Comparing prices: USA and Norway

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katastrof0

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Hi there!

Spent a few hours today comparing prices on MidwayUSA and MidwayNorway on reloading components. Let me give you a few examples.

Starline 45Acp brass per 100
MidwayUSA: $17.29
MidwayNorway: 277 NOK = $50.80

Now i know why i am a brass whore at the range;)

Lead in shotguns are banned here in Norway, you can still get it from Midway though. Buuut...

Lawrence Magnum Lead Shot #8 25 lb Bag
MidwayUSA: $44.99
MidwayNorway: 747NOK = $137.2

RCBS Rock Chucker Supreme Single Stage Press
Midway USA: $114.99
Midway Norway: 1883 NOK = $346

Lee Classic Cast Single Stage Press
Midway USA: $71.99
MIdway Norway: 1327 NOK = $243

Double checked all figures. If you want i could give you the product numbers and you could check it for yourselves;)

I could go on and on.. But you get my point..

Primers are getting really ridiculous here in Norway. 1000 CCI Large Pistol primers are now 330NOK = $60.6. How much do they cost in the US? Fiocchi primers on the other hand is quite cheap at 160NOK = $29.3 pr 1000.

According to some reliable sources the prices are getting even worse around new year.. Its funny though. No matter how ridiculous it is i still buy them.. No wonder im broke all the time..

Anyone here in the US who wants to house a poor norwegian gunnut? Im not picky:D

BB John
 
that is somewhat surprising given exchange rates and the dollar trending down so much lately.
 
Hop on the Fram and sail over to Alaska! The Northwest Passage is open I hear.

Taliv is right, though. Our exports should be getting cheaper and cheaper. Maybe there are taxes on firearm related items in Norway.

nansen_pa_fram_hi_34.gif
 
LP primers go for around $25 per thousand.
I or someone here could ship (not primers or powder) you supplies which would probably save you some $$$.
I think I recently read an article that said Norway was one of the best places to live. Even with the cold winters.
 
The higher prices undoubtedly have to do with taxes and duties.

I or someone here could ship (not primers or powder) you supplies which would probably save you some $$$

Exporting components may be an issue with Customs on this side and will at least require duty on the Norwegian side.
 
Well.. Theres been a leap in prices lately. But it seems to only affect products from the US. Now i wont bet on that statement cause i havent done ALL that much research on the european market.

A good example is CCI/Federal Primers and Fiocchi.

MidwayUSA wont accept foreign VISA`s btw.. They just refer you to MidwayNorway.. :cuss:

BB John
 
I or someone here could ship (not primers or powder) you supplies which would probably save you some $$$

Exporting components may be an issue with Customs on this side and will at least require duty on the Norwegian side.
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Yeah. But... As far as i know US has strict export rules regarding firearms and firearms related stuff aswell. Now i`ve done it before. But its a risk, more for the sender than the reciever. And i really dont want anyone to get involved and potentially caught in illegal activites just for the sake that i could save some money:)

Not worth it IMO

BB John
 
It's a bit of 19th century humor. Dr. Jaeger's Patented Sanitary Woolen System was part of a wool health fad that Nansen, GB Shaw and others bought into. Part of the requirements were that nothing be worn other than the tight-fitting suit. To paraphrase from a "Sienfeld" episode:

"The only thing between him and us is a thin layer of gabardine!"

Still, the guy marched across Greenland and fought off dozens of polar bears to get farthest north, so you have to hand it to him. It's always interesting to compare the British polar approach, which involved getting stranded and having your ship crushed in ice, with the Norwegian approach of drydocking on it. The British accounts are as a consequence have much more poetry and high adventure. Would anyone read Shackleton's account if it involved sitting on the ice for a year in safety?
 
As the dollar gets weaker, its exports are supposed to become less expensive to foreigners. Conversely, imports into the U.S. from foreign countries should become more expensive.

Sounds like high taxes to me. Like in Britain where they pay more than US$ 7.50 per U.S. gallon. If the "international price" of refined gasoline is about US$ 2.50, then the Brits are paying more than US$ 5.00 per gallon in taxes.

The true costs of cradle-to-grave socialism... That and waiting years for a hip replacement...
 
It's a bit of 19th century humor. Dr. Jaeger's Patented Sanitary Woolen System was part of a wool health fad that Nansen, GB Shaw and others bought into. Part of the requirements were that nothing be worn other than the tight-fitting suit. To paraphrase from a "Sienfeld" episode:

"The only thing between him and us is a thin layer of gabardine!"

Still, the guy marched across Greenland and fought off dozens of polar bears to get farthest north, so you have to hand it to him. It's always interesting to compare the British polar approach, which involved getting stranded and having your ship crushed in ice, with the Norwegian approach of drydocking on it. The British accounts are as a consequence have much more poetry and high adventure. Would anyone read Shackleton's account if it involved sitting on the ice for a year in safety?
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I totally misunderstood that picture the first time though it was even more hillarious when i read your description:D:D. Damn.. I really have to do some reading on Nansen`s polar expedition. Sounds like my kind of litterature:)

Though i have one story or more of a quote that has become more of a legend around here.. And thats where Fridtjof Nansen was laying on his back with a polar bear over him and his companion (which i really cant remember the name of..) were fiddling around with the rifle.. If it was me i would have screamed like hell.. But not Nansen.. He calmly said "Nu må de skynde dem.. Ellers blir det for sent.." Which translates to "Now you must hurry.. Or it will be too late...." :D

Now try to picture that statement in the "civic old fashioned" way.. Spoken very calmly:D

That guy carried his testicals in a wheelbarrow infront of him im sure:D

BB John
 
Since you live in Norway you are much better off buying the local stuff. By the time you pay for a export certificate from the state dept., batf, freight forwarder, shipping, hazmat fees, bunker surcharges, high import tariff's, exsise taxes, vat. Even with the weaker US Dollar you're wasting your money. I doubt you would notice any difference in Fiocchi primers from cci or w/w anyway. How about Norma? I hear they have good powders.
 
(which i really cant remember the name of..)
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Man, Hjalmar Johansen never gets his props. Neither does Otto Sverdrup, in spite of his amazing facial hair.

But not Nansen.. He calmly said "Nu må de skynde dem.. Ellers blir det for sent.." Which translates to "Now you must hurry.. Or it will be too late...."
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I've heard Johansen never stopped using Nansen's formal name even after going on that long trek with him. There were a number of cool rifles mentioned in "Farthest North." IIRC Nansen picked up a state-of-the-art double gun for mucho dinero and some crewman accidentally dropped it into the deep at the start of their voyage. I'll look up what weapons they used tonight. It was an interesting mix of late BP and early smokeless as I remember.
 
I've heard Johansen never stopped using Nansen's formal name even after going on that long trek with him. There were a number of cool rifles mentioned in "Farthest North." IIRC Nansen picked up a state-of-the-art double gun for mucho dinero and some crewman accidentally dropped it into the deep at the start of their voyage. I'll look up what weapons they used tonight. It was an interesting mix of late BP and early smokeless as I remember.
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You know. If you have any trouble of getting info on what rifles and the specs i could probably give you some sources who can:)

Looking forward to your next post.

BB John
 
I paid $22 for 1K WSP primers at a local show last Saturday.

I have a bottle of lead shot (maybe 5lbs) that's been taking up space on a shelf for years. I wonder what it would cost to ship to Norway? It could be declared as scrap metal (lead).
 
Those prices aren't exactly good by Norwegian standards either. I've never bought anything from that company, I can find the same stuff cheaper at my local gun stores.

There are a couple of reasons Norwegian prices are higher than in the US. First, all prices here are tax included. Second, we are a high cost country. Pretty much everything costs more here, and our salaries are correspondingly higher. If you count how many hours you have to work in order to buy something, I'm not sure it's more expensive at all. Well, some things probably are, others not.

Regarding the Nansen story, Johansen was the one making the "hurry up"-comment. A bear had swatted him across the cheek and was literally standing on him, with Johansen grabbing its throat with both hands. That's when he asked Nansen to hurry. The bear was killed with a shot from a 20 gauge shotgun followed up with a rifle bullet through the head to make sure. The shooting was obviously from close range, possibly contact range. They then had a hearty meal of raw polar bear.

Cosmoline, as far as I know they only used black powder ammunition, including the ammo used in guns designed for smokeless. Nansen didn't quite trust smokeless powder to work in the cold, simply because he had no experience with it.

When Fram left port, they had something like 32 long guns and 24 revolvers on board. The crew totalled 13, including Nansen. Some of the revolvers were Nagants, he bought several 7.62mm gas seal models from Belgium. Yes, they were used for polar bear, with black powder ammo. You just have to get close enough - if you're a sissy, you might as well stay at home. :)

The guns Nansen and Johansen brought when they left the ship, were one combo gun each. One 20 gauge shotgun barrel and one .360 blackpowder express rifle barrel. 193 grain bullet at around 1300 fps. And these guys didn't bring the guns just to defend themselves against bear, they hunted polar bear for food. More powerful guns, and especially the ammo, would have weighed too much. They brought a total of 180 rifle cartridges and 150 shotshells. The plan was to live off the land once their rations were gone. Fifteen months later Nansen had gained 20 pounds and Johansen 12, since leaving Fram. And they still had well over half their ammo left. This was of course in an age when men were men, long before interweb commandos were preparing for SHTF by debating if 20,000 rounds of .88 supermag ammo is enough to fight off the hordes of flesh eating jack rabbits...

Nansen's double gun was a Holland & Holland .577. He lost it himself, slipping on a patch of ice while standing upright on the thwart of a boat.

Way, way off topic. My excuse is that Cosmo started the drift. :)

PS While British Arctic expeditions were busy freezing to death or starving to death after eating the ones who froze to death, Norwegian expeditions in the same areas had to schedule daily exercise to keep the men from gaining too much weight.
 
hose prices aren't exactly good by Norwegian standards either. I've never bought anything from that company, I can find the same stuff cheaper at my local gun stores.
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Amen to that, but it seems i always have to use Midway because the local gunstores doesnt have what i want in stock.. And one of them is an Midway distributor:banghead:

Prices have soared the last months though. The primer situation is really getting out of hand.. its almost to the point that im considering a little pause in my shooting career..

Regardig the Nansen story i REALLY need to do some reading:uhoh: Thanks for the correction:)

Where in Norway do you live?

BB John
 
How are prices on european stuff? I.e., Lapua brass, Vihtavuori powder, Wolf Primers, etc?

Could you give us a breakout of cost versus taxes on some of those items? And hey, at least you don't live in Britain!
 
John, I live in the forest outside of Oslo.

Strat81, looks like VV pistol powder is around $40 (before tax) a pound where I usually shop, $35 a pound if you buy a 4 pound keg. Knock off 10% from those prices if you buy a carton. (We use metric sizes of course, I did the conversions.) Can't remember having bought Lapua brass. For practice rifle ammo I think the price is something like 80 cents to a dollar, which is more or less the same price as empty brass. I figure I get the first shot for "free" by buying loaded ammo. Besides, the only rifle caliber I shoot/reload in any quantity is 6.5x55, and I currently have access to all the once-fired Lapua brass I need, for free.

There is always quite a bit so save if you buy whole boxes or cases, at least at the places where I shop. I never buy practice ammo in less than full cases, 1000 or 1200 rounds for centerfire handgun, 500-600 rounds of centerfire rifle, 5000 rimfire. Or a 2 kg keg of powder if available, or a carton of 5000 primers. Savings can be 10, 20, 30 per cent or more. Sometimes a bulk bargain comes along, such as buying 10,000 9mm or 50,000 .22. Don't have the cash or room under your bed? Do a group buy with shooting buddies. That's what I do.

Grumulkin, if your relatives don't reload, you could always adopt. :D
 
I couldn't find "Farthest North" but that's fascinating info on the arsenal. For some reason I thought he had something more potent for the polar bear. The incredibly amount of armament is telling. IIRC on a typical British polar expedition only a select few officers would be armed at all.
 
Cosmo, the info on the guns is from a different book, about Nansen as a hunter. Some of the guns were bought by Nansen as "official" guns for the expedition, most were private guns brought by expedition members. They had frequent shooting matches on the ice as a cure for boredom, in the winter darkness they used floodlights. In one such match they had a mirror as a "prize" for the loser, so he could have something to reflect his lost glory.

Nansen would have had something more potent for polar bear, including the .577 he lost over board, a couple of .450 express single shot rifles and a Krag-Jørgensen he had built in .45-90. By "had built" I mean he persuaded the two gentlemen Krag and Jørgensen to make him one. The four Krags bought for the expedition were in 8mm Danish. Ammunition for these was a special run of 6000 cases loaded with compressed black powder at the Danish military arsenal, even though they normally loaded smokeless powder. He then had the Norwegian arsenal produce jacketed soft point bullets of his own design and load in the Danish cases. Nansen was very much a hunter and knew his guns. Regarding the guns he took on the farthest north trek, they would have been a compromise, weight was very important. That, and he wasn't all that scared of polar bears. On previous trips he had singed the fur of at least a couple of bears with his muzzle blast. Using a single shot black powder rifle. It all depends on the size of your balls, I guess. :)

Katastrof, I hope you don't mind the hi-jack of your thread...
 
I have a bottle of lead shot (maybe 5lbs) that's been taking up space on a shelf for years. I wonder what it would cost to ship to Norway? It could be declared as scrap metal (lead).
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Hi GaryL

Thanks, but no thanks:)
Lead was banned in Sweden until recently. If i really wanted cheap lead shot i could just drive over the border and buy some.. Illegal i guess, but i wouldnt see myself as a hardened criminal if i did;)

Im a law abiding citizen.. If i wasnt i wouldnt have owned any guns.. But i feel that breaking the law because of this silly lead ban is justifiable for the sake of a humane kill of animals which we hunt, or just because i want to fire that old side by side for sport without having to sell my house for a box of "Enviromental friendly" substitutes.

Some months ago i started experimenting with steel skeet trap shotgun shells which i cut open, emptied out the steel shot and powder and replaced it with pyrodex and cheap ballast lead shot i bought at a scuba shop. The purpose of all of this was to load shells for CAS. And this pretty much brings us back to the original cause of this this thread

My plan was to get an Lee Classic Cast which allowed the use of a 1 1/4 - 12 RCBS Cowboy 12 gauge shotshell die and use Magtech 12 Gauge brass cartridges to really get that Cowboy feel:D But when it finally arrived at Midway Norway it was about $200. Aaand that kind of put me off on the whole project;)

BB John
 
Holy smokes katastrof0. Now I know why my ancestors left (from the Mo I Rana area near the arctic circle) about 100 years ago. Why are you still there?:)
 
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