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Old March 3, 2013, 09:41 PM   #26
RonR6
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I remember those days when I would just stop in a unkown gunshop because I was working in the area. I would just buy some reloading supplies, because I was there and wanted it, but didn't need it. Now I need it and every thing is off the shelves and they dont know when it will become available again.
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Old March 4, 2013, 02:41 AM   #27
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2011 wasn't too bad ...... .223 PMC was available at my favorite gunshop or on the internet for $284.50/k.
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Old March 4, 2013, 02:48 AM   #28
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Back in the 70's we used to take guns to school for show and tell. In the 80's every pick up had a rifle and shotgun in the back window. And some the cars had them in the back seat or in the passengers seat. Heck I always had a .22 revolver on the passenger seat for running my trap lines.

Those were the good old days for me.
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Old March 4, 2013, 07:28 AM   #29
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I'm just reacting to what is happening with shortages. Until shortages are alleviated we need to keep as many of us shooting as possible. Maybe we need to make our shots count instead of the "spray and pray" waste.

Equipment technology has never been higher than in the past few years. Gun prices are higher than 40 years ago, but so are wages. I remember buying 20 rounds of 30-06 ammo in 1960 for $12.75. My father was earning $70 per week. In my spare-time job, I earned 50 cents an hour. I saved a long time to buy a Savage 110 for $120.

WalMart was selling the same ammo for $15 a year or so ago. Minimum wage is around $280 a week. That's 18% of wages compared with less than 5% for most people today. (Of course we didn't have cable TV, cellphones, and other ways to spend our money back then.)
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Old March 4, 2013, 08:04 AM   #30
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I think we need to get away from the AR and other semi-auto toys/games and get more into accuracy games that don't use either overly expensive ammo or large quantities.
I use my AR for target shooting from 50 to 300 yards. I load my own rounds and get satisfaction from working up to the most accurate round I can make. I only load 5 rounds in a magazine because I shoot 5 round groups, it may take me 10 minutes to fired those 5 rounds. The reason I enjoy the AR platform so much is that I have a torn rotor cuff that cannot be repaired, the recoil of an AR is very soft on my shoulder and I like the semi auto better than a bolt action because of limited mobility in my right arm. The AR is my choice and I am not about to give it up or get away from it.
Shoot whatever you enjoy, but leave my choice to me.
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Old March 4, 2013, 08:42 AM   #31
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The good old days when primers were less then $10 per thousand, now they are over $35..............................but I can afford $35 primers now more then I could afford $10 primers back then.

Guns are more expensive now also.............but I didn't have any money when they were cheap.

Use to play cops and robbers and cowboy and Indians with cap guns during recess. If I was to hang around the playground now someone would call the cops on me.

I cut a lot of wood with an ax and bucksaw when I was a kid, now I use a chain saw and can cut a winters supply in one day.

Use to have to squeeze time to go shooting between work and raising a family. Now I walk out in the back yard and can shoot all day. Use to load up a couple rounds then wait for my day off to go try them, then back to the drawing board. Now I load a couple round, shoot them from the window I cut in my shop so I can shoot.

Just a couple steps from my reloader to my range.

I use to think I'd like to have lived 100 years ago, but if I lived 100 years ago, I'd be dead.

Good old days..........it's relative.
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Old March 4, 2013, 10:11 AM   #32
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The only thing I miss from the "good old days" is the cheaper ammo and reloading supply prices, and that people were responsible for their actions. I like the present though for ammo and reloading supply choices as there are so many more to choose from, when you can find them. The shortages will pass in time, just like they did the last time and every time before.
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Old March 4, 2013, 12:00 PM   #33
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Oh yeah, the "Good Old Days". I can tell you that the "Good Old Days" are greatly overrated, and they weren't that good to begin with. Sure, you could buy primers for $5 per 1,000, but back then I made $2.50/hr, so it took several hours' wages to buy those 1,000 primers. Nowadays I make $40/hr, so I can buy those $35/1000 primers with just slightly more than one hour's wages (after taxes, of course). My first rifle was a Winchester Model 94, bought it brand spanking new, and I paid $96 for it. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah, except minimum wage was $1.60, and it took 2 weeks of minimum wage work to earn the $106 it took to walk out the door with it (it actually took me several months to save up enough money to buy the rifle). Ammo was $3 a box (another 3 hours of work), and the gas it took to take a trip to the range was $.45/gallon. Comparatively, it is much cheaper today to shoot.

What has gotten worse is the political environment. Back in 1972, I took the Greyhound to go on my first hunting trip. Had all my gear, including the rifle. Nobody batted an eye. If I had bagged a deer, I imagine I would have had to figure out what to do with it, but planning was not my strong suit back then. Today, showing up at a bus stop with a rifle would prompt a call to SWAT. I would be considered some sort of extremist survivalist urban terrorist or the like, I suppose. Good part, I suppose, is that I would have my 15 minutes of fame and my friends would have thought I was cool (which they didn't, like most of us).

Nope, sorry, the good old days weren't that great. They were maybe a little better in that we had fewer obligations and responsibilities (or in my case because I was irresponsible). But like the OP, I sure miss them. Well, I mean I miss being irresponsible and going shooting all the time, I don't miss being broke. And I do miss being able to buy ammo and guns at a gas station while on the way to use the restroom. Mmmmmm, well, OK, not that much.
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Old March 4, 2013, 02:11 PM   #34
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In the good ol' days my car use to get 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!
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Old March 4, 2013, 03:03 PM   #35
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Picher
I'm just reacting to what is happening with shortages. Until shortages are alleviated we need to keep as many of us shooting as possible. Maybe we need to make our shots count instead of the "spray and pray" waste.
Excuse you again!

Look 'b'udd, just because the antis have clearly brainwwashed you, does not mean that any type of high round count competition is 'spray and pray'. Nor is a high round count target or practice session.

please Please PLEASE! Stop being a clueless biased sellout.


It is 'supporters' like you that are the reasons why we are having this latest attack on the second amendment.

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Old March 4, 2013, 04:32 PM   #36
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I think we need to get away from the AR and other semi-auto toys/games
Mine are for self defense... And trust me self defense isn't a "game"




Quote:
Until shortages are alleviated we need to keep as many of us shooting as possible. Maybe we need to make our shots count instead of the "spray and pray" waste.
Good thing AR-15's don't have the ability to "spray" bullets.
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Old March 4, 2013, 06:04 PM   #37
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Quote:
I think we need to get away from the AR and other semi-auto toys/games
Sounds like some "anti gun" talk to me.

Kind of hard to shoot a Service Rifle Match without an AR now days.

Or an EIC (Leg Match) or the "President's Match", or even three gun.

I'm not really fond of those who condemn one sort of gun or shooting just because they don't fit his style of shooting.

I don't bow hunt, (couldn't hit the ground with a bow) but I certainly don't comdemn those who do use a bow.
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Old March 4, 2013, 07:21 PM   #38
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Sheesh, I've been part of the culture for such a short time that my 'Good old days' where when my parents said I could finally have a rifle.

Dear lord, the $20 Mausers sounds like heaven.
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Old March 4, 2013, 08:34 PM   #39
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I think the good old days were about 15? years ago. I spent hours every week at the range, banging away with 30 caliber ammo. I loaded that myself, and it was dang cheap.

Bulk powder was about $75 for a keg. Primers were $12 maybe? And high quality match bullets (Sierra 168's) were about 15 cent each.

Shot all afternoon (100-200 rounds) for about $20-30 bucks.
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Old March 4, 2013, 09:00 PM   #40
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Back in the good old days gang bangers used homemade .22 zip guns instead of Glocks. Everybody wanted a model 70, not an AR. Or a Model 12, not some estupid Mossberg breacher. The world changed, and not for the better.
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Old March 4, 2013, 09:42 PM   #41
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In the good ol' days, people bought mil surp rifles for cheap and "sporterized" them, making them look like hunting rifles.

Now we do the opposite, doing our best to make a Ruger 10-22 cosmetically resemble a military rifle with all sorts of bolt on mall-ninja bling.
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Old March 4, 2013, 09:50 PM   #42
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Oh yeah, the "Good Old Days". I can tell you that the "Good Old Days" are greatly overrated, and they weren't that good to begin with.
X 2

For the most part, these are the good old days. We have so many more options for guns, commercial ammo, reloading components, reloading equipment, scopes...on and on. Yeah, I will take the way it is today...
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Old March 5, 2013, 11:35 AM   #43
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B.L.E:
"In the good ol' days, people bought mil surp rifles for cheap and "sporterized" them, making them look like hunting rifles.

Now we do the opposite, doing our best to make a Ruger 10-22 cosmetically resemble a military rifle with all sorts of bolt on mall-ninja bling."


Yeah, Ain't that the truth. But to each his own.
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Old March 5, 2013, 11:49 AM   #44
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"I think we need to get away from the AR and other semi-auto toys/games and get more into accuracy games that don't use either overly expensive ammo or large quantities."


Yeah, let's get rid of those "toys" that you apparently don't care about so they can place their bulls-eye over bolt action rifles and pump shotguns, and whatever else is left. Then they can start on BB and pellet guns.
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Old March 5, 2013, 01:27 PM   #45
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About a year ago, I wrote a blog, stating that we were in some of the best of times regarding guns and shooting. There were wonderful new guns, great ammo, plentiful supplies and after-market parts. Laws were the least restrictive in decades.
Quote:
How quickly things can change. Laws are soon to be at least somewhat more restrictive.
laws are not going to change in the least on anything but a local level. regardless of what fox/cnn/nbc want you to think, obama has acomplished nothing with his gun ban and will never get it past congress and the senate, especially with the debt ceiling debate heating up again, this will get put on the back burner where it will be forgotten and rot. the executive orders that he has laid out can only go on to INCREASE ENFORCEMENT OF ALREADY EXISTING LAWS, he can not change existing laws or add new ones through executive order so stop worrying about gun laws getting more restrictive.

Quote:
Ammo has suddenly become scarce and prices are going through the roof!!!
this is private party profiteers and doomsday preppers. my LGS told me of a man that starting the day after SH, bought 10,500 rounds of 22lr ammo a day for 2 weeks until they started rationing ammo sales and then magically armslist in my area began seeing lots of advertisements for $65 bricks of 22lr ammo... coincidence? I think not...

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Will our sport soon become, once again, the utopia we had come to expect? Not likely.
we've seen it all before, 2008/2009 were just as ghastly, bleak, and infuriating as it is now, AKs and ARs doubled and tripled in price. ammo was nowhere to be found. I am thinking that you are a new enthusiast otherwise you would realize that the gun market changes with the seasons, the sky may be the limit one month and then politicians will start to push gun laws and then the sky is falling the next.

Quote:
I think we need to get away from the AR and other semi-auto toys/games and get more into accuracy games that don't use either overly expensive ammo or large quantities.
what you fail to realize is that the two are identical from and economical standpoint. your 30-06, 308, all the regular players in those "accuracy over volume" competitions cost close to, if not more than $1 per round and in some cases, $3 per round. an AR15 is just as capable of being accurized to be a target rifle as a bolt action and 223, is much cheaper, if you have the trigger discipline to not go off like it's Nam then the AR is more economical. you can buy a budget AR15, and throw in a RRA 2 stage trigger for the same price as a Ruger M77 and both will shoot equally well, for the price of having the stock on the M77 bedded, you can free float the handguard on the AR, at this point you have 2 rifles that are more than capable of sub MOA accuracy. the only difference is that the AR is about a foot shorter, and can be much more useful in a SD/HD situation than a bolt action with 24 inch barrel.
Quote:
The CMP program is promoting sporter matches/targets that seem like fun. Metallic silhouette for ranges under 200 yards also seems like fun.
CMP is not the only game in town when it comes to friendly competition and marksmanship workshops. NRA, IDPA(yeah I know pistol only), and USPSA(same difference) all offer friendly competition and most can be done just as cheaply as any CMP match. then there are local organizations. where I'm from there is a Mosin Nagant club, I'm not a member but I've been to the range on one of their comp days and it looks like tons of fun, too bad I didn't own a MN at the time but oh well...
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Old March 5, 2013, 09:02 PM   #46
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What worries me, and this just hit me today, and in fact makes me long for the old days of last March, is that I might have to reduce the number of boys that can take the rifle merit badge this summer.

Not to mention how I'm gonna break it to the Scout Executive that a $5 fee per boy is now a thing of the past.

And this isn't really all that high volumn shooting rapid fire shooting either, each kid gets maybe a 100 rounds through the course of the week, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. And has to load it one round at a time, no mag, no tube.
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Old March 5, 2013, 11:32 PM   #47
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To the people talking about the great deals of long ago, check this out.

http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

If you play with it you will see that gun prices have actually stayed pretty much the same with inflation. Sure, guns cost less back in the day, but people made less too.

When calculating gun prices, also factor in the advances in technology and manufacturing processes. Today you can buy a rifle that costs less, is more accurate and weighs almost half as much as a 75 year old rifle.
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Old March 6, 2013, 07:04 AM   #48
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I remember, in the early '60s (I was a pre-teen) sitting on big cardboard drums of powder in the reloading room of the local Rod and Gun club. Mostly IMR 4895 and IMR 4831, plus Bullseye and Unique. Members could buy it by the pound, but you had to bring your own container and it cost 20 cents per pound. .22LR ammo was almost free, as it was govt surplus ammo, and brass in common military calibers was free for the asking. that is what I consider the good old days, as I was an impressionable 10-year old and thought that the reloading room at that club was as close to heaven as I'd ever get.

Nowadays we actually pay less for ammo than we did in those days, taking inflation into account. However, those guys in those days strived hard for 1" groups with the rifles of the day and a rifle that would shoot consistently into that magic inch was treated like gold and spoken about in hushed tones. Nowadays nearly every rifle we get out of the box is capable of that or better with very little tweaking. This insanity will pass and we'll get back to the point where we were six months ago. Heck, I'm already seeing primers and powder locally.
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Old March 7, 2013, 07:53 AM   #49
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The improvements to bullets, factory ammo, and rifles in the past 10 years is incredible! We have plastic-tipped solid copper or gilding metal bullets, plastic-tipped lever-action rounds, a plethora of new powders, great scopes, etc.

Rifles that are guaranteed to shoot MOA out of the box, for less than $500, are a joy. I remember guys spending a month's pay on custom-built hunting rifles that wouldn't shoot better than 1 1/2 MOA.

Accurizing technology and new rounds have resulted in rifles that can lethally hit a target over a mile away. Ballistics computers allow military snipers to make first-shot kills at incredible distances.

I'm in pretty good shape, ammo-wise, but haven't horded ammo, just try to keep enough powder and rimfire ammo to do as much shooting as I normally do. Prior to retirement, I stocked up a bit, just because I wouldn't have as much money to spend. Having handloaded for over 50 years, I have all the tools needed, including casting equipment, so that's a big help. It's nice to also have the time to handload and test ammo.

Although it's discouraging to see nearly empty ammo shelves in sporting good stores. Stuff will sort itself out in time, probably at least a year to do so, depending on what Congress does.

Meanwhile, I noticed plenty of .22-250 ammo in a couple of stores, so if you need a new varmint rifle, it might be a good chambering.
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Old March 9, 2013, 11:07 AM   #50
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Picher can defend his statements himself if he wishes, but *perhaps* he meant we should slow down and shoot less ammo per setting, something a bolt actioned rifle or similar is good at. The AR is a great rifle in its own right, even though I don't like them much. But even I can see that the right to own and shoot said poodle shooter is paramount.

Anymore, I don't shoot my handloads much, and have resorted to x54r ammo, as that I can still get.

Once supplies appear on the shelves again, we will enjoy what we have.

As far as proposed legislation goes, I'm not seeing a steamroller like the last time we faced the AWB. There is much opposition, and these bills don't seem to be gaining the traction the anti's desire.

But I agree with Picher that the last few years has seen some of the best times to be a firearms owner. Plentiful ammo, components, and a wide variety of firearms. I also agree with another contributor that the quality of many firearms I have purchased since the late 1990's has not been very good. In fact, I used to joke, that whenever I bought an American made firearm in that period, there is no reason to take it out of the box and inspect it, I KNOW that something is wrong, just send it back and save the feeling of betrayal and anger.
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