Hundred Dollar Milestones

[Snarl]

I remember the first time my grocery bill went over a hundred bucks.

I remember when it went over two.

For the life of me, I never expected to see it go over five hundred ... but, it did this past weekend.  Son of a bitch!!

The price of primers (those little things that set off the powder in your bullet casings) have climbed up over a hundred and fifty bucks for a thousand (or a brick). The second-to-last time I bought primers, I got them on sale at $17 a brick, and purchased them by the case. Now, I find my ass bruised from me kicking it all the time ... for not buying by the pallet at those prices. Doing so would have just been a greedy thing to do.

I used to be able to make a single bullet for between 12¢ and 14¢. That's how much a single primer costs now. Bullets (that little piece that flies through the air) have gone from 4¢ to 6¢ to upwards of 30¢. I was paying 92¢ for 300gr match grade .338. I can't even look at what those would cost these days. Glad I have enough of 'em to suit my needs.

I can't imagine what kind of a pressure cooker the cities are gonna turn into. All this inflation ... and nobody's paychecks rising with. Weird weather here too.  LOL

[Finspiracy]

I used to be able to make a single bullet for between 12¢ and 14¢. That's how much a single primer costs now.

Even at that price, still sounds a bit expensive to me. Shooting a lot doing target practice... like a lot of bullets in a single session and those sessions often. That builds up.

The conspiracy me is thinking if this is by design. If "they" do not want you fellows over there to have bullets. But then again, price of everything is rising dramatically due to the inflation. But "they" claim the inflation is caused by broken supply chains, pandemic aftermath, and the wars. So there. Conspiracies.

[727Sky]

Some of the people who have left and gone back to the states for family business have reported the insane prices of everything !

When there is food on the table there is room for other problems yet, when there is no food, there is only one problem.

[Finspiracy]

When there is food on the table there is room for other problems yet, when there is no food, there is only one problem.

Agreed. Heavily. Really well said.

[Ninurta]

The last time I stocked up on 5.56, I paid 150.00 for a battle pack of 420 rounds, already loaded on stripper clips and ready to fill a bandoleer. No idea what it's going for now. I'm afraid to look. When I got my 9mm pistol, I stocked up on ammo at 18.00/ 50 rounds. The last time I checked, it was 60.00 for the exact same box of ammo, same manufacturer. I probably should have got into reloading while the getting was good, but I didn't.

With Betsy, my black powder revolver, I just make everything from scratch. Primer cups I make out of empty beer cans, and I'm not short on supply for those. The bullets are molded out of molten lead, 126 grains each. There are 7000 grains in a pound, so 55 bullets per pound, give or take a bit. The last time I checked, lead on the open market was selling for just under 1.00 a pound, but retail it was going for 10.00 a pound - 1000% markup. So, what I SHOULD be able to mold for 1.8 cents a round, I have to pay 18 cents for. Store-bought powder runs around 30.00 a pound, and at 17 grain charges (for a .36 cal. Colt pattern revolver), there are about 412 charges in a pound, or 7.28 cents a round. Push comes to shove, the chemicals to make the powder at home run around 25 bucks total for 9 pounds of powder, plus you can get everything you need to make it at a gardening supply store, or make your own chemicals if you have to.. So, Betsy can eat for around 25 cents a round, figure 27 cents a round for the chemicals to make the 'splodey powder for the caps and the coffee filters to make the casing for the rounds out of.

That's for store-bought powder and retail lead ingots. That price drops considerably for full DIY from the ground up - 0.007 cents for the home made powder per round, so around 2 1/2 or 3 cents per shot total

So, when the rest of my guns are decorating the wall, Betsy will still be ticking along. The entire reason I got her and got into rolling my own cartridges for her was a looming ammo shortage, and it looks like that may have paid off now. I reckon I was not the only guy with that idea. Go shopping for a black powder revolver, even today. They're out of stock just about everywhere, STILL, and get bought up as fast as they come in.

Fuck 'em with their bullshit "disarmament" crap. Push comes to shove, I can make my own guns out of water pipe, my own powder for them, and my own caps to fire the powder. I'll only need one clear shot to suddenly own THEIR guns if they come for me, so it's all good. That'll put me back to being armed, state of the art, again.

With that one captured gun, I can capture several more. With every newly captured gun, each one of THOSE can capture several more. It goes up exponentially. Soon, you can have a big enough armed force to start heisting supply line convoys for even more. Don't even try to tell me it can't be done - Special Forces has been doing it for decades, as have guerrillas and insurgents the world 'round. I knew a guy in Bosnia who started out as 3 guys with bad intent and NO firearms, and within two weeks, they had a force strong enough to start knocking over weapons depots.

So fuck 'em.

.

[ABNARTY]

I am with you. 

I love to shoot and reload. However, I am not a wealthy person. I cannot justify the cost when I have to pay for other things too. Like food. 

I started shooting a lot more archery, pellet guns, and even sling shots. More quiet and cheaper. The ammo and firearms stay in storage for the day I may need them. Reloading supplies are tucked away too. No clue who is buying ammo these days. The cost is insane. That's probably all in the plan to squeeze people out of the hobby. 

As far as the prices of everything else? We all saw this coming. Print up trillions of dollars and guess what happens to the economy? Start unnecessarily messing with food production? Not a mystery what happens next. Screw up the world flow of oil under completely manufactured pretenses? It worked very well at screwing over the untermensch.   

I am very grateful my family supported my weirdness with a stocked wood pile, freezer full of beef, and non-splendid lifestyle. We might just make it.

[Snarl]

Some of the people who have left and gone back to the states for family business have reported the insane prices of everything !

Frogs in a pot.

Worse thing is the high rate of taxes will eventually mop everything I have up. Some of my 'wallet' is transparent to the government.

I'm sure they meant the first half of it when they said, "You'll own nothing and you'll be happy."

---

I'll only need one clear shot to suddenly own THEIR guns ...

So fuck 'em.

That's the spirit!! 

Was looking around for empty ammo cans and found a .30 cal can filled with .223 brass out in the barn. Brought it up to the house yesterday and am one cleaning process away from priming, charging and seating.

[Ninurta]

...

I started shooting a lot more archery, pellet guns, and even sling shots. More quiet and cheaper. 

...

Me too. I picked up a CO2 pellet gun and a crap ton of spare CO2 cylinders for it, just for the fun of shooting for pennies. I also got a "wrist-rocket" type of slingshot, but the bands wore out and so far I've not had any success in getting the replacement bands mounted to it.

I also picket up a couple of "Pocket Shot" slingshots,a full size model and one "Junior" model that is smaller. Those are pretty pricey for what you get, and especially the replacement pouches are pretty expensive, so I learned to make my own out of Gatorade bottle necks and caps and a regular party balloon for the pocket of it. There are videos on YouTube that show how it's done.

I've got a couple fiberglas longbows (no compound bows for me - I outgrew training wheels on bows long before they even invented training wheels for bows), a couple crossbows - both 150 pound, one with a fiberglas prod and one with a steel prod, and again neither with training wheels - and two of those dinky little crossbow pistols with 80 pound steel prods on them.

I've also got about a dozen swords, 3 steel-headed spears, Two war-clubs I made (prolly gonna do a thread on them some time), about 3 tomahawks (the best one is hand-forged by a local guy, another is from Cold Steel, and the third is a pipe-tomahawk) and a battle-axe from Cold Steel, but none of those are really geared for horsing around with.

When they put the squeeze on, you make do, and if they squeeze hard enough, you just DIY.

.

[Snarl]

I am with you. 

I love to shoot and reload. However, I am not a wealthy person. I cannot justify the cost when I have to pay for other things too. Like food. 

I started shooting a lot more archery, pellet guns, and even sling shots. More quiet and cheaper. The ammo and firearms stay in storage for the day I may need them. Reloading supplies are tucked away too. No clue who is buying ammo these days. The cost is insane. That's probably all in the plan to squeeze people out of the hobby. 

As far as the prices of everything else? We all saw this coming. Print up trillions of dollars and guess what happens to the economy? Start unnecessarily messing with food production? Not a mystery what happens next. Screw up the world flow of oil under completely manufactured pretenses? It worked very well at screwing over the untermensch.   

I am very grateful my family supported my weirdness with a stocked wood pile, freezer full of beef, and non-splendid lifestyle. We might just make it.

When I was a kid (I think it was my mom) bought me a BB-gun. A cardboard box and a floor mat kept all my BBs contained. I'll tell ya, you can get to be a damned deadly shot just practicing with something like that.

Have to admit, I never got good with a slingshot (and I did kind'a try). Like you, I spent this Summer and Fall brushing up with my bow. I thought I was going to get up to a 70lb draw weight, but couldn't. Actually hurt myself at Thanksgiving messing around with it and I think I had it cranked down to about 65lbs.

Looking at all this ammo I've been building, am realizing I haven't been shooting anywhere near as much as I had been. Had a lot less time to do that over the past three years. If I keep up with my bow, I might not need anymore expensive components. Well ... maybe a couple more kegs of powder to replace what I used up.

That money printing business does make me worry a little about my retirement funds. I saw an ugly story coming out of Ron Paul. He said Biden was about to re-tax retirements. I guess everything they're taking and blowing on non-sense is just a disguise for breaking the dollar and ushering in the CBDC. Ya can't win.

Biggest thing on my mind lately is this generation of kids who grew up in 0bama schools. They learned a whole 'nuther set of values from what we were brought up on.

[Finspiracy]

Keep a low profile with the online messages... So the elite will not get any ideas to ban your pellet guns and slingshots. They are assault weapons after all. Basically weapons of mass destruction.

[Ninurta]

Keep a low profile with the online messages... So the elite will not get any ideas to ban your pellet guns and slingshots. They are assault weapons after all. Basically weapons of mass destruction.

So far as I know, they've already banned those scary pellet guns in Australia. I dunno about slingshots. They can ban whatever they want here, but as long as they don't ban my hands, I'll never be unarmed. These two hands can make whatever I need to get whatever I want. I may not be able to hand make an M-16 from scratch, but I can sure as hell make what I need to get an M-16 off a dead opponent's carcass if they want to push it into a war.

.

[Snarl]

Went to the commissary today. Got one of those little half-sized carts. All the groceries fit on the upper shelf.

Yep.  100+ dollars at the register.

Am gonna have to poach me a deer to keep feeding Luke meat. 

[Snarl]

$600 yesterday. SMDH 

[VioletDove]

I have to go grocery shopping later today. I dread it. My husband and I used to see who could come closer to guessing how much it would cost at the register. It used to be a fun thing to do, until the total got over $200 then creeped on up to $300. Now it’s quite a bit more and we don’t do that anymore, it’s too depressing. 

That’s not even counting the feed bill to keep all these animals that don’t have a job fed. I feel like it costs more to feed them than us.

[Snarl]

I have to go grocery shopping later today. I dread it. My husband and I used to see who could come closer to guessing how much it would cost at the register. It used to be a fun thing to do, until the total got over $200 then creeped on up to $300. Now it’s quite a bit more and we don’t do that anymore, it’s too depressing. 

That’s not even counting the feed bill to keep all these animals that don’t have a job fed. I feel like it costs more to feed them than us.

My feed bills have (maybe) increased by a dollar/bag.

I think the most expensive mouth to feed in this house is the dog's though.  LOL

Might have to put one of them nuisance deer into the freezer here in the next day or so.