Where can you find statistics about the # of reloaders in USA?

[tommy tornado]

The title says my question...Where can you find statistics about the # of reloaders in USA?  I have been trying to find an answer to this question.  So far I have done the usual google/yahoo searches for reloading, etc.  Didn't know if someone on here had a good source of information on here.  Mr. Bane perhaps?

[alfsauve]

I'd bet that one of the industry organizations has an estimate.  Is there a trade association for ammunition/component manufacturers?  Not SAAMI.  NSSF ~maybe.

How do we crack this one.

One approach might be to first find how many "components" are sold each year.  All reloaders have to buy primers and powder.   Counting primers makes it easy to separate metallic from shotshell reloaders.  That's primers sold at retail, not wholesale to ammo companies.  Now all you need is a reasonable number for average primers/reloader/year.    That could be determined by doing a sample study.  Problem is coming up with an accurate, representative sample.

Another approach would be to count the number of presses sold each, factor in/out the growth rate and then estimate what that represents in the overall picture.   Does that represent 5%, 10% of the total?   Average # of presses/reloader?     Of course, knowing the growth rate implies you know the totals to begin with.

Yeah some guessing would have to be done, but you could come up with a number.  Or a range of numbers.

Here's my swag.   I'd take CCI primers sold at retail times two then divide by 1,000/reloader.  A low number I know but then there are some who reload 10s of thousands but others who probably don't break 500 per year.

How accurate you want to be depends on how much money you spend on research.

[MikeBjerum]

I would take a slightly different approach:

Contact RCBS, Hornady, Redding, MEC, Lee and Dillon, and ask them what they think.  These are the companies that make their living supplying hardware to the reloader.  Their marketing departments are paid to know who reloads, how much they reload, what they reload, and what makes them break out in a sweat and breath shallow.

I'll bet that even though they won't give full data that they will be willing to share basic numbers - including some reloaders that they are not interested in reaching.

[Pecos Bill]

Try contacting the National Reloading Manufacturers Association.

Pecos

[alfsauve]

Pecos,   I couldn't find a web site (that worked) for NRMA.

www.reload-nrma.com is listed on most sites, but it doesn't appear top be an actual web site.


Maybe they're using a different domain name now

[Sponsor]

[tommy tornado]

I have contacted reloading companies but have yet to hear back from them.  Oh well.  Looked into the NRMA, but as mentioned a dead link.  Oh well.