First, I have waited as long as I feel is safe to wait to raise prices. One of the things we cannot control in the bullet industry is commodity prices. Copper and lead prices fluctuate a bit but usually within a pretty good margin of error so we can set a price for our finished products and have some reasonable expectation to not have to change it. Usually, if there is a huge spike it tumbles right back down again to where we can manage. Well, since April the cost of copper has steadily risen almost every day. We are now paying about a $1.50 more per lb of copper than we were in April. Since we started manufacturing four years ago we have never seen copper get this high. We are currently going through about 40,000 lbs of copper each month. That means we are now losing about $60,000 a month in just the increase in copper cost. Lead has recently taken a small spike as well but I don't see it going as high as copper. That said, we are doing about 120,000 lbs of lead a month and a 15 cent increase per lb is $18,000. Anyway, this is a long way for me to show you why I've been forced to consider a price increase. In the end, it amounts to between $6-$8 more for us to produce 1,000 bullets. We've held on for about as long as we can. The copper spike does not appear to be slowing down. I will be changing prices on all our in-house products at the beginning of January. We have checked the prices of our competitors and it seems most of them have already more than taken advantage of the increase in demand. Our new pricing should still be considerably lower than most of our competition.
Now, an update for those of you who are worried about Joe and how he is doing after his house burned down. Aside from living in a hotel until he can get a new home, he is doing great. He has to miss a lot of work to take care of insurance issues but we are getting by. You guys donated way more to him than we ever expected and it's been a major help for him. He wishes to thank everyone for their generosity and their prayers and well wishes.
Now, here is the most recent shipping update. The dates shown are the day that the orders were placed. Those are the dates we are working on for each particular product.
+1 to this!RMR is good people. The material increase sucks, but they'll still be the best option; with great customer service!
About the same for me here.I got the same email and my first impulse was to put in an order to save some $$.
My second thought was that I have plenty of their bullets and that breaking their backs for bullets I will not need now or the immediate future was not right.
Plus too many guys here and elsewhere might need them.
So I put my credit card away.
Am I the only one not buying this hook line and sinker?
RMR makes a great product, but my last 2 orders took 14 weeks. They already raised their prices once this year, when they dropped bulk pricing. The costs of copper did go up slightly in the last month, HOWEVER, it is dropping a bit and it is still sitting well below multiyear historical averages. It's only slightly (like 20c per pound) more than it was in 2018. You can't compare the spike up in December to the spike down in March as those were temporary deviations from the annual average. One could argue that by dropping bulk discount prices, sitting on order money for 12 weeks, they were well ahead of the game. Lead is in the same boat as copper, however, I'd argue it's now well below historical averages and well below the costs in 2018 and 2019. Again, you can't compare the December spike up to the spike down in March. It's already started to correct down.
View attachment 966972
View attachment 966974
Copper prices are higher than they’ve been since 2012 (see above pricing). And if one looks at the trendline there is upward mobility to go higher. Given the situation with a change of administration, huge demand, and the Kung flu; it’s not surprising.
One thing I would like to mention is that RMR at least in my experience has been VERY competitive on their pricing in recent years past, so if a vendor is running lean, they are going to have to be proactive on changes of COGS not reactive.
But it’s your prerogative on whether you buy Jake’s forecasting.
As for me Jake’s been good to me, and it’s not hard for one to price shop with the internet; so why would he risk looking greedy for the sake of some quick sales in an already overworked time in their business?
Good luck to you finding a better bullet supplier than RMR, they’ve got to the point they are at because of treating their customers well. And you will find it’s not just me that thinks so on this site.
So based on your assessment the only advantage that RMR stands to benefit from is holding customers money on back orders, or you feel the copper prices are going to go down and not up. Why then, other than the aforementioned two reasons above would Jake offer current pricing for one more last gasp of orders to his current customers?
So you are showing the year LOW price above, not always possible to buy at the low price, if you look at the year high price it's higher than it has been since 2013 according to the above numbers.
If I bought every share of stock I purchased in 2020 at the low price for 2020 and sold at the high price for 2020 I would be quite a few more $ ahead!
As a person you may have the option of waiting till something is on sale and the price is lower, I would think as a business if you need the material to produce your product you have to pay the price at the time you need to purchase it.
I think I’ll hold off buying any more bullets until copper and lead prices cycle back down and bullet prices drop back down accordingly. They will, won’t they?
No-o-o-o! They wouldn't go up more, would they?I guess one needs to think back a remember when one could get 1,000 124gr 9mm for cheaper than $80 to begin to answer whether they have enough stock in their possession to wait for those prices again. And understand that you have the risk of prices going up further and having to pay more.