Started loading for my Savage 23D 22 Hornet in 1960. Hodgdens H240 was $1.25/lb, primers were about $5/1000 and the Sisk 36 grain .223 dos bullets were about $3/100. I sized my cases in an Ideal steel drive in drive out die and did the rest of the loading on a Tru-Line Junior press with 310 dies.
Reloading. 56 years ago
- Thread starter nettlle
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twarr1
Member
12 years old, my brother and I would walk a couple of miles to an old store where the you told the gentleman what you needed and he’d gather it off the shelves behind him. A box of 22 long rifle was expensive: 95 cents.
Occasionally we would ride into town to the Western Auto and buy 410 bird shot for $2 a box and Norma 6.5 Carcano for $1 each. They sold them individually.
Occasionally we would ride into town to the Western Auto and buy 410 bird shot for $2 a box and Norma 6.5 Carcano for $1 each. They sold them individually.
Captcurt
Member
Yep, I remember it well. Western Auto had 22 shorts for 27 cents a box. I bought a 6.5 Carcano when I was 15 for $20. Not saying that it was the biggest POS that I have owned, but it has to be in the top 10. I had the opportunity to hunt quail in Mexico when I was 18. My 12ga shells from Sears cost me $1.85 a box. That was $37 for a 20 box case. The local Mom & Pop store a short walk from home would break a box of 410 shells and sell me 3 or 4 at a time. Life was good.
Kp321
Member
I started loading in 1962 with a MEC 400 in 16ga. Alcan AL-5 was the recommended powder for the hulls and wads I could get. Nitro card over powder and Feltan Blue Streak wads in some combo that would crimp correctly. I soon bought a 30-06 Lee kit and found a way to wedge it under the head of the MEC so I could retire the plastic hammer. None of the powders on the Lee card that I could get were satisfactory so a friend with a powder scale made me a dipper from a 38 empty for a decent load of 4320. I used that combo till I graduated from college in 1971. One of my college profs let me use his RCBS A-2 press so the first chance I got after graduation, I bought a Rockchucker. A Dillon 450 followed in 1981, now two 550’s.
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nettlle
Contributing Member
Just a snotty nosed kid!I have only been reloading for 53 years, so I am just a young whippersnapper, but we (Dad & I) discovered the won-der-ful-ness that was the Herters Catalog PDQ. T'was much better than paging thru the Sears Christmas Catalog when I was a pup.
And how can we older members forget that patience-practice-process whereby you complete the order form, mail it with a check and then try to forget about it until whenever it happened to suddenly arrive.
Airborne Falcon
Member
Ummmmm, pretty sure Amazon is about to surpass Walmart and Walmart did not double Amazon last year friend. Perhaps you were referring-to 2019 pre-Covid maybe? That would make more sense .... but I've tried cutting-back on both Walmart and Amazon purchases, they are both woke. And I remember well when Walmart sold reloading supplies ... and not too long ago they were selling tons of guns and ammo.
BTW Amazon sells millions of dollars of presses and other reloading equipment just not powder and primers.
This piece just popped .....
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/amazon-to-surpass-walmart-largest-us-retailer
Captcurt
Member
I believe that I started loading shotgun in1970. Bought a Mec 500 Jr. for $50 and started with 20 gauge. I could load field loads for less than $1 a box. A couple of years later I started loading rifle. Bought a used Herter's two-stage press that I still use for $20. I still have a can of IMR-3031 that cost $9.95. Using Speer bullets and IMR-4350 I could load a box of 270 win. for less than $4 a box. It really didn't save me any money because I shot more.
Ranger99
Member
A dollar used to go a lot farther than
it does today. When I started loading
some decades ago, it was economical
to load. It hasn't been for some time
now. When things get too stupid to
( for me) justify reloading, I'll be loading
the brass I have and sell all my tools
it does today. When I started loading
some decades ago, it was economical
to load. It hasn't been for some time
now. When things get too stupid to
( for me) justify reloading, I'll be loading
the brass I have and sell all my tools
Ranger99
Member
jmorris
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I can’t say I know that as fact, my information is only as good as the information I can research, I got mine from the national retail federation yesterday.
https://nrf.com/resources/top-retailers/top-100-retailers/top-100-retailers-2020-list
250 goes into 523 two times and some change.
Your linked article, if those projections are proven correct, would be another example of changing market trends leaving behind the “big dog”. Sears went from stud to dud in the 1980’s from being founded in 1892. Walmart was founded in 1962 and by 1990 were #1 retailer. Amazon was founded in 1994, time will tell how long it takes for them to make #1 and fall from that position as well…
About the time Sears was loosing traction my most used bullet maker at the time also petered out Rutgers was the name IIRC and I had to switch from them to a more expensive manufacturer that was unnamed at the time. Prices went up from $11 to $16/500.
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rfwobbly
Member
When I was 16 in 1966 I walked into a gun store and bought a can of FFG black powder. Dangerous stuff. My buddies sent me in there because I was taller and "looked older". They all told me if I acted like I knew what it was, they would sell it to me. They did. I didn't know FFG from my buttocks.
To this day, it's the only black powder I ever bought.
To this day, it's the only black powder I ever bought.
Airborne Falcon
Member
Yep, JMorris, if you'll look through the red highlight marker that circles the numbers you'll see that is for 2019 (I thought that might benthe case) ... whereas 2020 changed everything. Amazon doubled in value in 2020 while Walmart lost market share.
Now, that wasn't all about Covid. A lot of that was Walmart going woke in 2020 .... discrediting MAGA, dumping guns and ammo sales, changing their hiring practices, making excuses for looters, etc. The Waltons donated millions to liberal causes.
People figured hey, if I'm gonna have to buy from a liberal corporation might as well have it delivered to my home, avoid crowds, save gas, avoid the white trash that Wally World has become plus, as stated earlier, Amazon still sells tons of reloading supplies and firearms related goods.
The LGS is still the way to go but Amazon has surpassed Walmart ... or is very very close to doing-so. The link I provided was to 2020 numbers and Q1 2021.
Walmart abandoned their base.
FROGO207
Member
Seems all brick and mortar stores are being abandoned in droves these days. All the younger set is ordering on line using a bank account. There is a trend of not using cash or in person sales as of late. That buisness model seems to be dying. Who needs a lazy expensive to maintain employee on the sales floor when the consumer can do all the work on a computer from their home anyway!
jmorris
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You are correct, I didn’t catch that and didn’t realize they used what they made last year to count for the next year.
Something else seems fishy about the numbers I am coming across and “rankings” they seem to change a lot depending on the source. I know COVID hit business bottom line but 523-120 for Walmart and 250-75 for Amazon?
Blackrock
Member
Billing Montana had the Big Bear Army Navy Surplus store on Montana avenue. Back in the 50's my little brother and I would wander through there like it was Alladins Cave. I got up into high school making money working jobs and that's when I got started reloading. I had bought a whack a mole .270 loader at the local Coast to Coast hardware store but eventually upgraded to a RCBS Rock Chucker and all the other needed eqiupment like scales and trimmer. Sierra manual and bullets, Hodgdon powder and CCI primers and I was in business.
Airborne Falcon
Member
That's a rhetorical question right?
You make a good point but it's not always about employees or laziness and here's my personal experience with that.
While we live in SC we have had a place in Johnson City, TN for years ... our family mountain summer place (actually in Jonesborough). For years I could buy over the counter from Widener's when in town and I would order big, pick up at their warehouse, pay with cash, everybody knew me, Dad, my sons, et al .... life was good. It was a family thing.
Then they got bought-out by some big holding group or, as some locals prefer ... they sold us out). The moment they did, the new owners shut-down in-person pick-ups, closed the counter sales, locked the front door and that was that. Nothing goes out of there these days except Fed Ex and UPS.
Locally ....
We have a huge reloading club here in central SC ... I dunno how many members but more members than the beekeeping club and HAM club combined ... 100s of dues paying members. We used to get some great group buys together! Anyways, 24 months ago we had a number of stores servicing our reloading habits. We had Sligh's, several True Value/ACE Hardwares, Sportsman's Warehouse, Academy, Shooter's Choice and PSA. Three of those considered big box stores of course and we had plenty of stock to choose from. We could pay cash in all of them. (We also have a Cabela's one hour to the west in Augusta and a Bass Pro one hour to the north in Charlotte not to mention the plethora of LGS shops in both of those cities). Heck, we even still had Wally World/China Mart selling ammo 24 months ago ... think about how much things have changed in 24 months.
Sligh's has since been shut down by the ATF. Shooter's Choice has been booming gun sales but unable to get reloading supplies ... none, and I know the buyer over there personally. All of the big box stores have had bare shelves in the reloading supplies for over a year. No Conservative Patriots even bother going to Dick's anymore ... a name never more befitting of a corporate entity. Every once in awhile a couple of things show-up at the ACE/True Value stores through their massive Do It Best distribution center here in town.
So we've all been forced to buy online, pay with electronic money, pay huge hazmat and shipping and handling fees ... we've had no choice.
Some of us were prepared, others were/are not and apparently they, those others, intend to wait until things get back to the old normal ... and that's never going to happen, not ever. It may get better, it probably will .... but the new normal will be way more expensive than it was 24 months ago.
You can bet the local stores are going to be way more expensive. They've lewrned their lessons. We're already hearing how they're doing the math and saving hazmat and shipping fees but chsrging more ... increasing their profit margin ... because reloading components are no longer a niche item, not they're traffic bait.
Our world has changed.
A lot of stores are no longer accepting cash ... why? Germs. Plain and simple ... germs.
It's never going back to what it was just 24 months ago.
Think about that.
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