Ya ... larger and/or less common calibers (
i.e. NOT .223 'er 9mm), ya can easily save money ... even only buyin' 100 bullets and primers at a time.
But, to REALLY save money (
actually 'nuff to pay off the press, dies, tumbler, books, puller, caliper, scale, et. al. ya bought ... in anything less than 5yr) ... ya need to do two things ... ya gotta buy yer stuff in BULK (
as shown, above) ... and ya gotta shoot it all. Ya, yer individual rounds are costing less. But in order fer each round to cost less, ya had to spend more money, out of pocket, up front, and eventually go thru 'em all ... and repeat all that, at least a few times. In the end, once yer equipment's paid off, yer shootin' more, fer 'bout the same money (
fer 9mm and .223 ... fer .41 Rem. Mag. 'er .338 MX, ya'd be a fool, not to!)
There comes a point, in a lotta gun-owners lives, when they enjoy shooting so much, that the cost of buyin' factory ammo is a serious concern. Don't really matter what the caliber is. If yer shootin' THAT much, and it's that expensive, something's gotta give. It's at that point, one needs to take a real hard look at what the TOTAL investment is, in "good" equipment, how much it's gonna cost (
up front, to buy in bulk, if necessary), and within a budget, how often one can make such purchases. From all that, what ya should see is something along the lines of "
5,000rd factory 9mm fer $1,000" vs. "
5,000rd reload 9mm fer ~$700". If that's somewhat accurate, ya could expect to "pay off" $300 of equipment, in one year's time. Bear in mind, all that's meaningless, unless ya actually spend the $300 in equipment, and close to another $700 (
up front, to get the much lower per-component prices, to make all that work) ... AND, ya actually shoot 5,000rd in a year. If ya change yer mind, and only shoot 1,000rd in a year, if ya'd've otherwise bought 1,000rd of factory, it woulda cost closer to $100 ... vs. $300+, for equipment, bullets, brass, primers, and powder.
If yer asking the question (
"should I reload?"), ya may be at that point. But only you (
and possibly with the help of yer wife 
) can answer that question.
