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Ammo you miss.

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Ignition Override said:
Midwest: the "gun bug" first bit me well into middle age. Did Russian etc 7.62x39 quadruple in price over about six years due mostly to simple popularity of the (good value) guns, or did people simply stock up to avoid paying much more later?
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I think the 7.62 X 39 went up in price for a few reasons...Inflation (silver cost $5 a ounce, Gold under $400 in 2002) , the political scares 'guns/ammo will be banned' hype of 2008 and early 2009 and generally there is less to go around today IMO.

Forgot to mention that .38 special ammo was selling for $5.99 a box some 10 years ago or so at Dicks Sporting Goods. SKS's were selling for $99 in 2002.
 
I think I still have some Super Vel ammo around here somewhere. For its day, it was definitely hot stuff. I also have some old boxes of pistol and revolver ammo a friend of mine gave me. He was going to throw it out it was that old. I kept it because I liked the old time look about the boxes.
 
I love shooting paper shells, if they're cheap enough. It reminds me of my childhood.
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Oh, yeah! The aroma of a freshly-fired paper shotshell just can't be reproduced with plastic.

I miss the Federal .357 158 grain Nyclad SWC hollowpoint. If I'd known that it would be abandoned, I'd have bought a case.
 
Talons... lol...

just because of the crud surrounding them and the fact the lies still exist today. They should have adopted Metalica's Am I Evil for a theme song...
 
Active turkeys loads in 2 1/4 ounce 3 inch magnum loads. Those were the best turkey loads for my 870 that I ever fired. Absolutly instant death and an unbelievable pattern.
 
Black talons, oh man I remember shooting a case of those. I have *one BOX* left in 45 ACP, and it's all ragged and battered, but still ridiculously expensive - someday I'll sell them to someone who should know better. (They're really not all that special, IMHO)

I miss some bullets - not cartridges. I inherited a box of (I believe Speer) silver match .223 55 grain projectiles from my departed uncle Joe, about 10 or so years ago. These little bullets were bright silver. I mean SHINY.

Anyway I got a batch of nickle brass from Midway for 22-250, and had some primers (think it was old CCI's) which were shiney silver colored. Loaded them up.

The loaded rounds.. they look fantastic. Just solid bright shiny silver colored, bottom to top. I have 18 of them left -they shot great, but look even better, so I couldn't bring myself to shoot the last of them!

I miss "cheap" 50 BMG too. And mil-surp teardown components from Talon, in general.

OH one more!

I had two big spam cans of 45 ACP WW-II surplus that I bought for 8 cents a round. I opened those, and shot ALL of it. All headstamped 42-43.

Wish I'd set one of those back to shoot in another 20 years or so. Was amazed at the time it all shot perfectly fine - 60 year old ammunition. And I'm still reloading the brass. :)
 
Alcan shotgun shells. The 12ga 3dram, 1oz, #6 shot load is the one I shot 100's of cases of in my younger days....if I remember right under $3.00 a box
 
Speer's 125 gr. 8mm bullet. Great softpoint version of the 8mmK bullet that always shot right to the sights.
Did not realize how good I had it.
If I had only known they were gonna drop it!

Hornady came out with their 125gr. immediately after - or maybe just before - but the ogive/large SP nose was not really good for feeding my MP and the bullets all shoot bigger groups and every load prints to the left.

I contacted Hornady several times about at least turning their jacket around if not changing to Speers ogive. No answer, ever.
Instead, Hornady changed to the tight HP version with the same long ogive.

+1 for the Malaysian .223 that #7 AK mentioned. That stuff was the most accurate surplus I have ever shot out of any gun.

JT
 
.223 Barnes banded solids. Was a great round until the ATF determined it could be loaded for pistols and banned them.
 
I think the OP is looking at it the wrong way. Sure, Radway Green and SA 7.62x51 has dried up and that's sad.

Having said that, I sold my stock of South African 7.62 for $100 a pack back during the ammo scare and used the money to restock with newer production stuff. The Lithiuanian I replaced it with is just as good, 2006 production, sealed in vinyl packs, boxer primed reloadable brass cases, and very clean ammo. It runs great and is accurate in my rifle - it's even better than Federal's M-80 Ball equivalent.

Besides... ammo is expendable. It's made to be shot.
 
Come to think of it, I sure miss Speer 158 & 240 grain Half-Jacket hollowpoint bullets.

They swept them under the rug without any notice at all.

rc
 
I have two boxes marked ".38 Special Police Cartridges" that were issued to me back in 1989 or so, while I was in law enforcement. They are reloads, sourced from a commercial reloading source that supplied practice ammo to LE agencies. They're 158-grain LSWC rounds, and I've fired several of them since I got them. But, I have been hesitant to finish them off just because they do come from "another life" from so long ago. When I worked there, we were issued fifty rounds a month (if we asked for them) to practice with or shoot as we pleased.
 
I'm still sitting on about 400 rounds of this Lake City Match from the 60s.
There will never be any more.
:(
 
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357

If Federal Nyclad is Lubaloy, I miss those cheap rounds. Also miss the Monarchs
sold at Academy, cheap,good less than $20 but are not found in 357.
 
If Federal Nyclad is Lubaloy, I miss those cheap rounds.
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Nope. Different stuff.

Nyclad was first marketed under Smith & Wesson's banner. It was an effort to cut down on airborne lead for use in indoor ranges with a pure, soft lead core and a tough nylon jacket. Federal bought the name in the late 80s, and produced one of the best 158-grain hollowpoint rounds to come down the pike. Because the lack of a gilding jacket made it unnecessary to load'em hot in order to get the velocities up, and because they were also downloaded a bit with a medium powder burn rate, they were much more manageable in short-barrelled .357 revolvers, with less flash and noise to boot. Velocity in my 3-inch Model 13 was right around 1050...just about perfect for my tastes...and it was consistent from shot to shot and lot to lot.

They were accurate...there was no lead fouling...and the soft bullet would go to nearly double diameter in ballistic gelatin within 6-8 inches of penetration, stopping at about the 12-inch mark.
 
JM..Yep. Lubaloy .357 LSWC was actually some pretty good ammo. It was probably the last one that was loaded to original .357 ballistics before being watered down to the present levels, which is why the cases are hard to resize. That came about the same time as the neutering of the .44 magnum's original 240-grain gas-checked LSWC.

You can closely approximate the ballistics with a 155-160 grain cast bullet and 15.2 grains of 2400...but approach that last 3/4 grain carefully.
Winchester used a non canister grade of 2400 for the round, and burning rate was probably a bit slower than what you can buy in a bottle. If memory serves me, the factory powder charge was 15.5 grains. This is not what you want to shoot in a K-frame, and it should be used moderately even in an L-Frame.

Neither one was highly accurate...but they were both accurate enough at normal game-taking ranges to bring home the bacon...and they did beat Model 19s and Model 29s apart while-u-wait...but they were true magnums in every sense. I have a small lot of the Super-X .44 Magnum, and a few years ago I clocked it at a tick over 1500 fps out of a 7.5-inch Super Blackhawk.

Ah, those were the days.
 
Ain't it the truth 1911. lol!

Maybe what a lot of us - older guys - are really missing is the responsibility that used to come with shooting and reloading.

The older loading manuals were not incorrect. They assumed you understood that speed and power in firearms had a cost.

I still remember the checkering pattern impressed on my palm from the 240 Lubaloys.
Would'nt have had it any other way.

JT
 
Noob at the Firing Line

1911, You mentioned L & Ks. I was using a Colt SAA, I had to keep torquing down lose screws, presumed that was inherent with the old gun design. I guess I'm lucky that's all. I did buy a 586 a couple of years later.
 
Cheap Blazer Al rounds - as mentioned before. The South African 223 battle packs.
 
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