New vs Old

[abunaitoo]

I almost never buy new equipment.
I just like old stuff.
New stuff is probably better, but I like the feeling of using old stuff.
I do buy dies and sometimes molds.
I did buy a Lee Classic Cast when it came out.
Needed a strong press for case forming.
It didn't do what I wanted, then a old big CH press fell into my lap.
It does everything I want.
I'm kind of a old tool junky.
To me, old tools just seem to be made with more style.
Newer tools are made bare bone to just do it's job.

[GregLaROCHE]

Old equipment today is what once was new to me.

[Bazoo]

I like older stuff. Same as older guns. New stuff is okay if it suits my needs but, I've always liked older stuff better. I'm always on the lookout for old gun accessories too, rifle cases, slings, cleaning gear. Now... What about new stuff that's made in the same way, with the same quality, as old stuff.

American Mountain Supply rifle cases fall into this category for me. The quality of the cases is top notch but they are made with the same old styles and colors. My winchester 94 doesn't seem out of place in my green AMS case. Though I probably should have gotten the Indian print.

[NoZombies]

I have nothing against the new made stuff, whether it's guns or tools or whatever, I just tend to appreciate quality, and sometimes older guns and tools offer quality at a price point I couldn't afford if it was new.

I've been collecting old tools since I was a kid.

There are lots of cool new ways to make things, and cool new things being made, but there's something about a time tested tool that makes it a little more special, to me anyways.

[rbuck351]

I like old tools and guns as well. Some of the newer things are better and some are not. I have recently bought an old Bonanza co-ax, a Herters O Super press and was given a Star Universal, all very well built. But I also have a Dillon 550b which is also very well built and a lot less complicated than the Star.

[bedbugbilly]

I find that when I'm looking for something that I need - I always gravitate towards "old" - but I have to be careful as most to the things I end p with are as old as me or older! :-) For my single stage presses - I have RCBS Jr2 and a Jr3 - both from the 60s and younger than me but they were built to last and will outlast me. I have Lyman 310 die sets and steel handles for the majority of the calibers I reload and I enjoy using them every so often - may be "slow paced" but provides lots of satisfaction when I set a nice looking loaded round in the storage box for the loaded cartridges.

The other day, I was casting up some conicals for use in my .44 cap & ball revolvers and I was using a single cavity Ideal 450225 mold - one of the early ones where the blocks and handles are all once piece - probably easily over 100 years old by now and still looks great. It always drops excellent cast boolits from the first pour if preheated a bit. I got to wondering just how many folks had owned the mold through the years, just how old it may be and smiled when I thought of how many may use it after I'm gone. The majority of old tools were built to last - just a glance into ky may tool boxes tells me that. Yep . . . "today's" tools will someday be "old" tools - but just how many will survive the years - so many plastic parts to break and planned obsolescence.

[Petrol & Powder]

It is very Item Specific.

When it come to tools, I have a huge mix of purchased new & used.

I tend to purchase used guns more than new ones but that is generally because I'm seeking a particular model or feature.

I've purchased a lot of vehicles in my life and only one of them was new and that was in 1990. I doubt I'll ever do that again.

I don't believe that everything that is old is automatically better. It is easy to become overly nostalgic. Some things were better and some things were not.

[mdi]

I worked with hand tools, making a living, most of my life and I guess I'm a Tool Nut. But, the main problem with reloading tools/equipment is "old" quality tools are not readily available near me. I bought 2 used die sets (RCBS) from ebay, but both had been abused by Privative Pete and it took some tedious work to make them usable again. If I buy any used tools/equipment, I gotta have it in my hand first...

[1hole]

Young people (i.e., inexperienced) always want new stuff because, to them, anything new is obviously better than anything old.

Old people (i.e., experienced) were young once and they learned the hard way that young people are wrong more often than not. I was young once and that was enough.

My reloading bench has a lot of stuff; some is new and it works but more is "old" and still doing its job quite well.

[Shawlerbrook]

If you buy quality it will last a lifetime. In general, things are not made to last a lifetime anymore.

[jaguarxk120]

One member at Shotgun World signs off with the quote "
The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the
sweetness of low price has faded from memory. Aldo Gucci"

It is the quality of the older tooling that keeps me buying that older stuff.
The "kids" are buying the tools made less costly today and after they find out
what they bought still want to hook other new reloaders into the stamped steel
plastic stuff.

[CastingFool]

My first set of screwdrivers are craftsman, bought my senior year of high school. While a couple of them are quite beat up, they still function very well, same as my set of combo wrenches. I do have 2 possibly another set of screwdrivers, too. I would buy them when Sears would have their tool sales.

[Petrol & Powder]

The mere fact that something is old doesn't make it great. Nor is everything new automatically inferior.

Cheap and inferior products are not confined to a particular time frame.

It's easy to fall into the nostalgia trap.

The saying, "they don't make'em like they used to" can sometimes be followed with the response, "and it's good they don't"!

We've all encountered older items that are higher quality than what is currently available but we've also likely encountered older items that were junk. There's a strong tendency to only remember the good stuff.

[pworley1]

Most of my presses are over 40 years old.

[robg]

the old junk tools broke so the old tools you find now were quality.

[LarryM]

I still use a couple of Stanley hand planes that belonged to my grandfather. I have a few others that I use that I've picked up here and there that date to the end of the 19th century and early 20th.
I have and use an old Lyman S/T turret press that while solid and straight and does a fine job is a little less convenient than my Lyman T-mag turret press that I have several turrets for.

[mdi]

I don't know how old my C-H press is and I don't really care. It is built like a tank (weighs about 76 lbs.), is tight, and works quite well. I bough it for $13.00 in about '83 and have reloaded several thousand rounds on it. Nostalgia? Nope, it just works better than many "new" presses I see. We do have to admit though, the "bottom line" on everything manufactured today determines the quality, more often than not, not up to the standards off a few decades ago...

[dverna]

Many old presses last for decades because they do not get used a lot. I doubt they were made any better or with better materials. My oldest press is an Bonanza Co-Ax. Maybe the new Co-Ax is inferior???? I have loaded less than 20k rounds on my 45+ YO Co-Ax as I do not shoot a lot of CF rifle and it work like new. On the Dillon 1050, I would load 20k pistol rounds a year when I was competing, and it works like new.

[sharps4590]

Anyone care to go back to the mid to late 70's and early 80's vehicles? When a conversation like this comes up I think, "thank God for the Japs and Germans", or we'd still be driving junk. No one likes old stuff anymore than me but as was mentioned in an earlier post, it's good some things aren't made the way they used to be.

[Kevin Rohrer]

Only two fo the seven presses on the the bench are new, and one of those is based on a fairly old design.

[Petrol & Powder]

Yep, I don't think anyone will be looking at Chevette's, Vega's, and Pinto's with any great lust for the "Old Days".

[David2011]

My first set of screwdrivers are craftsman, bought my senior year of high school. While a couple of them are quite beat up, they still function very well, same as my set of combo wrenches. I do have 2 possibly another set of screwdrivers, too. I would buy them when Sears would have their tool sales.

Same here. Still have a few of my original Craftsman screwdrivers from 1972-73. My shop has a ton of old Craftsman including a commercial grade cabinet table saw that I took delivery of yesterday. Watching machining videos, a huge number of lathe videos show a 1930s era open end wrench handy for the carriage lock.

Of all of my presses, the Rock Chucker from the ‘70s is my favorite.

[abunaitoo]

I liked the Vega.
Once you changed the motor, trans and rear end.
It was a great car.

[tinsnips]

Some of my sheet metal machines come from the early 60s when my father started the business they work as good as the day he bought them.I go threw new cordless drills on a regular bases. I thought I was the only person to own a Vega went half way across the US in one on my honeymoon.

[Baltimoreed]

the old junk tools broke so the old tools you find now were quality.
+1 I still dig around in the bottom of tool bins at the habitat store or yard sale. Old stuff was made to last as today’s mindset of built in obsolescence wasn’t the way to do business then. Baer or Pacific ring any bells? They didn’t build inferior products, they were absorbed by Hornady. The best way to defeat your competition is to buy them out.

[Petrol & Powder]

Ah, the Vega......fill up the oil and check the gas :shock:

[rbuck351]

Yeah, the vega was a money maker for me. I can't remember how many of those engines I sleeved with cast iron sleeves but it was a bunch. Get them a bit hot and the pistons would stick to the aluminum cylinders. And, they got hot real easy with that tiny radiator they had.

[Petrol & Powder]

The Vega did keep the mosquito population in check.:razz:

[Scrounge]

I almost never buy new equipment.
I just like old stuff.
New stuff is probably better, but I like the feeling of using old stuff.
I do buy dies and sometimes molds.
I did buy a Lee Classic Cast when it came out.
Needed a strong press for case forming.
It didn't do what I wanted, then a old big CH press fell into my lap.
It does everything I want.
I'm kind of a old tool junky.
To me, old tools just seem to be made with more style.
Newer tools are made bare bone to just do it's job.

A lot of the old stuff was made to last, and made solidly to be durable. Newer equipment is often, if not always, made to be as cheap as possible to make, so often lighter than maybe it should be. It does't feel solid when you pick it up, and it feels too light to do the job constantly and continuously, and be durable enough to hand on to another generation of users. I've got three drill presses. One is from Harbor Freight. 8" cheapy. It's not really a bad drill press, for $60, light enough to pick up one-handed, and it works reasonably well. I've also got one that weighs about 900lbs. It is a beast to move, and not quite as easy to operate. It was originally designed to run from a flat belt line shaft. Guy who gave it to me rebuilt it about 38 years ago. Used it daily in his shop until he got a newer, more modern, heavy-duty drill press, and needed the space to put it. I don't think I'm going to live long enough to need to rebuild it. It's all thick cast iron, where the HF drill press is pretty thin cast iron base and head, with sheet metal for most everything else. It might weigh 20 lbs.

[Scrounge]

Anyone care to go back to the mid to late 70's and early 80's vehicles? When a conversation like this comes up I think, "thank God for the Japs and Germans", or we'd still be driving junk. No one likes old stuff anymore than me but as was mentioned in an earlier post, it's good some things aren't made the way they used to be.

I do wish I'd been smart enough to keep my 1963 Impala SS. It was the hardtop, not the convertible, but still... I've lost count of the cars I've owned, but I've had some classics. Some were good. Then there was the Levi Gremlin. Don't remember exactly the year, but in 1977 I had to put big fender washers under the door latch posts so the doors would stay closed. The metal around the threaded insert they screwed into had cracked badly. Traded it in on a 1966 Dodge Dart. Drove that from NW Florida to Las Vegas in 1978, and found when I got there that the rocker arm shaft in the Slant-Six engine was broken, and from the rust on the edges of the break, had been for quite some time.

My reloading press is a Spar-T that I got just a couple of years later. I'm looking for an old O or H press, as I want to play with swaging boolits, but not real hard.

[Petrol & Powder]

Old stuff was not made to last. High quality old stuff was made to last. And it wasn't all high quality.

There was PLENTY of crappy stuff in prior times, we just tend to forget about it. Maybe we don't want to remember it, maybe nostalgic feelings are normal.

I have radios with vacuum tubes in them, not because they are better than solid state radios (they are not) but because I like the old radios.
I have a medium size LCD smart TV that even in today's money cost a fraction of what the same screen size would have cost 30 years ago AND it weighs less, takes up less space, makes less unwanted heat and has far more functionality than an old set.
I have a mediocre drip coffee marker that makes coffee 100 times better than the old chrome plated percolator I have stashed away (I really should just toss that thing, I'm never going to use it again).
I have LED bulbs in light fixtures that cost more than the old incandescent bulbs BUT they last thousands of hours more AND use a tiny fraction of the electricity needed to make the same light with an incandescent bulb. (the jury is still out on that one but I think LED is going to win)
I know my way around a carburetor, a distributor and drum brakes. I can repair, maintain or rebuild all of those items in my sleep. I'll take electronic fuel injection, crank trigger electronic ignition with coil packs and disc brakes - any day.

I remember when gear wrenches came out (box end wrench with a built in ratchet) - didn't have those when I was younger. If you couldn't fit a deep wall socket and ratchet on it, get ready to reposition that old box end wrench a 175 times.

Cordless screwdrivers- yep, had those. Some had plastic handles and some had wooden handles but every last damn one of them was "cordless".

How about firearms? Corrosive ammo anyone?
You want a double action semi-auto pistol ? Your choices are a Walther, maybe a first gen S&W and a few others, but don't get your hopes too high.
How about wet paper hulled shotgun shells that will not chamber and if they do, will not fire?

I've used my share of cheap "made in Taiwan" wrenches that were marked "drop forged" and they looked like the forge dropped when they were made.
Not every socket set was made by SK, Thorsen or Craftsman.
If you knew someone with Snap-On tools, you were ahead of the game.