Mr. Cunningham. A "C" press or an "O" press will stand anywhere from 10 to 12 inches high with a 2-foot handle. Your turret-type would run almost a foot and a half high above the table. And they are all made very heavy because of your full-length resizing—not only on your small revolver cartridges, but for all your hunting cartridges—that takes great pressure. They are heavy duty. And you need quite a bit of equipment. Most of the time there will be a case trimmer, your complete press—there is a primer press, and then you have to have dies for the cartridge you are loading—your sizing dies and your bullet dies that you use to press the bullet into the cartridge case. Then there are all sorts of sundry equipment that go along with hand loading—your powder measurer, which is usually quite large if it is one that will do it volumetrically. True, you can have a balance and weigh out a particular amount for each one, but it takes an awful lot of time. Normally they are volumetric powder measures. You tip it and it puts a certain amount of powder into the cartridge case.
Representative Ford. Is it expensive equipment to buy?
Mr. Cunningham. Originally, yes. Comparatively so. A good press, I think you can buy one anywhere from $29 to over $100. You will have to invest, I would say, $150 to have a fairly good outfit. But over the years it is a cheap investment. Instead of paying $2.80 a box, or $2.85 a box, you are turning out cartridges, once you have your brass, for—even rifle, hunting cartridges—for about 7 cents, and lead bullet cartridges down to around 3 cents apiece.
Representative Ford. $2.80 a box?
Mr. Cunningham. I have the component list here from Western. I do not have the cost per box of ammunition, but it can run anywhere from $2.25 all the way up to $6 to $8 for some of your larger hunting rifle cartridges—boxes of 20 in hunting ammunition, boxes of 50 in your revolver and pistol ammunition.
Even buying components, it is comparatively cheap. If you buy them by the hundred, and they will run, for instance the .38 Special, 158 grain lead bullets per hundred, only $2.80, and that is for original components. If you have the brass, your powder cost is negligible—probably a penny a cartridge, half a cent a cartridge for a .38 Special. So it saves you so much money if you are a target shooter, for instance, it is advantageous to do it if you like to shoot.
Mr. Eisenberg. Is that a skilled operation, hand loading?
Mr. Cunningham. Basically, no. Once you have the basic—if you do any reading on it, and you take your time, and are very careful, it is not a difficult operation at all.
Mr. Eisenberg. Now, would a——
Representative Boggs. How are these cartridges loaded mechanically—not like this hand loading.