I remember growing up and the TV commercials were bragging how heating with oil was cheap.
It was slightly under 20 cents for the first I bought around 1972 just before the big oil shortage.
Not sure about propane now. Bought 2 of the 20 pound tanks filled up and total was ninety some dollars a few years ago. Looked a few weeks ago and the tanks were $ 49 at the same store.
Just looked at a box of primers I have from Feb 1999. Only $ 12.95 per
1000.
Wow. I live in a small town in NC and I know of 5 places that sell the ethanol free. Probably more in the county but are out of my normal driving patern.
I cannot find a source of small pistol primers. Cabela's has them listed for about $80/thousand but when I went there was told that I needed to be in the store when they came in as they sold out right away.
That is not the case with me. I always use regular E-10 gas.
I don't change the gas or even run the carb run when I put my mower or snow blower away at the end of the season. Most years I start the mower up mid-winter (once) and the blower mid-summer (once) but there have certainly been years when I have not. Same gas as when I put it away.
My generator gets run maybe every 3 months, power outage or not.
A few weeks ago we had a windstorm and a pretty large limb came down (6" diameter). I pulled my 30 YO cheap-ass Homelite chainsaw out of the shed for the first time is 2, maybe 3 years. There was about a half tank of gas. 3 pulls and it was running. Had just enough gas to cut the limb into manageable pieces.
Define "older". My chainsaw is 30+, my mower is 25+. I've never had a problem starting them after they've sat for 6 or more months, a few years for the chainsaw. No draining, not even running the carb dry.
I don't know what I'm doing right, but I'm not about to change now.
Out here where we live having that chainsaw fire up "right now" may mean life or death . Medical services are at best 20 minutes away . I can load up an injured person and have him in town before the ambulance would arrive - if I can get that tree blocking the road cleared . Most that live out here are somewhat survivalist by necessity .
I keep stabilized non-eth gas in my generator . I also turn the fuel valve off and run the carb dry after EVERY time I fire it up . It almost always starts on the first pull . Every time I run E-10 in yard equipment/small engines it gives me problems - stabilized or not . I ain't got time to work in shit every time I need to use it ...
That's Delaware for you.
That's almost every town big enough to have a gas station.
Even Wisdom MT with the massive population of 91 has ethanol free,
I used to shoot USPSA so I laid in a supply back in the Obama days. Got away from that so I still have some, mostly Wolf, but I never had problems with them. Think I have some CCI magnums too. At this point in time it's probably a lifetime supply.
Never shot pistol competitively but plink several times a year. Loaded up with Commie mag primers and powder during the Obama years but neglected small pistol primers.
Never thought it would get this scarce. I think one of the things that happened during the Obama years was classification of wet primer material as explosive which is ridiculous but drove producers out of business. Also believe now that Biden will not let Commie stuff into the country.
Never heard of the station closest to me and does not appear on Google earth. The only other listed is far south near the MD border where I knew it was sold. It was comical last time I was in Ocean City MD and gassed up wife's car with ethanol free gas and she wondered if it was OK to use in her car.
I have not looked for any reloading supplies in a few years. Just lucky that I had bought up a good ammount in the years past. Have not found time in the last 2 years to do much shooting anyway so still have a good ammount left. Bought up a good bit of 9 mm and 223 ammo when they went on sale just before the virus and Biden president. Thougth if Biden got in things would go up or be hard to come by. Looks Like I was right on that. I used to go to the gun shows as primers and powder shipping was a lot but due to the prices going up so much I have not been in about 2 or more years. I did stock up after the 22 LRs were hard to get a few years back when they became easy to get.
Even moved a good bit of my IRA stock into cash at about the peak. Just waiting on it to drop more before putting that back into the stock market. I don't do individual stocks as I do not want to take the time to study them soo just go with some mutual funds.
Glad you have had good luck with the e-10 gas. I sure have not so I run the e-free in the small engines and run all but the riding mower and weed eater empty when I do not plan on using them for over a month.
I do have a chain saw that I forgot to run empty and got it out a few days ago after about 6 months of no use and it started up with a few pulls as normal.
About 15 years ago a fellow at work bought a brand name chain saw and there was a recall on it because the e-10 gas caused something on it to go bad.
I have 2 generators , a 5 kw gas and a 3.5 kw that runs on gas or propane that I only use propane. Keep the 5 kw empty and usually run the propane as the power is seldom off more than a few hours every year or two. Before I got the propane generator the gas one would sledom start as the carborator had gummed up and I would have to clean it out.
Funny as how primes and powder by their selves is hazard material to ship, but loaded rounds are not. I have ordered thousands of loaded rounds by UPS without any additiona charge, but not tried the primers or powder due to the extra charge.
Never did buy andy of the Commie ammo except a good numbers of years ago I got one of the under $ 100 SKS and used the cheap ammo in that. Guess there will not be any more of those deals.
When I bought 5,000 TulAmmo (commie) large pistol primers on line the Hazmat shipping cost just about bought up the total cost for the same quantity of something like CCI. I hear gun show prices for primers are outrageous. If Hazmat cost is about the same with primer cost up 4X you might as well buy on line.
Near as I can tell it is some older engines that had issues. Google will show you whatever you want to hear.
Why does ethanol damage small engines? Ethanol acts as a solvent in older engines and can dissolve old gum and varnish deposits from the gas tank and fuel lines. These deposits can then clog the very small orifices in the carburetor.
It is perfectly safe to used ethanol-blended fuel (E10) in your lawn mower and other equipment powered by a small engine. This post was updated in March 2022.
Is ethanol in gas bad for small engines? In automobiles, ethanol fuel won't do much harm to your car's engine. However, when you're using gas with ethanol mixture in your outdoor power equipment, like lawn mowers, chainsaws, trimmers and leaf blowers, you run the risk of engine damage and incurring costly repairs.Nov 30, 2020
Primers, as we know, are packaged in separate compartments which should prevent one which goes off initiating explosion of the rest. I've noticed that Federal primers which are apparently most sensitive are packaged in larger containers separating them. There are regulations on quantity that can be transported or stored.
I bought one box of commie ammo with their steel cases for shooting in a Ruger LCP and it was awful causing several jams. Never had any jams with other ammo. Would not expect problems in an SKS since that is a commie gun.
The ethanol containing gasoline as you mention has different solvent potential and not only can remove deposits and contaminate the gas but can damage seals and the like on old engines.
Since it has these problems it cannot be pipe-lined like conventional gas but must be mixed and tank transported from the refinery. When gas stations in nearby PA had to use gasoline with ethanol a few years ago they had to close down to get new storage tanks or old ones cleaned first.
Even the God of Green, Al Gore, says it was a mistake to put it into gasoline.
Small 4-cycle and 2-cycle engines have been designed to run on E-10 for a quarter of a century now, using materials that will not degrade due to the presence of Alcohol. Now, alcohols are hydrophilic, which means they attract moisture - so it is useful to both keep the tank tightly closed and keep the tank full (less space for humid air to gather, and release liquid H2O when the temperature drops below the dew point).
A couple years ago I modified our generator to use external marine outboard motor gas tanks.
The tanks have vents that can be closed for storage so the e10 gas doesn't evaporate or absorb water vapor from atmosphere and deteriorate. Using external tanks, I don't have to worry about spilling gas on a hot generator engine when refueling. An empty tank can be swapped for a full one in about 2 seconds (even with the generator running). When the power outage is over, just unplug the hose from the generator and let it run until the carb is empty (~30 seconds).
Should have done this years ago.
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