Holy crud, Ironknees, you are so right! I have been shooting some rifle and bottleneck cartridges a lot lately and it is very expensive to do so. I just dropped $92 for powder, primers, and bullets for use with two calibers. Ouch! That's about enough to make 200 cartridges. On the other hand they are top-quality cartridges and I'd hate to think of what they'd cost me if I were buying them alread made at the factory.
That same $92 gets me 2000 cast bullets and 1000 primers for shooting 45ACP.