Am I being picayune?

The concern seems reasonable to me. You paid for X and got Y. I suggest you raise it in a matter of fact way with your next order, or move on. I always appreciate that Montana Bullet Works put a few extra in each order. Mind you, they ain't the cheapest either.

After it happened 3 times like that I would say something to them. Be interesting to see how they respond. I would have to guess they must package by weight and even doing that they should easily be able to do a lot better than they are.

Project355 said:

I order up 1000 cast bullets, three times and each time they are short by up to 60 bullets.

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You paid for 1000 bullets and seller should have sent you 1000. I am sure the bullets weren't sold by weight and sold by quantity.

I would let the seller know your orders were short.

Even when measured by weight, they sold to you by quantity. If you were shorted all three times, I'd guess everyone else that was ordering bullets over that period were being shorted too. It ain't right. I'd want an explanation.

Sounds like that exceeds weighing and rounding error; I would contact them.

I'll bet they aren't taring a scale for the container they're using.

When I order cast bullets mine come in boxes of 500. There is usually one or two extra in the box so life has a bonus on occasion. Once I had two missing but figured that all the extras I had over the years more than made up for that. That many missing and I would question them about it as well.

Do us all a favor and have them rectify the problem as you are certainly not alone. Nor would they want their 'uncalibrated' equipment regularly sending 1,040.

Gotta say, I've never counted.

I would not hesitate to inform them of their error/negligence. If I were in their position I would want to know. The is something going on with their process that they need to correct.

If you like the bullets and the company then talk with them. I bet they catch you up in quantity. I bet they do not really change their practice.
There are so many bullet companies I would just change suppliers unless those bullets are magic.
I have never counted bullets either but have not felt that I was missing any at all.

Lots of vendors sell bullets - I can’t think of a time when I have seen bullets advertised by bulk weight. Several have been identified as conveniently and generously sending extras, most send perfect count. It can’t be terribly difficult if so very many vendors are hitting the mark, a near-100% proportion of vendors - less a few deviants like the individual manufacturer mentioned in this thread - such it’s certainly reasonable to expect all manufacturers to deliver their promised products, and equally reasonable to hold them accountable.

Minimum product specifications are common. As an example, a grocer can (and will, and does) reject an entire delivery of 5lb chubs of hamburger if they measure ONE chub to be less than 5.00 lbs. These contracts pay on fixed weight, fixed price agreements because they are charging fixed weight and fixed prices - so they fix their margin. So producers understand their “give-away,” their yield loss due to overweight chubs - so they have extreme measures to prevent a single 4.99lb chub, and typically ship 5.02lb as minimum acceptable production standard, just to be safe. Comparatively, a guy is paying 75¢ each for Hornady A-tips, which come individually racked. I don’t know many folks who weigh their burger chubs from the store, but you can bet a lot of folks would be pissed if they opened a 100ct box of A-Tips and found 6 to be missing.

You’ve experienced a 2%-6% error. Even if these are near-dirt-cheap bullets, say 8¢ per, shorting your orders by a total of 117 bullets is $9.36 of missing product. Another way to view it, by missing 60 out of 1000 bullets, they added over half a cent per bullet in variable cost by shorting the orders - that ends up adding $5.11 per thousand. If they had $240 per 1000 listed on their site, but ran your payment for $245.11, would you so readily forgive their error? And now after they have made this error 3 times in a row, charging you an extra $10 for product you were not delivered. If you realized a gym attendant stole took a $10 bill out of your wallet while you were exercising, would you simply look the other way, and continue to leave your wallet in those lockers on subsequent visits? If that attendant stole $2, $3, and $5 from your wallet on 3 different occasions, would you continue to overlook the issue? That’s what’s happening right now.

And all of those numbers are with near-dirt-cheap 8¢ bullets. The math scales pretty easily if you start talking about 30¢ bullets. I’d damned sure speak up over $10 stolen from me, let alone if someone had stolen $35 from me - over three occasions - and I certainly wouldn’t give them return business!

Maybe their website has a disclaimer, stating actual counts may vary, in which case, you simply don’t have an argument for not having read the fine print, but you DO have the right to refuse to give them your business (since you’re ending up on the losing end of the “may vary” too frequently and by too far, and you do have the right, and really the obligation to make aware your fellow reloaders of this particular company’s policy, to prevent others from being disappointed to discover they too had been unwittingly hustled by the same schemer, robbed by the same crook.

I would contact them and see what they have to say. Being +/- a few on each order isn't a huge ordeal. I won't really "complain" if I order 3 bags of 1000, and one bag comes up with 997, another comes up with 1003, and another with 999. While I would still probably bring it to their attention on the next order, it wouldn't be in a harsh way. Just a casual "You know, my last three orders came out at 997, 1003, and 999. You may want to think about tossing an extra 5 or so in just to be sure no one gets upset about being short" type deal. Most companies already have it where the "error" is in your favor, since it is a lot cheaper for them to send a couple extra components than it is to start losing customers over being shorted. If it were at the point there several percent of my order was missing, I would be raising a storm.

And this may be an unpopular opinion, but I would suggest naming the vendor. Sure, they may make it right for you, but how many other people that don't count their orders are going to get shorted without it getting resolved? Not saying you should put them on blast and tell people to never order from them, but simply as a means to get a notice out there that if you order from them, it would be in your best interest to count what you ordered and verify you actually got what you paid for.

One of the biggest gripes I have about the gun community as a whole is how many people don't want to speak up when a company sticks it to them. For some reason, the gun community seems to think of vendors as their friends. By and large, most vendors quite frankly don't see you as anything more than an invoice number. They need to be treated just like any other business. If they screw up, call them out on it. If it was a one time thing and they made it right in a hurry, I would just let it be. If they consistently make the same mistake, don't be afraid to let others know about it. I'm not saying they should go out of their way to give you more than they paid for, but they certainly should go out of their way to be sure they gave you at least what you ordered. Ask yourself this, if you were ordering from a company, and I knew they consistently gave you 4% less than what you ordered, would you want me to tell you, or would you want me to just let you get the short end of the stick, too?

If you paid for 1,000 and got less that that...then by all means take it up with the vendor. It could just be an oversight, a bad scale that they are unaware of, or an employee who just can't count. CALL THEM and ask what's going on.

Hi...
I buy my commercial cast lead bullets from two different suppliers. One is located about an hour away, the other is in another state.
The local one is King's Shooters Supply in King of Prussia, Pa. They make excellent bullets and always include several extra bullets in each 500 count box regardless of caliber. I buy their bullets at their store...nice little drive that gets me out of the house for a while. I or my son make that trip about once a month and usually buy about 3000 bullets each trip, sometimes more.
The other supplier is Bayou Bullets. I use them when King's isn't able to supply me like during the recent shortages. They also make fine bullets and their count for a box of 500 is usually spot on.

I highly recommend both suppliers.

A shortage once or at the most twice, is reasonable, but the cast bullets I have purchased from a few different casters have been exact or a few over advertised count. Yes, contact them. Even now with all the panic buying and stepped up production there is no excuse for 3 orders being short...

Although touched on its worth mentioning again....if it’s happening to you it’s happening to others. 1-2 bullets ok. I can live with that. The shortage numbers you mention extrapolated across a fiscal year? That could be a conscious business decision.

Poor form at best.

I usually get a few extra. I’m sure if you contact the supplier they’ll make it right.

Contact them first and let them make it right. Recieve a bs excuse post that.

I would also contact the vendor/manufacturer and explain the situation, and give them a chance to make it right. If they don't, then I would name them and move on. I wouldn't bad mouth them, but if somebody asked me about them I would be honest with my response.

With all the brass and bullets I've ordered online, most have been spot on. None have been short. A few have been over by a piece or two, which was a pleasant surprise.

One order came in with 100 pieces of brass, one piece which I deemed unusable due to (I assume) shipping damage. But the same company had sent extra pieces in multiple other orders, so I wasn't concerned.

Contact them and give them a chance. Then go from there.

chris

Hey OP if you would be kind enough to share which vendor it is I would appreciate that if they can’t get a simple order right 3 different times I’d rather use someone else you can PM the info if you want please and thank you

horsemen61

horsemen61 said:

Hey OP if you would be kind enough to share which vendor it is I would appreciate that if they can’t get a simple order right 3 different times I’d rather use someone else you can PM the info if you want please and thank you

horsemen61

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I too would like to hear either way. If they make it right, that's good. If they blow the buyer off? That I would also like to know. People who treat the customer right or wrong, its great to hear so others can decide if they want to send their hard earned money to them or not.
For this place it would be interesting to see if next order they get it right. Places like this use weight to count and package stuff like this. So maybe it's just poor training or something is wrong with their equipment and they may really not know they are doing this.

I bought a 50 count bag of Winchester 45-70 brass a couple of weeks ago. Having purchased Winchester brass before it always seems you get at least 1 that you just can't use for whatever reason. This time it was 6 cases I couldn't use. The prmer pockets were to big. The primers would fall out. I emailed a complaint to them and they sent me a shipping label to send the bad ones so they can inspect them. I mentioned that over 10% rejects is not acceptable quality control for me. I sent the bad ones so we'll see what happens.

I would contact them and let them know. The way they respond would determine if I continued doing business with them or not.