Are people better?

[HCM]

Agree, but don't discount the big step up in the 80s that coincided with progressive press availability. With regards to reloading at home always being common, "Common" is not the word I'd use....at least it was not anywhere near as common then as it is now. While there were reloading tools available they were single stage presses and few regular people actually reloaded. Star made a progressive press but they were marketed to police departments not really to individuals and they were expensive. Reloading as a hobby for the common man didn't really take off until after WWII. The progressive press for the masses didn't really come along until the late 70s. Someone mentioned Dillon....there you go. With the action sports like IPSC coming on in the 70s the ability to reload hundreds of rounds an hour was a boon to competitors who were now practicing more in order to cut split times and shoot at the ragged edge of human ability....not just bullseye shooting with time limits that could be measured with a sun dial .

Look at the ammo prices in the 1980s and you see why reloading was a big deal. Actually if you go back and look at old gun magazine articles the prices we are paying now in 2016 (that people complain about because it is up from the artificially low prices driven by a glut of surplus ammo of the early 2000s) is about the same or a little less than it was 30 years ago...and people made less $$$ back then. So the competitors who had the ability to reload had a huge advantage in availability of practice ammo to the guy paying $18 a box for .45 auto at the store. And there was no internet to help search for lowest pricing....you paid what the local store priced it at. But the progressive press changed that. Add not only more ammo available to practice with, but also the ability to actually time it yourself (timer) and measure empirical data (and then later the ability to video it yourself and make corrections) it is no wonder that the shooting world took a great leap forward starting about 35 years ago.....

You also could not mail order ammo from 1968 through 1986 per federal law.

[BN]

but also the ability to actually time it yourself (timer) and measure empirical data

When I started shooting IPSC we were still using stopwatches with a stop plate to be shot last on assault courses. Yep, I said assault courses. We since have become politically correct.