Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles I'm So Old - I Can Remember....

My brother ordered an FN Musketeer .270 from Gander Mountain. $145 IIRC. First thing he did was replace the alloy floorplate. He was 18 in 1967.

Blacktailer: My father was born in 1922 and he and his two brothers would Hunt Ground Squirrels for the one cent bounty on them in Baker County, Oregon at the time.
The 3 of them would shoot VERY carefully and quickly retrieve the Gophers for the penny a tail bounty.
Back then (1932'ish) dad said that a box of 50 22 L.R. cartridges was 22 cents and it was touch and go all summer if the collected tails bounties would keep up with their shooting.
As an aside one day they were near the Baker City (Oregon) town and county dump and the three of them came across several intentionally hacked up "One Armed Bandits" (slot machines) there in the dump. They had obviously been taken and destroyed by law enforcement then left at the dump.
Upon inspection a few nickel coins were found and they started further disassembling the one armed bandits and found that the coin route to the coin boxes (which were empty of course) held several nickels in each mechanism.
They jingled all the way to the hardware store and bought four or five boxes of 22 ammo - he also relayed each time he told this story how he and his brothers felt like they were on cloud nine with their found treasure.
In my Ground Squirrel Hunting of today the bounty would have to be 25 cents (or more!) per tail for me to stay even in that game.
Yep - times are a changin.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Bella1: I bought a new Ford 4x4 V-8 pickup truck every two years from 1970 to 1974 - If I recall correctly that 1974 Ford F-250 4x4 with heavy duty axles and oil bath air cleaner was right at $4,000.00 then - out in "taxington" $4,000.00 wouldn't even cover the sales tax on a new Ford F-250 4x4 V-8 today!
Yep times are changed and our money is not anywhere near as worthful as it was in the 1970's.
Aaaahhhh..... for the good old days.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Seafire: You are bringing me down!
You are right of course in your contention but I was enjoying myself so much daydreaming of times (prices!) gone by.
Oh well day-dreams come and go.
Back to day-dreaming - I have been racking my brain trying to remember how much I paid for my first "real" reloading press which was an R.C.B.S A-2?
I think it was priced at $39.00 back in about 1962?
Still have one but not that original one purchased, it went away in an unfortunate manner - and was later replaced.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Buying Remington SR primers for $2.00 a thousand .Buying off the shelf 2 9/16" 16 gauge shotgun shells that actually fit and functioned correctly in my pre war A5 Browning. Austin pistol Black Powder for $1.75 a can. Buying powder in a brown paper sack. When all wheel weights were lead and didn't need sorting. When the old Black Ideal lube was The Lube. RWS #11 percussion caps for $4 per 1000 roll and Dupont FFFG for a hair less than $2.00 a pound. Buying tins of RWS CB caps for less than $2.00 . I could go on but it's kinda making me sick thinking about it.


One more, I remember when you could buy a baby Alligator at the W.T. Grants store in Nashville for $2.00 . $2.00 used to be a significant amount of money , now it will almost buy the same 1/2 gallon of gas that I bought many times as a kid for 14 cents. By the time I started driving gas had gone up to .37 a gallon for Sinclair Regular.

Not fighting amongst ourselves about choice of huntin' irons. Lively debate? Yes. But not the snotty, snobbery of today.
Never did understand how one person's choice of hunting rifle/ muzzleloader/ bow effected anyone else...

I'm so old I just barely remember when Hodgdon was selling surplus powder to farmers for fertilizer. I did not understand what was going on, since I was about 5, but I remember a vigorous discussion between my dad and an uncle who had bought some. Uncle was vigorously claiming it was safe as long as you wet it properly. Dad was sure he would blow himself up. Both made it into their 90s.

here’s something to make you cringe…had 2 boxes of primers buried in the reloading storage drawer that I bought in 1993 when a local gunshop went out of business. Yes the price sticker on the right was what I paid for them! $1.60!!!!!

I remember the surplus 4831. We just called it 4831, and it was $0.98/pound you-scoop into a paper sack or your own container. I had a couple of 1 gallon wine jugs my neighbor gave me and scooped away.

I used the last of my good sized supply of the 4831 a dozen years ago. I was 12 in 1959, also.

I don’t understand this myself. For the most part there are good people on the fire. Often I see people helping each other, lately people bash and belittle people over petty choices . To each his own but it seams some are just negative about anything others have or use. All of the choices are what have made the gun industry thrive

Preach it brother

40 cent gasoline and Farms costing less than a tractor nowadays.

I’m so old I can remember used, fair condition lever action 3030’s goin for under $250

When a new Corvette Stingray cost less than $6k.

Yeah
My mother bought my dad a new one for $60.00
before I was born. They were still less than
two hundred used good condition in this area
not quite 2 decades ago. Nobody wanted a
dirty thirty lever action


Remember when plain donuts cooked that
morning weren't 50 - 75 cents apiece?r

Bought a Sako Deluxe .375 for 350.00.

Heck I remember gas prices at 29.9 cents a gallon for the three summers I worked at Ames motors in Rochester 69-71.

Remember buying a Shakespeare wonderrod flyrod in 1960 for $14 at Naums (still have it) and a Schwinn 10 speed "racing" bike for $70 in 1963.

Bought a used car every summer to get to my summer job as I worked through college. Mom sold me her 1960 chevy impala convertible 283 for $75, sold it that fall sold it to John Horn, a 62 chevy impala 283 $175, sold that fall to Harvey Holderle, and a 62 chevy II with a inline 6 for $100 which ended up with a cracked block sold it for $5 and watched it get destroyed at a demolition derby. Bought a 1963 Ford econoline van for $300 and used it to move to Az. I get frequent reminders of what they were like when I watch Roadkill garage. Rusty worn out but functional transportation that often needed work. BUT inexpensive.

Bought a 72 for 6,000, brand new

I remember when

Hardware and Western Auto stores sold guns. In the small towns too.

Had access to guns 24/7. No child protection back then.

We would take our rifles to school in the truck to go shooting after school and the swat team wasn’t called and it didn’t make the 6 o’clock news.

As 11 year olds, dad would drop off me and a friend on the railroad tracks with our high power centerfires to hunt and pick us up at dark.

We would ride in the back of the truck. We would drink from the hose. We would ride bikes without a helmet.

We would see frogs, horny toads and prairie dogs on a regular basis.

I am so old, I can't remember