How to work out your true cost per round
The price on the jug is only part of the answer. Here's how to count everything that ends up in a loaded round, with every step worked through.
Published November 2, 2026
The four parts of a round
A loaded round uses one primer, one bullet, one powder charge and one loading of a case. Work out the cost of each and add them up. The only trick is getting each one into the right unit.
Powder: cost per grain
Powder is sold by the pound or kilo and used by the grain. There are 7,000 grains in a pound and about 15,432 in a kilogram.
A 4 lb jug at $160 holds 28,000 grains, so it costs $160 / 28,000 = 0.57¢ per grain. A 40 grain charge costs 40 x 0.57¢ = 22.9¢.
Bullets and primers: cost per piece
Divide the box price by the count. A box of 500 bullets at $225 is 45¢ each. A sleeve of 1,000 primers at $90 is 9¢ each.
Brass: cost per loading
Brass is the one part you get back. Divide the price of a case by the number of times you expect to load it. At $110 per 100, a case costs $1.10, and over five loadings that’s 22¢ per round. Be honest about the number of loadings: count the cases you lose at the range and the ones you retire early, or the figure comes out too low.
Now add the fees
Shipping and hazmat fees are real money, and they matter most on small orders. Say the powder and primers above came on one order, with a $40 hazmat fee and $20 shipping. That’s $60 of fees on $250 of goods.
Split the fees across the order by value, so each dollar of goods carries 24¢ of fees:
| Item | Price | With fees | Per unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 lb powder | $160.00 | $198.40 | 0.71¢ per grain |
| 1,000 primers | $90.00 | $111.60 | 11.2¢ each |
The whole round
| Part | Shelf price only | With fees |
|---|---|---|
| Powder (40 gr) | 22.9¢ | 28.3¢ |
| Primer | 9.0¢ | 11.2¢ |
| Bullet | 45.0¢ | 45.0¢ |
| Brass (five loadings) | 22.0¢ | 22.0¢ |
| Per round | 98.9¢ | 106.5¢ |
Those fees add about 7.6¢ to every round. That’s $7.60 per hundred, which you’d never see if you only looked at shelf prices.
What to leave out
Most people leave out the press, dies and scale, since they last for years and are shared across every load. Add them if you want to know when your bench has paid for itself, but keep them out of the figure you use to compare one load with another.
Letting the app keep count
AmmoLoader does this arithmetic for you. Log each purchase with its fees, split by value or by line, and every batch you record works out its own cost per round from the components it used. See how first in, first out costing works for what happens when the same powder was bought at two prices.
The figures here are made-up examples for the arithmetic, not prices or load data. AmmoLoader doesn't recommend charge weights. Always follow published load data from the powder and bullet makers.