 easily.
Let's say that you have everything staggered for ease of processing and you can do one a day for six days a week, with a turn around time of one week promised to your customers, from date of receipt. You might get your $8-$10/hour for actual time spent and have $20 leftover to go to your principal (tools/supplies) which means 50 batches will pay off that nut and going forward, it's all gravy. This will take about 8-9 weeks of constant orders.
I just looked and the CV-2001 can handle 550 30/06 cases, so 223 and 308 will probably only need too cycles to complete, not three, but you also have to account for that electricity used. Also, you have wear and tear on your press and dies to consider.
It can be worthwhile, if you don't start suffering order confusion (keeping things humming along, but separated while you clean the second order and work on sizing/decrimping/trimming the first order).
If guys are willing to pay that $101 total, for 1k pieces, you can make a go out of it and slowly get your money back, but doing 5-6k of brass a week, leaves little time for your own reloading chores and burnout can be a real problem.
Anyhow, this is the throught process I went through. You can't compete with the guys doing it for $30-$40 on commercial grade machines.
Now, I have the tools and bushing dies and with a Ken Light machine, I can offer other services that the pro guys don't offer, but to uniform 1000 primer pockets, or deburr 1000 flash holes, will add another $30 per step, per 1k, in my mind. I might charge somebody $40 to anneal 1k necks, but that's probably not going to be needed for .223 brass being shot out of an AR, where 2-4 cycles is reasonable.
One might pay for these extra steps for .308 brass, which will be fired out of bolt guns, but I don't see the added expense being worth it for people loading up blasting ammo.
Have a good one, Chris
