I Loved the 1980's

[FCD]

You know, I really loved the 1980's.  Just loved everything about that time in my life.  I loved the cars; I loved the women; I loved the music; I loved society back then, and I just can't say enough good about it.  However...

I really need to stop trying to relive the 1980's when it comes to buying ammunition.  I go in a gun store and look at the prices of handgun ammo and I feel like I've just hopped on a bicycle with a screaming belt-sander for a seat!  I really do.

Now, I know ammo prices have been inflated ever since Obama was elected, and availability was a serious issue during the scam-demic, but I was digging around down in my shop today and came across an old box of Federal .357 ammo from the 1980's.  I looked at the price sticker (they had price stickers back in those days; they even put 'Warning' stickers on the dinosaurs which roamed the planet back then too); it said $9.99 (let's say $10 bucks).  Today, a box of the same will cost about $27 bucks (2.7x more).  (trigger the belt-sander again).  But then I started thinking.  In 1982 a brand new 4x4 truck cost about $20k, and this was for a NICE model.  Today, that same truck costs near $100k (5x more vs. 2.7x more for ammo).  In fact, I just paid more than that on a new RAM last year.

Looking out across the political horizon, I can't see any particular situation which is likely to ever change the price of ammo very notably (downward). 

Most of my old brass is shot out, and what isn't has just been lost over time.  It's time to restock on multiple calibers.  I'm good on semi ammo (I think), but I really need to backfill my wheel gun stocks.  Maybe it's time to unplug the ol' belt-sander, and to stop feeling like every box of shells I buy is a retirement investment (i.e. can't be touched).

What are your thoughts?

edit - I still think the girls of the 1980's were, by far, WAY hotter than the girls today!! Fortunately for me, I married one, and she still looks pretty darn good to me. I think I'll keep her!

Plus, I'm sure I'm just a little bit uglier than I was in the 1980's too, and I'm not gettin' any younger.

[Ninurta]

Well, to start off....




I had to marry two '70's girl and two '80's girls before I found my keeper.

In the 1980's, here, minimum wage was about 1/4 what it is now at this location. Maximum wage was, as always, whatever you could squeeze out of 'em.

I don't know exactly how the cost of living has increased, and can't really pin it down. Cost of housing has gone through the roof, no pun intended, since then. Transportation? again, up like a skyrocket for vehicles. I can recall paying 95 cents a gallon for gas in 1979, and thinking THAT was ridiculously expensive. Glad I couldn't see into the future, or I might have just quit, right then and there.

Ammunition is of course ridiculous. It has jumped by 3X just since around 2020, when I bought my last 9mm pistol. I hope it's my last one, anyhow. I paid 20 bucks a box for ammo that day, which I now have to spend 60 bucks a box on the same caliber, brand, and quantity.

It's why I got into black powder.

I can roll my own cartridges for my black powder wheel gun for maybe 15 cents each. Less, if I can find donated lead and make my own powder. I don't know what the casings would cost - I've not used up even half of the coffee filters I use for cartridge wrappers. The last powder I bought was Triple-7, at about 30 bucks a pound, but I can make my own for about 1/6 of that - most of the cost is for the potassium nitrate. I get it in 5 pound bags for about 20 bucks or so. I also use the stump-remover kind which I buy at Lowes, but it's higher-priced and lower quality, so I just use it for nitrating the paper cartridge wrappers so the burn up better... but I can get it locally, without going mail-order.

There are 7000 grains in a pound of powder, and I use about 17 grains per round, so about 410-412 rounds to the pound. The bullets I cast are .36 caliber Colts, about 126 grains each, so 55 or 56 bullets to a pound of lead. I have a mold for 140 grain Richmond Labs Confederate bullets, but they're such a pain in the ass to get packed into the chambers that I don't mold them any more. If I could find a mold for .375 round balls, those are only about 80 or 81 grains each, so I could squeeze more shots out of a pound of lead.

The biggest cost is the lead. I melt down  deep-sea fishing sinkers I buy at Walmart, and they ain't cheap enough. Commodity-priced pure lead is about a dollar a pound, but good luck finding any of it for that price.

The caps are a bit pricey. The last store bought caps I got were about 13 bucks per 100, so, about 13 cents each. I make my own for quite a lot less than that, but they're corrosive, so require harder cleaning. I stamp the shells out of old beer cans or soda cans or tea cans or really just about any drink cans, so no overhead for that part. The stuff to make the 'splodey compound runs about 20 bucks for 2000 cap's worth, so a penny per cap. I use some kind of Aussie hard-hold hair spray in liquid form to bind the compound into the caps, which is 5 bucks a bottle, but I expect the bottle I have to probably last the rest of my days, as I only use about a drop of it per cap.

I'm pretty light on store-bought ammo for my regular guns, because it's just too damned expensive now... so I hoard what I have. A few hundred rounds of 9mm, a couple hundred rounds of .308, and a couple thousand rounds of 5.56. I bought most of it before the prices went through the roof during covid, and don't care to burn it up now, because it would be cost-prohibitive to replace. So, I save it up for rainy days.

The last 5.56 I bought, I gave about 150 bucks for a 420 round ammo crate full, in stripper clips,with the clip loaders. Good luck finding it for that now.

Hell, I've still got some of the .22 ammo I bought in my 20's, when buying bulk wouldn't break the bank. Some of it, like the CCI Stingers, I don't think they even make any more, and those stingers were the absolute shit for hunting with a .22!  I've still got a couple hundred rounds of those, and REALLY don't want to burn them up, because they can't be replaced at ANY price... and they just don't make that quality of ammo any more. They were just the thing for woodchucks, almost overpowering for rabbits, and way too much for squirrels. Shot a rabbit with one once, and there was nothing left of it's head but a single ear. Shot a screech owl with one once that was pestering the chickens, and it popped. Looked like a balloon full of feathers exploded, and nothing left of the body of the owl at all. Those things were bad news, I wouldn't be afraid to take a deer down with one, if such were legal here.

I think the over-pricing of current ammo is a collusion between the gun-grabbers and the ammo-makers. they both get what the want - the gun-grabbers get less ammo bought, creating expensive paper weights out of the guns, and the ammo makers get their greed satiated by overcharging.

.

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

I have a love/hate relationship with the 80s. Loved the music, fashion and trends but hated the recession and inflation. Times were changing back then, a lot that was previously taboo became much more acceptable which was great but after losing my job due to a situation beyond my control it took almost a year to nail down a shitty part-time job and even that I had to commute for. To have been a so much simpler time in a lot of ways it also became quite complicated for many. I prefer the economy of the 90s personally.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Ah, the 80s. What's the first (or maybe second) thing you notice?



And the backside...




Safe neighborhood streets



Better movies



And cool tv shows...





And music



I learned AI early. AI-PC Tech Journal 1985



Though, I wasn't able to afford one of these...



Ghetto blaster & Walkman

[kdog]

The 80's for me was crazy. Graduated highschool, got a full time job for the summer , lost my v -card and started college. 
I was 17 years old. 
College dorm life was about partying and less to do with learning anything in college. 
I made it til  Christmas break before getting kicked out. 
Couch surfed till about the middle of summer and moved back to the farm . Almost enlisted in the Navy, but backed out last minute . A month later, dad said I had to go. 
Got a job and rented a room from a friend.
I grew up and became responsible , went to another college , graduated , got the career  I retired from, got married and divorced by 1990.