Saturday, January 28, 2012

I just made $35.00 an hour

WOW! $35.00 an hour. Well kinda, sorta. Not long ago I aquired a early 1920's vintage S&W .32 Hand Ejector. The price was right, really right. This is my second .32 long chambered revolver I've owned. The first was a Colt Police Positive of similar vintage. These guns make perfect "kit guns". Better than a .22 rim fire in my opinion. When I aquired the Colt 10+ years ago it came with nearly 2000rds of assorted ammunition and a set of reloading dies. I never had a chance to use the dies until tonight. When I sold the Colt I kept the dies and about a quarter of the 32 long brass and 2 boxes of recent manufacture ammo. everything else was collector grade ammo and got sold at a very healthy profit.

Well having aquired another gun I went out and blew right through my 2 boxes of ammo. Tomorrow I'm going shooting with a friend. This friend and I have always had a competitive streak when it comes to guns. He pulls out a 1910 vintage S&W 38 with target sights and I pull out an early Colt 38 Officers model still in it's box. That kind of competitive streak. Well, I couldn't show up tomorrow without my newest toy, so I hit the local gun shop for ammo. Talk about sticker shock! $37.00 a box for ammo! Well My solution to that was "give me a pound of Red Dot and 200 primers".  7000 grains of powder in a pound and 2 grains of powder in a 32 long cartridge case. Red Dot is $26.00 a pound and primers $2.96 a hundred. Years ago somebody gave me a coffee can full of 90 grain cast SWC bullets. Pulled out my mics and they were pretty round and were right around .312" diameter. A dab of liquid alox and they were loadable as is. I just spent two hours loading 100 rounds on my coffee table. Pelenaka wouldn't have appreciated me clamping my powder measure to her glass table top, so I hand weighed all 100 charges. Otherwise it would have taken half  as long. Still if I do my math right it works out to $1.85 a box. Or about $35.00 a box savings. That's less than $.04 a shot. I can't buy good .22's for that.

I gotta be careful. I could end up shooting more and that would blow any saving out the window.

What a horrible dillema to be in.

Woods

5 comments:

Gorges Smythe said...

"I gotta be careful. I could end up shooting more and that would blow any saving out the window. What a horrible dillema to be in."

Yeah; don't ya just hate it when that happens! ;-)

Smilin-buddha said...

Did you get a press. Love to see pics of the old SMith

woodsrunner said...

Gorges, Yes I do. Years ago I aquired an old Marlin in 32/40. Ammo when you can find it runs around $50.00 a box. I found I could resize 30/30's into 32/40's. I can load those for around $4.00 a box.

S-B, I actually own several presses. The problem since I got married 5 years ago is having a place to set them up. Pistol ammo isn't so bad. I picked up a LEE hand press used at a gun show for $10.00. It does the job, but it's awkward to use. It got these 32's loaded though. A pic of the 32 is on my next post for you.

Woods

Smilin-buddha said...

Space is always a issue. I talked to a guy this weekend that has two presses. Never set up the Dillon still sitting in the box. He bought it years ago all he remembered was it was blue. I need a storage unit for all my hobbies

woodsrunner said...

LOL S-B, When I was single I owned a four bedroom house. My guns and reloading stuff had thier own bedroom! And thinking back on it, they had the biggest bedroom.