Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Quick Bullet Check

I was looking at Higginson Powders price lists. Just in case you do not know who Higginsons is, they are a company in Hawkesbury, ON. http://higginsonpowders.com

They handle Hornady and Winchester bullets. When I was looking at the prices, I saw that of the traditional varmint bullets, the pointed lead tips, Hornady was the same or cheaper than buying Winchester bulk. It surprised me. I'm showing my age, but there was a time when Win and Rem bulk bullets were a lot cheaper than the major manufacturers.

One quick example of 100 bullets:

50 gr. Win Bulk PSP - $25
50 gr. Hornady SP - $23.51

I noticed the same thing with other bullets on the price list, as well as Midway in the US.

I started shooting mostly Rem bulk years ago because they were the only bullets I could afford. There don't seem to be any true cheap 'bulk' bullets anymore. The world continues to turn.

I have all manner of jacketed bullets but haven’t shot more than a couple hundred in the last 15 years or so. Old friends give me more when they finally step back from handloading. So I keep collecting and caring for them as one never knows what the future holds.

Meanwhile I genuflect before the lead melting pot. I do hope that irritates California’s “leaders”.

Just let the pot smoke - not THAT pot smoke - blow towards Sacramento.

I have a fondness for the lead pot meself. Be Well, Rustyzipper.

I've commented on this from time to time, pretty recently too. Ordinary bullets from Remington, Federal, and possibly Winchester in factory ammo have worked well on game, but never were all that accurate for me. My handloads have always shot better, even better than some so-called match loads from Remington, Federal, M118, and Wolf, likely because my dies made them straighter. When I started loading, I mostly used Sierras, which shot pretty well and killed stuff. Later, I began using some Noslers, which remain my usual choice, although I've dabbled with Hornady and Speer. When I got my Hornet about 20 years ago, I picked up some bulk hollowpoint bullets, Rem and Win, at about $8 per hundred. But later when I looked into buying some larger calibers, they were already priced right up with, and even higher than Sierras and such, so I passed, except for some 150gr CT Partitions I snagged at $7.99 per 50 off the old Grafs closeout sheet. Now the majority of my bullets come from SPS; mostly blems, but overruns when I can get them because they come in boxes, not bags.

I'm so well-stocked now I may never buy any more at all, unless I pick up another caliber at some point. .22, 6mm 6.5, .270, and .30s abound here. Have a bunch for my .357 revolver and .44 mag rifles too, plus piles for sabotted ML loads.

Somebody's going to have a bunch of crap to sift through when I go under.

For BANG, practice ammo, I scrounged gun shows. I have enough bullets now to out last me.

10-20 years ago the bulk Winchester/Remington bullets were common in the stores, always priced substantially less than other cup and cores. The price went up, people quit buying them, few retailers stock them anymore.

That is exactly what I fins as well. Used to be able to find Win PP and Rem CL bulk. Not anymore.

I switched to Hornady

I'm not sure about the States, but here, Partitions and BTs, are stupidly expensive. Barnes copper bullets are cheaper. Heck, even some bonded bullets cost less than Noslers.

Back when Noslers were the only game in town, I would buy them. These days, except for book loads, I don't buy them anymore. I cannot justify the price.

I think a lot of the Remington & Winchester bullets are out sourced now so it has changed since when everything was made in house and the bulk or 2nds could be used to pass along the savings. Now that they are 2nd party the price sort of gets set with less flexibility. Speer has until recently kept their prices very reasonable, sometimes they were even less than blems or seconds. The old Speer Hot Cores always performed well for me.

I am in the too many bullets too little time camp probably permanently.

Rem has been outsourcing for over 20 yrs. They also reduced their bullet line starting about the same time.

Speer used to be more popular here, but the importers stopped carrying some of their line. And Speer changed their line as well.

I have a good supply of Speer 224 and 6mm bullet, as well as several heavy big game bullets like the 200 gr. .308 and some others.

I noticed hornady just discontinued some of the
bullets I started using some years ago after
Speer and nosler discontinued their bullets
that I used
I don't think I'll be recommending to any
newcomers to start reloading anymore
It's sure frustrating as hell to spend all that
Irreplaceable time working up a great load,
burning up powder, primers, etc., range
expense etc. to find the grail and then have
a bullet company to tell you too bad- so sad
when you need to restock.

If I was starting fresh I'd find suitable factory
loads and buy a few thousand for each firearm.