Old School Handloading

[dubbleA]

Not that I consider myself old, but while cleaning up today I came across some things I used when I started handloading in the mid 70's.

I posed em together and took this
"old school"pic. I looked around but could not find any powder cans or primers from that era. Boy the prices back then were cheap, $2-3$ for bullets.

 

[Bush Pilot]

Things were a lot cheaper then, I also earned about 20% of what I do now too.

 

[steveno]

when I started loading around 1963 or so it was the Lyman 310 tool , some gas checked lead bullets , HiVel # 2 powder and a 303 British jungle carbine that cost $32. it was the best one of a barrel of them.

 

[ReloaderFred]

Looks like my bench............

Fred

 

[Myke_Hart]

This is what I love... Awesome Pic!

Here are some of my old primers to go with your bullets!

From my antique primer collection! And they are full and live!







Check the rest out here!

Now who has the old powder collection?

 

[qajaq59]

One thing I remember from the 60s was the wooden barrels of $18 Swiss K31 rifles up in Burlington, VT. I should have bought all of them. lol

 

[JimKirk]

I though the K31 had steel barrels, never seen a wooden one!

No wonder they were so cheap!


Jimmy K

 

[MetalHead]

I have in my collection those priming cups to rebuild battery cup style shotgun primers from CCI.

 

[Scrapperz]

AAAHHHHHHHHHH The Good Ol Days!!!!!!

 

[Fatelvis]

The lighting in the picture is rather low. I assume the lightbulbs are old too!

 

[Miata Mike]

How old do people think the Winchester Staynless primers might be? I got a few packs yesterday from a guy at work.

 

[Hondo 60]

In the mid 70's $6/hr was a decent manufacturing wage.
Today it's a lot closer to $20/hr.

 

[bigedp51]

At the time only a few months after getting out of the military I only had a Lee Target loader, but a few months later I bought a Rockchucker press.

 

[Powderman]

I remember the middle-age Winchester white box primers. I started loading with them. I remember buying Hercules powder--my first was a can of Bullseye for $10.00. Bought some Monarch copper-washed 240 grain LSWC, and some of those Winchester primers.

 

[mgmorden]

Things were a lot cheaper then, I also earned about 20% of what I do now too.

That's what people always forget. Those lower prices virtually always came with lower wages, because money was worth more back then. If you work out prices to the inflation rate it's usually fairly similar over the years.

It can be like a frog boiling in water though. Its constantly happening and sometimes people don't get used to the prices gradually going up. My father will think something horrible has gone wrong if he goes to a place for lunch and somehow the total comes up to more than $7.

 

[ranger335v]

"Things were a lot cheaper then, I also earned about 20% of what I do now too."

Yeah. Lots of folks think they would have bought up everything in sight back then; no, they wouldn't. It took an hour's pay then to buy what an hour's pay will buy today. Inflation was invented by what became the Federal Reserve Bank and then blessed by the government to ward off a perceived threat of communist revolt by making us peons think we were getting ahead. It worked, and still works, but we really don't get ahead do we? (Not that communisim/socialism is a workable option but we ought to know we've been deliberately conned by our gobbermint and the BIG bankers.)

 

[Bull Nutria]

Bigedp51,

I have a very similar sales reciept except i had an ADL Rem 760 in 30.06, about the same price in 1973,Back them i was in Graduate school and made $300/month!!

Bull

 

[Fullmag2682]

Have a pay stub from my Dad from a HIGH paying union job from 1964 $2.60 a hour or something like that. Being not exactly sure where it at right now.

 

[T Bran]

From the title to this thread I thought it was gonna be load em till something fails then back off .05 grains.
Yea when gas was 1.00 a gallon I only made 20.00 a day. Everything is equivelant it now costs me 125.00 to fill up and I clear 150.00 a day so pretty close. The only thing that seems constant is the price of a Lee Load All but I havent worn out the one I bought in 1978 yet.
T

 

[Montana Griz]

gotta throw in my .02....................

As I sit here typing this I'm looking at some powder containers: H-4831; H-380; H-450 all with the price tags still on them.... $1.75!!

I still have the Rail-Way Express receipts for my 1911A1 & my 30 Caliber M1 Carbine that I bought from the "DCM" (Director of Civilian Marksmanship) from the NRA in 1955..................... $13.75 for the guns (EACH) and $4.00 RailWay Express shipping cost EACH.....Grand total of $17.95 EACH.

I also have the receipt (1955) (and the gun) for: $29.95 for a 6" Hi Standard Sentinal 9-shot .22 cal Revolver. And also my 1961 Sako Forester in .243 for $150 in 1961. It still puts (3) 100gr (old-style) Nosler Partitions into 1" at a 100.....43.5gr IMR4350 on top of a Federal 215 Mag Primer.....seated out to .020 from the lands.

I graduated from college 1954 (worked my way through with 3 part-time jobs during the school year) and worked on a Black-Top road paving crew each summer, Then with a college degree, a wife and a daughter, I started with the Shell Oil Company at:.......$295. per month and gas was (I think) about 25 cents a gallon.

Yeah.........."the good 'ole days"...........I remember them well