Old Powder Prices

[1911nut]

I have two pounds of this from the mid 1960’s.
I hope to have the Way-Back machine fired up this weekend so I can grab a couple more pounds, can’t beat that price…

 

[itchyTF]

Not powder and not quite as old but the early 90’s.

 

[Straightshooter1]

I have two pounds of this from the mid 1960’s.
I hope to have the Way-Back machine fired up this weekend so I can grab a couple more pounds, can’t beat that price…

View attachment 1701021

. . . . back when the minimum wage was $1.25 hr.

 

[Bronzie]

. . . . back when the minimum wage was $1.25 hr.

We didn't make that kind of money until the mid 70's

 

[ShtrRdy]

Wow, that's not much $$. But then gas was, like, $0.25 per gallon. First class postage was $0.05.

 

[Lee Whitsel]

Wow, that's not much $$. But then gas was, like, $0.25 per gallon. First class postage was $0.05.

My mother sent me to the grocery story to get Morton Salt for her to make bread in 1957 and I was given a nickel and told the grocer will give you back $.02 walk across the street and get me a $.02 post card that's stamped so i can sent my sister a note all that for a nickel in 1957 what a change I've seen over the years.....

 

[Rocky Mt High]

My first job at 13 years old was at a sod farm in 1971 for $1.72/hour. When I worked a full 40 hour
week I’d take home about $68.00. When I’d get those checks I remember thinking , what fools, they just gave me sixty eight bucks and all I had to do for it was work forty hours!
Dirty hard work too and never thought about it…
Used the money to buy a Winchester model 12 trap gun that won me trophies and I still have it.

 

[searcher]

Remember the big move several decades back to give employees a significant (or an entire) percentage of ownership in a company? While it didn't seem to work too well overall for a variety of reasons, what if individual shooters bought the majority of stock in a leading powder/primer manufacturer, giving "A"-Share stockholders cost-plus discounts on products - akin to employee discounts? The majority of stockholders could prevent a sale to a foreign company, have more control over where the products are sold, as restricted in a corporate charter, ensure that reasonable amount of product would always be available for stockholders - rather than sending everything directly to the wholesalers. Like a Mutual insurance company - profits returned to the shareholders - if any. While we can now buy stocks of Ruger and many other fine firearms-related companies listed on stock exchanges, owning a relative handful of shares gets one no-where when the corporate attorneys, accountants and non-shooter shareholders get their way as to how best profit. It would be nice to have a Triple AAA, of sorts, for the shooting sports.

 

[swd]

$29 on sale at Sportsman’s Warehouse only about 15-18 years ago. I didn’t even need them at the time but bought 2 anyways. Glad I did!

 

[Kittitas George]

The first time I reloaded bullets with my friends dad, in 1960 for my 30-06, Sierra bullets were under $4, primers were $0.89/100 and a pound of surplus 4895 was a dollar. A box of factory 30-06 was maybe $3.50/20. He said "find something cheap to practice with." It may have been a year or 2 later I was partners in a RCBS reloading outfit. We each had our own dies, so we didn't need to continually re-adjust them. It was just a few years ago I gave that RCBS Jr. press to a nephew. Re-loading has saved me a lot of money over the last 65 years, I think. Maybe I wouldn't have shot so much and traveled to so many wonderful places. Now I have great memories of friends, rifles and experiences.

 

[ISS]

I enlisted in the Army in May of 1968. They had just raised the E-1 pay to $100.10 May first.

I still have Winchester L/S/M primers with the .89-cents per hundred stickers on them.

 

[NTHIGPEN]

The first pound of powder I ever bought was in 05-06. It was 13.99 for 1lb of h4895. I’ve got some primers that I assume were from the 90s that were .90 a 100.

 

[TC260]

My first job at 13 years old was at a sod farm in 1971 for $1.72/hour. When I worked a full 40 hour
week I’d take home about $68.00. When I’d get those checks I remember thinking , what fools, they just gave me sixty eight bucks and all I had to do for it was work forty hours!
Dirty hard work too and never thought about it…

Adjusted for inflation that was $13.75/hr in today's dollars, that was a pretty good paying job for a 13 year old.