Component prices in the olden days

[TimRB]

Whenever I buy reloading components I buy a lot, so it has been a long time since I have bought anything, and I still have enough to last several years. That said, it's been long enough that I don't remember what a "normal" price might be. For example, as I recall powder used to be something around $25/lb and primers also about 25 bucks a thousand. A brick of .22LR was under $20. I may not be remembering these things correctly, but I would appreciate hearing what people think prices will be when (if?) everything cools off.

Tim

[jimmykan]

Those were normal prices when I started reloading, around 2006.

[pacrat]

Component prices in the olden days

Your posted prices may be what millenials consider
"Olden Days".

My recollection of "OLDEN DAYS" component prices goes much farther back.

I still have a few empty Hercules Unique square metal 13 oz cans marked at $2.65 with a "sale" sticker dropping it to $2.45. Primers ran about 35 cents per hundred. And a BRICK of primers, dropped the price to $3.25 per thou.

Or you could go CHEAP and get Hodgdon bulk powders for $1.50 a pound by bringing your own coffee can.

Before the Poo Pooing starts for a piddly 20-25 cent saving. That same 25 cents at the time. Would buy you a pound of hamburger. Or a loaf of Wonder Bread AND a quart of milk.

[G-forceJunkie]

I remember reloading 9mm for $38 a thousand in the 90's.

[bohoki]

yea i used to buy bullets for 45 cost about $35 for 500 once they hit a dime i started casting
i remember k mart used to have a sale on thunderbolts for like $8 a brick

[JackEllis]

OP, the prices you quote are about what I paid when I first started reloading four years ago. I have acquired powders that are still in tins with prices under $3/lb, but that's what the original owner paid. I wasn't so lucky.

[tabascoz28]

For many years right before the pandemic my going rate gauge for powder was $30/lb and $32/k for primers ($25 were sale prices from Sportsmans). Anything I could get for less was a good price. 9mm coated projos are back down to what they used to be almost, I remember writing down Berry's for 8c per round. 223 projos are not, they used to be about 7c per round, maybe 6 if you buy 6000 at a time.


223/k was about $300/k and 9mm was $9/50.

[TimRB]

I thank everyone for your responses! Very helpful. As for this comment:

Your posted prices may be what millenials consider
"Olden Days".

my fear is that by the time prices get back to normal, THESE will be the olden days.

Tim

[DaveInOroValley]

Not component prices but:

[fish45]

Your posted prices may be what millenials consider
"Olden Days".

My recollection of "OLDEN DAYS" component prices goes much farther back.

I still have a few empty Hercules Unique square metal 13 oz cans marked at $2.65 with a "sale" sticker dropping it to $2.45. Primers ran about 35 cents per hundred. And a BRICK of primers, dropped the price to $3.25 per thou.

Or you could go CHEAP and get Hodgdon bulk powders for $1.50 a pound by bringing your own coffee can.

Before the Poo Pooing starts for a piddly 20-25 cent saving. That same 25 cents at the time. Would buy you a pound of hamburger. Or a loaf of Wonder Bread AND a quart of milk.

As a "millenial" I think in terms of pre-covid, pre-obama, and pre-9/11 as those were roughly the times of price hikes without prices going back down.

Pre-9/11 22 was 15 dollars a box of 500 and the only time you really ever saw boxes smaller than that was "match" ammo. Powder was around 20 a pound, and primers were around the same per thousand. 223 was 2-2.50 dollars a box.

After 9/11 everything went up and never went down to anything close to what it should have been, even accounting for inflation.

The obama years are when it started getting bad. If you really needed something you could find it if you looked hard enough/ drove far enough. This is when I noticed the biggest hikes in powder prices. This is where you started seeing the disparity between the 22 dollars for a pound of X vs 30 dollars for a pound of Y. The last time I bought cheap 223 it was 6 ish dollars a box. Primers were definitly in the 30-35 dollar range at the LGS.

Now, post-covid, you're just SOL. Distributors know they can charge whatever they want because people will pay it. The store I bought my new go to powder from charged 30 dollars for the powder I like 6 months ago, that same powder last week was 38. 223 was over 12 dollars a box the last time I looked. If the LGS lets you buy 1000 primers now theyre 45+.

[tabascoz28]

You'd think that as long as CG has been around there's probably a going list of yearly average prices, broken down by maker/month/caliber/components etc. They must not be charged by the post or server space cause we're always just speculating and reminiscing about the "good ole days"...

[bohoki]

anyone remember laura scudders potato chips where they came in this huge bag but inside that bag was 2 smaller bags

[CamW]

I started reloading when I was in college,1980 or so.There was a gun store in Santa Monica on Pico Blvd that sold Federal primers for $8 per thousand.
That was a lot of money for a poor college student, buy primers or eat lunch for two days.

Here's a receipt from the Reloading Center in Van Nuys dated Feb. 1999.
8 pounds of Varget for $117.99 !

[QED]

I bought 2 lbs of varget from Midway last august for 31.50/lb, not including tax, shipping, hazmat. I was also able to order an 8 lb jug of 8208. Early in the pandemic, powder was periodically available and mostly at then-normal prices. Primers were tougher but I purchased a couple of thousand BR2 and BR4 from Reed's in Santa Clara just ahead of the initial pandemic shutdown. The combination of shutdowns and defunding of police seems to have exacerbated the shortages but you could still find components early on. Only later did the supply chain disruption and excess demand create the severe shortages and price increases we see now.

[rromeo]

Olden days = 2019