Cage Dodger, and Don, and others: You can order Black Powder shipped to your door, for much less than the cost of buying Pyrodex, or any of the substitute powders. Graf & Son, and Powder Inc, and a couple of other major distributors across the country will ship you powder at better prices, if you order at least 5 lbs. If you order a case of 25 lbs, you get the lowest prices. Some men order the powder in bulk, and do even a little better on the total cost, but it means you have to supply your own cans, or containers to store the powder. Cans with good lids can be bought cheap at Hobby stores. I just keep my old powder cans, which I can reuse.
When you figure in the cost of gasoline to drive to some place that carries any powder at all, it makes sense to save that money too. Some of the subs are being sold at more than $25.00 per pound, and that is more twice what you will pay for black powder delivered to your door. If you happen to belong to a gun club, you should be able to find other BP shooters in your same situation, so that putting together an order for powder should be no problem, with the shipment being divided and the costs split between the buyers.
IF YOU BELONG TO A BP. Gun club, why not go to your local Sporting goods store that used to carry Black powder, and offer to store a supply of powder at your range, or at some other local property that meets the Homeland Security Regulation requirements, which the owner or manager of the store will have access to. In return for helping him out, he will accept deliveries, and place orders, and the club members will buy at cost. You build the powder magazine or bunker on the club property. All you need is an old refrigerator, with a good hasp and lock on the door, properly marked, and either buried in a pit in the ground with proper drainage, or placed inside a locked building to prevent vandalism and theft. Regs. require the powder be stored 300 feet from any occupied residence, and that is why most stores can't meet the requirements.
The gunstore dealer doesn't make any profit on powder used by members, but then he can advertise that he sells powder to " non-members", and make a profit there. He has no storage or inventory overhead, unless he wants to order additional powder for his store use, and the only thing that he has to work out is how to get the powder from the magazine to deliver to customers at his store. He can have some member of the club deliver prepaid orders to his store on, say, Saturday morning, and customers can be told that is the day they can pick their powder up. Or, in the alternative, they can meet someone at the club, with their receipt and pick up the powder at a pre-arrange time and date. These logistics are not that hard to work out, if people just work together.
The club gets a friendly gun dealer, and free advertisement for the club as a place to join, and a place to shoot, something all shooters are interested in these days.
The new rules have imposed a small burden on most of us, and for the guys living off the coast where only fed. regulated carriers can transport goods, an absolute barrier to buying black powder. Hopefully, the Congressman and Senators from Alaska will prevail upon the Homeland Security AGency to change those rules so that Black powder can be delivered by commmon carriers to islands like Kodiak. The Boys in Washington constantly forget that NOT every state is criss-crossed with roadways and super highways, to transport goods and services. Many have no concept of the distances that must be traveled by citizens who live in the West to get anything.
If they did, they would find a way to reduce or eliminate the Federal Gas Tax to lower the price of gas to consumers, and find ways to get Nuclear Power plants built again, and windmill turbines on line to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels of all kinds. That $300.00 rebate from the government barely covers what it will cost this year to buy gasoline for a car for the year, over what it cost last year.
