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Hello all,
My Lee 50th anniversary kit has recently arrived. Now I just need bullets, primers, and powder. There is a Conroe gun show tomorrow so I was thinking about driving that way to check it out. Do gun shows usually have decent deals to pick up the primers and powder? Is there still a hazmat fee associated as there would be if you ordered offline? As you can tell I am very new to re loading and just trying to see if the trip up to the show would be worth my time. Thanks in advance.

There would be no separate HazMat fee at a gunshow. I think gun shows are hit or miss when it comes to reloading components and pricing. Never hurts to look.

I got my reloading supplies at Best Shot Range. They had a co-op buy not long ago, ant I got a great deal on powder and primers.

Conroe Gun Emporium off of 2854 had powder definitely and some primers... not sure about pistol, as I wasn't looking specifially for that.

10-Ring in Cypress, off of Jones Road has a great selection (12779 Jones Rd) of most reloading needs. Kind of a dangerous place, because of the "stuff" they have being tempting, but nice folks. Not too far from Conroe.

High Caliber Gun Show had some powders, but didn't look at pricing. The booth the guy has was along the far back wall the last 3 times we have gone.

Have fun reloading!

Bump. I'm curious too. Would like to replenish my stockpile.

Yes, 10-ring has a very large selection of reloading supplies.

Ok just got back from the show. Here is the deal. It is pretty much break even if you order online vs. gun show prices. I priced H 4895, CCI large rifle, and sierra MK. I compared the gun show prices to those listed on Powder Valley Incs. Web site. The prices on the web site are so cheap that out of the three items you make up for the HAZMAT fee. For all three items it was about 98$ total both online and at the show. I am not sure what shipping is for Powder Valley orders but I imagine it is not really that bad. It will probably cost more to go to the gun show if you figure in sales Tax, gas money (getting more expensive), and the gun show entry fee. Of course I usually don't factor in the gun show expense and gas as I figure I am paying for the experience to go look at a bunch of guns . So there it is. If you buy 8lbs of powder as opposed to 1 lb I bet you would really be getting more bang for the buck as well in regards to the HAZMAT fees saving even more. I was disappointed that there weren't a little better deals but hey it is what it is. Still had fun today.

Bennies wrote: I priced H 4895, CCI large rifle, and sierra MK. I compared the gun show prices to those listed on Powder Valley Incs. Web site. The prices on the web site are so cheap that out of the three items you make up for the HAZMAT fee. For all three items it was about 98$ total both online and at the show.

Your order just reached breakeven. As volumes go up, the mailorder HazMat premium is a fixed prices so it becomes a progressively smaller portion of the total order. My last two Powder Valley orders were about $350 each, so it was substantially cheaper than gunshow prices. My favorite time was a PVI group buy with a bunch of guys where we ordered over 100,000 primers. The HazMat charge then was meaningless.

Yep, the secret to low prices is to order in bulk. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets. At the Houston show this weekend I saw Remington primers for $35 a box. I can order online for $15 and change. If I buy 5,000 primers (I usually buy 20,000 or more) at $15.50 from Powder Valley ($77.50) and add in the hazmat of $25, the order total is just over $100 for 5,000 primers. That's about $20 per K for primers, and no sales tax. Locally at $35 per box with sales tax 5,000 end up costing me $190 total or $38 per K. Add in anything else and the savings really go up.