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Post by revolvercranker on Jan 20, 2024 18:29:42 GMT -5
True that "inflation" or inflation + gouging if that is what is going on has outpaced that of inflation. However almost everything I shoot would cost $1, $2, or $3/round so 3-4 cent primers doubling in cost to 7 cents is a moot point when handloading economics are figured in. That doesn't mean I like it but this might be minor compared to something like a decision to no longer market primers as a component. So I bought my first primers in this decade recently at my LGS: Winchester @ $75 - no shipping or hazmat. Don't see any way around it for now. Have also previously voiced an opinion that if any price fixing becomes resolved the *real* sticky inflated price in 2024 may have a floor of at least $50 anyhow. With the current climate in the WH it might just come to no primers and other things too. I hope not. |
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jeffh
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Post by jeffh on Jan 20, 2024 18:55:40 GMT -5
.....the *real* sticky inflated price in 2024 may have a floor of at least $50 anyhow.
Even if that's as far as we can push it down, we should not let that opportunity pass. It's still better than $100, $75 or even $60.
In the meantime, I'm shooting less, but enjoying/appreciating it more. I might even now be one of those guys who won't NEED to buy more primers again, and if there may be others in or nearing that position, which would also take pressure off the pricing.
I don't think it would take too much more before making our own primers would start looking more viable. Who'd have thought a few years ago so many people would be making their own gas checks - buying tooling which is actually cheaper today than just a few years ago already. This may not be the mode the back-stop churners would adapt and might even cause some to seek a different form of fun.
Buy the $50 ones and leave the others on the shelf. It may eventually get us some traction. If someone can come along and offer them for $75 and $50, some actual competition will start to work.
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Post by revolvercranker on Jan 20, 2024 19:03:04 GMT -5
.....the *real* sticky inflated price in 2024 may have a floor of at least $50 anyhow.
Even if that's as far as we can push it down, we should not let that opportunity pass. It's still better than $100, $75 or even $60.
In the meantime, I'm shooting less, but enjoying/appreciating it more. I might even now be one of those guys who won't NEED to buy more primers again, and if there may be others in or nearing that position, which would also take pressure off the pricing.
I don't think it would take too much more before making our own primers would start looking more viable. Who'd have thought a few years ago so many people would be making their own gas checks - buying tooling which is actually cheaper today than just a few years ago already. This may not be the mode the back-stop churners would adapt and might even cause some to seek a different form of fun.
Buy the $50 ones and leave the others on the shelf. It may eventually get us some traction. If someone can come along and offer them for $75 and $50, some actual competition will start to work.
Jeff you mentioned shooting less. I'm a big cast bullet shooter even in rifles. I was working up a high velocity load for the 6.5 Swede which is hard to do with cast being the very fast twist is has. I make my own gaschecks and I bought a roll of American Flashing 12 inches wide and six feet long I think I burned through that as fast as I could punch them out. Another rifle, an AR10 in 7.62 NATO, I started out with about a 20 foot roll 30 inches wide of sofit aluminum. There's barely a few feet of it left. I remember at one testing I ran 600 rounds of cast through that AR10, not at one sitting, before I cleaned it. It didn't need cleaning after I tore it down, but I wanted to see. Boolitdesigner on here can verify that. So my shooting has dropped waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off because of primer cost. |
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jeffh
.375 Atomic
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Post by jeffh on Jan 20, 2024 20:30:05 GMT -5
<abbr>...</abbr>So my shooting has dropped waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off because of primer cost.
I get more irritated about the cost of components, and primers in particular, more as a matter of principle and for others than how much it affects my own shooting. I adapt. The actual shooting part of my enjoyment in this avocation is relatively small, comparatively speaking. I enjoy the time I spend scrounging and prep'ing brass, casting, even making those insidious little gas checks and especially the research and thought which goes into choosing cartridges, the guns they go into and consolidating tooling and components to reach across several gun-cartridge combinations. I'm not saying my way is the right way or suggesting others follow in my enlightened path (facetiously, I say this), but to qualify how and why I have the attitude I do about this situation. I do NOT like being pushed around or taken advantage of and if I feel I am, I push back. May not always do much good, but there it is.
Cost has only lead to accelerate the near complete switch to cast for me. I've cast since the early seventies and just did more and more over time. I've not bought jacketed bullets since I was able to get Hornady, 6.5mm, 160 grain RN "blems" from Midsouth for $10/c. That's probably been about 25 years. I use gas checks less and less as well, but at least have the tooling to do 22, 30 and 35. My loads make the brass I use last a long time and I use only cases which are fairly easy to still get or pretty durable by design. My interests have narrowed and the ranges at which I'm interested in shooting have gotten shorter. I find much more gratification in seeing how well I can shoot with how little, in terms of tooling and variety of components. My only repeaters are revolvers and one bolt-action, the rest - single-shots.
STILL, as you make apparent, it still all boils down to costing you one primer per shot, whether it's three grains of Bullseye in a 38 Special case or over a hundred in a 416 Rigby magnum. We can stretch powder supplies and extend case life in the same stroke, make gas checks out of roof flashing, powder-coat cast bullets we've scrounged lead for, cook up bullet lube and bore solvent from stuff in the kitchen and garage, but you still need that Achilles' heel - a primer.
You can knap your own flints and make your own black powder too, and I know at least one guy doing it successfully. It's not too much a stretch to see home-made primers come into more common use, with dedicated sub-forums, folks making and selling tooling, recipes and the sale of materials needed for the more dedicated. At that point, we'd possibly reach a "winter-kill" level for those who get more out of making noise and just showing off at the range, which could be a break for the more dedicated.
Primers - buy what you HAVE to if you HAVE to, but wait 'em out. Most of us have been very loyal to the suppliers related to our endeavors, but from here on out it's the lowest bidder who gets the business. I can work around minor inconsistencies if I encounter them, but so far I have not encountered ANY problems with cheaper foreign primers I've bought.
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Post by revolvercranker on Jan 20, 2024 21:25:39 GMT -5
Yeah but jeff it's gotten harder to get basicaly free lead. Wheelweights use to be a good source and very good int the fact that it had the alloys you needed in it to have a harder bullet: lead, antimony, arsenic, tin. But because the anti gunners are as cunning as wolves and coyotes they made the auto industry switch to non lead WW's. They don't fool us any. Also lead pipe and flashing use to be a good source, but that too dried up because of new materials. Now you have to buy alloys and far as I'm concerned now I'll buy jacketed. I bet I've cast and shot more they you in cast bullet. Use to be that I was luckly if jacketed bullets were .125 percent of my shooting. Nowadays I'm shooting more jacketed.
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edk
.375 Atomic
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Post by edk on Jan 20, 2024 22:52:10 GMT -5
Yeah but jeff it's gotten harder to get basicaly free lead. Wheelweights use to be a good source and very good int the fact that it had the alloys you needed in it to have a harder bullet: lead, antimony, arsenic, tin. But because the anti gunners are as cunning as wolves and coyotes they made the auto industry switch to non lead WW's. They don't fool us any. Also lead pipe and flashing use to be a good source, but that too dried up because of new materials. Now you have to buy alloys and far as I'm concerned now I'll buy jacketed. I bet I've cast and shot more they you in cast bullet. Use to be that I was luckly if jacketed bullets were .125 percent of my shooting. Nowadays I'm shooting more jacketed. You may want to be more careful in your posts. 0.125 percent is one (1) jacketed per 800 cast bullets. Is that really what you mean? Also in 2024 foundry lead can be readily had for $2/lb. That is 87 158gr 35 cal bullets. Tell us again what you're paying for jacketed bullets. |
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Post by revolvercranker on Jan 20, 2024 23:25:26 GMT -5
Yeah but jeff it's gotten harder to get basicaly free lead. Wheelweights use to be a good source and very good int the fact that it had the alloys you needed in it to have a harder bullet: lead, antimony, arsenic, tin. But because the anti gunners are as cunning as wolves and coyotes they made the auto industry switch to non lead WW's. They don't fool us any. Also lead pipe and flashing use to be a good source, but that too dried up because of new materials. Now you have to buy alloys and far as I'm concerned now I'll buy jacketed. I bet I've cast and shot more they you in cast bullet. Use to be that I was luckly if jacketed bullets were .125 percent of my shooting. Nowadays I'm shooting more jacketed. You may want to be more careful in your posts. 0.125 percent is one (1) jacketed per 800 cast bullets. Is that really what you mean? Also in 2024 foundry lead can be readily had for $2/lb. That is 87 158gr 35 cal bullets. Tell us again what you're paying for jacketed bullets. Basically I hardly ever shot jacketed. I rarely bought factory ammo. I reloaded from junior high on. So I picked a percentage that sounded low. What the real percentage was I don't, but low. As of lately though much more jacketed and lots of copper plated. |
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Post by bigbore5 on Jan 21, 2024 7:31:48 GMT -5
Over the past three years, I have shot over 200 pounds of wheel weights. Cost me probably less than $10 in gas to go pick up and $20 in propane to smelt.
But I have gone through 7,000 primers. I've used nearly 18 pounds of powders.
To buy the powder to replace what I used will be about $650. Higher than what it was, but not too bad.
To replace the $150 worth of primers will now run about $650.
I can't find decent wheel weights anymore, so I have been buying lead from axman. Very reasonable priced, but still an expense. $300.
So that's $1600 for what used to cost me about $525!
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Post by bigbore5 on Jan 21, 2024 7:55:22 GMT -5
Thinking about it, what's put a real dent in the reloading supplies and gun money is what gas and groceries are costing me now!
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Post by hunter01 on Jan 21, 2024 8:42:27 GMT -5
Reloading components left Gas and groceries inflation WAAAAAY back in the rear view mirror.
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Post by bigbore5 on Jan 21, 2024 9:12:54 GMT -5
Reloading components left Gas and groceries inflation WAAAAAY back in the rear view mirror. Yep. But I don't spend about $350 a week on reloading supplies! |
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Post by bigbore5 on Jan 21, 2024 9:44:38 GMT -5
Didn't really consider myself "going on a safari" since I lived in Africa. We considered it more like going for a walk outside our door.
As far as going on a real safari, we called that "going to work today".
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Post by hunter01 on Jan 21, 2024 10:03:56 GMT -5
Didn't really consider myself "going on a safari" since I lived in Africa. We considered it more like going for a walk outside our door. As far as going on a real safari, we called that "going to work today". Cool |
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Post by bigbore5 on Jan 21, 2024 10:08:34 GMT -5
Didn't really consider myself "going on a safari" since I lived in Africa. We considered it more like going for a walk outside our door. As far as going on a real safari, we called that "going to work today". Cool It was. I was dealing with some things after I got out of the service and a person I met in North Africa said I should come over for awhile. He got me into the PH school and let me apprentice with their operations. Helped me cope with some stuff I probably wouldn't have gotten past. It was a great three years I spent with them. |
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Post by hunter01 on Jan 21, 2024 10:39:54 GMT -5
It was. I was dealing with some things after I got out of the service and a person I met in North Africa said I should come over for awhile. He got me into the PH school and let me apprentice with their operations. Helped me cope with some stuff I probably wouldn't have gotten past. It was a great three years I spent with them. That’s awesome. I realized my last post was a little too judgemental and I erased it. I apologize. |
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