Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Remember When?

Barry, those shorts were the ticket for squirrels when i was a kid. Shot in the head while laying low on a limb and they would tense up and stand up on all fours and pop that tail a few times before relaxing and falling.

Didnt waste bullets practicing either. Sight in and the rest were for meat.

I remember buying the Remington Mohawks for 59 cents a box. I spent most of my trap line and and lawn mowing money on .22's and shotgun shells when I was a kid.

I think they were $0.65 per box when I was a kid. We would scrounge for months to collect soda bottles for their $0.02 deposit each and go to the store and trade for a box. The guy who owned the little county store would always caution us to be very careful.

I remember .22LR for a penny apiece and wondered even then how they managed to make a round of ammo for less than a penny. Not long after that, primers were a dollar a hundred. If you scrounged wheelweights and cast your own bullets, you could reload centerfire rounds like .30-30 or .30-06 for about three cents. Your only costs were primer and powder and powder ran about two dollars a pound.

For perspective, however, wages then ran about a buck fifty an hour, so you had two hours of labor for that powder and primers. Not much different than just before this current abnormal price climb.

I remember when LR hit 75 cents....I was outraged and positive the Govt. was involved!

The old men laughed about the good job 12 year old Tolbert kid did, who lived out on Piney Creek, when he went out early one winter morning with 9 shells. He missed one shot but still got a small buck and 8 squirrels by making up for the mistake by getting two in one shot.

We used those shorts on bullfrogs. 🤠

I was buying Wildcats for a penny apiece in the 90's!


You guys were getting screwed.

Today, we do well to find the 22's at at ANY price!

My LGS still had quite a bit in stock when I was in there yesterday.

Can’t remember the price but I bought some Coast to Coast shorts one time. Went out looking for jackrabbits when it was around 20 below. I shot at one about 50 yards away and I watched the bullet go and hit the snow about 40 yards out. LOL Never bought those again. It was fun watching thebullet go out though. Edk

Lol, 75cents, what'd ya do buy them in 1806?

The rifle club I belonged to in the early 60's sold junior shooters CMP Remington .22 ammo for .50 cents a box. For a couple bucks you could shoot all morning on Saturday, the club gun vault had CMP Springfield 1922's , Winchester M/52's & M/75's. The rich kids had Anschutz M/54's and BSA Martini's. The H.S. rifle team had a few CMP Springfield 1922's and Mossberg 144LS.

Sure you were. Wildcats were the same price as Remington Mohawks when I was a kid, 59 cents a box. That was in the mid 70's. Mohawks later became Thunderbolts and the quality went to shyt. Wildcats were also pretty good in the '70's but are garbage now. The comparative price per round did go down when they started bulk packaging .22's in milk cartons and such but so did the quality of the ammunition. The old Mohawks and Wildcats always went bang, sounded the same from shot to shot and were accurate. It's too bad they can't make Thunderbolts, Wildcats or bulk pack ammo that good today but low price and volume sales is all that matters now.

I bought 3 cases of CCI Blazer 22LR back in the late 90's for $79 each. That's 79 cents a box of 50. Wish I had bought a few more cases at that price.

When I was a kid there were two places to buy ammo in our small town: the hardware store (owned by my ex-wife’s grandparents) and the sporting goods and marine store (owned by my wife’s grandfather.) either place would break a box of cf rifle or shotgun ammo, but rimfires were only by the box. I used a lot of shorts because they were cheaper and as soon as I scrounged and saved enough for ammo, I’d go down and buy some. Sometimes I’d get .22 longs.

Ahhh...the New York schit hole....

Those were probably priced when you could by a new car for $2500 and a living wage was maybe $7-8000/yr. Multiply all those numbers by 10 and see what the ammo costs.

Best prices I remember was shorts $.35/box, longs $.50/box, lr $.60/box.

I recall about $5 a brick of 500
It was the “go to gift” for birthdays and Christmas