Reloading has numerous advantages other than cost savings, and for certain loads, there may not even be a savings. However, a good history lesson around reloading, casting, swaging, etc can give one valuable insight into what has become a lost art in most loaders arsenal. (Pun intended)
Casting lead alloy bullets for practice loads can save mucho $$ Especially in handguns and reduced vel/recoil loads in rifles. This old hobby has really died off these past many years, but I am seeing and hearing a few people returning and some digging out those old dusty melting pots and molds.
Swaging jacketed bullets was nearly once as normal as casting, but with the advent of easily acquired commercial bullets in varied weights and styles, it died many years ago. I kept all my old dies, presses, jackets, lead wires etc, and today, they are invaluable and coming back into use. For someone starting today, components like jackets and lead wire can be hard and pricy to locate, but the old timers didn't use lead wire. They cast their own cores in molds. Many hand made by local machinists. I have a few old sets of these, and they still work great.
Jackets can be made from copper tubing, and I have seen some made from other materials. One can also make jackets from 22LR brass, 22mag, and varied pistol brass can be used to form handgun bullet jackets. Let your imagination run wild (And buy a book or two on the subject to study)
Basically, as times get harder, and they will, it is wise for dedicated shooters to relearn a lot of the history that created our hobby of handloading, for much of it was based in necessity of the times. Even names many take for granted like Speer and RCBS have their roots in the shortages of the Great Depression and WWII era, and Berger began as a hand swager in search of better bullets for the BR game. (As many of us did)
