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Things sure have changed!

4K views 37 replies 25 participants last post by  Eibar 
#1 ·
I was digging through some of my stored stuff and came across this box of 20Ga shells. Check out the sticker. If I remember right, I think I bought a bunch when Target was discontinuing their firearms stuff. We tend to forget that ammo and guns were available at a lot of places that have gone to the wayside.



Jeff
Colorado
Beretta 690
Blaser F3
 
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#3 ·
Spizzer said:
I was digging through some of my stored stuff and came across this box of 20Ga shells. Check out the sticker. If I remember right, I think I bought a bunch when Target was discontinuing their firearms stuff. We tend to forget that ammo and guns were available at a lot of places that have gone to the wayside.
I remember when our local Target quit selling ammo and clearanced shotgun shells. We had a cart full of ammo and shot a lot of doves for a few years with high brass #7.5's we bought on clearance.
 
#5 ·
Gentlemen,

I can remember as a boy going into most any store in the Northern/Western Pa areas and just about every store had a nice gun selection for sale, and lots of ammo, especially the hardware stores. No gun control, no waiting to purchase for a back ground check, and so little crime thru out our state. More guns less crime is a true statement. No politician ever talked gun control back then, the WWII men would not stand for it.

Some things have changed and not for the better.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Can you remember when girls acted like girls and boys loved it!

 
#6 ·
I bought my 1st Perazzi in the 90's for $5000. Brand new.

Good thing nothing ever changes. :wink:
 
#7 ·
When I was a kid, I would ride my bicycle through town with my 22 rifle across the handlebars, stop at the gas station for a box of 22LR. Then ride out to the farmers old oak stand of trees to hunt squirrels. Yes, things sure have changed :!: :!:

cdb
 
#8 ·
sera,

I bought my own L.C. Smith 16 gauge 00 Gun in the late 50's for less than $90.00. That same gun in the same pristine condition, now costs over $2,000, and I can no longer walk into the hardware stores and buy one off the shelf. Very sad turn of events. You men & ladies today have been cheated out of many of our sporting traditions. I was very proud that I had worked to acquire my own Grouse gun. That gun today is over 100 years new.

all the best,

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

 
#9 ·
cdb1097 said:
When I was a kid, I would ride my bicycle through town with my 22 rifle across the handlebars, stop at the gas station for a box of 22LR. Then ride out to the farmers old oak stand of trees to hunt squirrels. Yes, things sure have changed :!: :!:

cdb
A friend of mine used to take his handgun to elementary school while checking his traps to and from. His teacher made him keep it IN his desk so it would be a distraction. :shock:

Could you imagine that scenario today?
 
#11 ·
Pine Creek/Dave said:
Gentlemen,

I can remember as a boy going into most any store in the Northern/Western Pa areas and just about every store had a nice gun selection for sale, and lots of ammo, especially the hardware stores. No gun control, no waiting to purchase for a back ground check, and so little crime thru out our state. More guns less crime is a true statement. No politician ever talked gun control back then, the WWII men would not stand for it.

Some things have changed and not for the better.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Can you remember when girls acted like girls and boys loved it!

Where have you been. I see girls acting like girls every day and I've never quit liking girls. What, you don't like girls any more? Nice pic, by the way.
 
#13 ·
I bought a shopping cart full of Winchester compression formed 410 shells from Target back then. I'll have to look to see if any of the price stickers are still on the boxes but I recall paying $3 for 3" hulls and $2.50 for 2.5" shells. I still have a box or two of 3" in #6 shot though I think I may have used up the 7.5s. I have cut many of the long hulls down to 2.5" as the mouths broke up. Quite a few of those as well as the original 2.5" hulls are still around.

Looking back, I should have bought up the 16 ga compression formed loads too but I didn't. I only had a single shot 16 ga and felt I had plenty of shells on hand. Later on I ended up sitting fine on those but it did cost me slightly more than $3/box.
 
#15 ·
Eibar said:
Pine Creek/Dave said:
Gentlemen,

I can remember as a boy going into most any store in the Northern/Western Pa areas and just about every store had a nice gun selection for sale, and lots of ammo, especially the hardware stores. No gun control, no waiting to purchase for a back ground check, and so little crime thru out our state. More guns less crime is a true statement. No politician ever talked gun control back then, the WWII men would not stand for it.

Some things have changed and not for the better.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

Can you remember when girls acted like girls and boys loved it!

Where have you been. I see girls acting like girls every day and I've never quit liking girls. What, you don't like girls any more? Nice pic, by the way.
Some of the young girls at these sporting clays shoots look as cute as those.
 
#16 ·
I remember walking down to the park near my house with my CO2 rifle and no one batting an eye and I was in a rather populated area or all the sporting goods stores which had firearms sections

now even when shells are in stock I have to drive nearly an hour away to buy anything.
 
#17 ·
My grandkids were amazed when I told them that the high school parking lot was full of trucks with guns in thier back windows (remember those horizontal gun racks) and it was nothing for a teacher that was walking by to ask to see your turkey gun or deer rifle. They also can't believe that most of the boys had a knife in thier pocket too.
 
#18 ·
goosedowner said:
My grandkids were amazed when I told them that the high school parking lot was full of trucks with guns in thier back windows (remember those horizontal gun racks) and it was nothing for a teacher that was walking by to ask to see your turkey gun or deer rifle. They also can't believe that most of the boys had a knife in thier pocket too.
I got in trouble once for being late to first period because the shop teacher wanted to see my new deer rifle that was in my truck rack. This was in the early 80's.
 
#19 ·
Great stories from everybody. I remember saving my money and going to the local hardware store and buying my first pistol, a Colt New Frontier .22. Plunked down my money and walked out with it. A day or two later my dad got a call and said I wasn't old enough to to buy it ( I think I was 15 or so) and that he had to come down and fill it the paperwork as the adult.

Also, we lived across the street from the elementary school and HS in Upper Michigan. I used to walk across the playground that was between them with my shotgun to go up into the woods to go bird hunting. Nobody thought twice about it.

Jeff
Colorado
Beretta 690
Blaser F3
 
#21 ·
Change is inevitable. Not all change is beneficial.

A 1980 three dollar box of shotgun shells would cost about 10 bucks today.

A million dollar house today would have been worth about 38k in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve Act was passed.

Homebuyers buy a mortgage payment, not housing prices. They buy a mortgage they can afford. With conforming mortgage rates below 3%, housing values have risen to artificial rates. There is a huge red flag blowing in our financial wind. A million dollar home at the current conventional interest rate would have a mortgage payment of ~5500. If interest rates go up to 8%, that million dollar home would be worth about 650k because people buy mortgage payments. If a homebuyer were to buy a million dollar home with an interest rate of 4% and have to sell it with interest rates of 8% (or higher), he'll ave to come in in hundreds of thousands to sell it.

The more fiat money pumped into our economy, the less our money is worth. Historically, debasing money was foreboding of decline and collapse of empires and lesser countries.

Inflation is an insidious tax.

The Fed Reserve destroys value of Americans' money.
 
#22 ·
I bought my first rifle, a Winchester Model 67, at the local hardware store in 1956 when I was nine years old. I think I paid around $30. My Mom drove me to the store. No paperwork, just a short lecture by the guy working there to "be careful." This was in California, of all places. A few months later two of my friends and I were walking down the road with our guns on our shoulders, going to the place where we hunted bunnies. A local cop stopped his car next to us, rolled down his window and asked where we were going. We told him and he asked if our parents knew what we were doing. We said "yes" and he replied with "be careful" and drove off. Imagine what would happen in a similar situation today. A SWAT team would likely be called and the kids would end up in jail or worse.

So what is the difference? Well, we all had stay at home Moms. Dads who were WW2 vets who taught us gun safety. We were members of the Boy Scouts and we all went to church on Sundays.
 
#23 ·
Pine Creek/Dave said:
... I bought my own L.C. Smith 16 gauge 00 Gun in the late 50's for less than $90.00.....
During the mid-1950's, three friends and I pulled targets at a local Trap & Skeet Club. A round of trap or skeet with a box of Federal paper Champion shells was $3.25, a dollar for targets and $2.25 for the shells. It sounds inexpensive now but, at that time a round of trap represented 4.3 hours of work for kids who were earning $0.75 an hour. I used $35.- of those earnings to buy a very nice 16 gauge Lefever Nitro Special with a leather leg-o-mutton case from one of the old timers at the club. One of the skeet shooters loaded black powder for his rabbit eared L. C. Smith. He kindly gave me a box to try on skeet with my Lefever at the end of the day. To this day, I don't know if my station 8 high house bird was smoked from #9 shot or the flame belching out of the Lefever's muzzle.

The Lefever followed me to college and resided in my dorm room. During small game season, it was not unusual to see students walking across campus with a shotgun draped over one arm. The student newspaper reported on hunt results. Our ROTC rifle team coach gave us bricks of match grade .22LR ammo for practice over holiday and semester breaks.

Yes jmacgreg, it was truly a different time with a different national attitude.

DF

Montani Semper Liberi
 
#25 ·
thanks for the dance down memory lane. in 1967 at the ripe old age of 13, I would get off the school bus and in less than 10 minutes be opening the kennel door of 3 beagles, then walk unleashed through the neighbors back yard where i would be greeted and told good luck by the mom. cannot imagine that happens anymore
 
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