Boutique Reloading

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hdwhit

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I just posted on another site the quip that "I shoot to support my reloading habit" and there is some truth to that. I do enjoy to reloading part more than the shooting part.

Now, I have only ever reloaded commodity cartridges:
  • 25 ACP
  • 38 Special
  • 9mm Luger
  • 45 ACP
  • 30 Carbine
  • 223 Remington
  • 20 Gauge.
So, I am not familiar with any of the exotic cartridges that sell for a $1 a more per round in the stores.

But are there cartridges where the cost of purchasing the cartridge are high enough that it would make sense to reload commercially on a custom basis? I'll be retired so making money isn't the object. I just want to be able to cover my costs while spending more time with my press.
 
I believe you will find the cost of licenses and insurance and marketing will make this an expensive business to get started in.
 
thomas15 wrote:
I believe you will find the cost of licenses and insurance and marketing...

The licenses and permits aren't very expensive.

Insurance is an unknown since my normal company won't touch it. I haven't looked too far and wide yet, but an agent I got to church with said he could do it, but wasn't sure of the cost. Worse comes to worst, I incorporate overseas, operate through a domestic corporation and skip the insurance altogether.

As for marketing, I'm only looking to grow the business to the point where I can do the work myself - maybe ten to twenty boxes a week - and I've got someone that's going to be looking for a graduate thesis project next year who will actually pay all the costs of setting up the marketing program other than the e-commerce part of the website.
 
what got me in to reloading was the ridiculous cost per round to feed my 500 S&W. by reloading I was saving over a dollar a round. by casting i was saving even more. i remember the cheapest i could find any anywhere at the time was $1.35 per round, and that was cheap stuff only good for plinking. now i can reload one I cast for $.20 per round or less depending on where sourced my lead.
you would not be the first person to do this, or even the first to reload for the 500 mag if you chose it.
personally i would look at doing something like the 45 colt or another less common coyboy action revolver round, and get a casting set up. they are expensive to buy "new" you'd have a market for it, and could make a good profit per round. but that's just me. the hard part would be sourcing a rare type of brass for a good price. maybe offer a discount if the customer sends you the brass.
 
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captain awesome wrote:
...the hard part would be sourcing a rare type of brass for a good price. maybe offer a discount if the customer sends you the brass.

Yes, sourcing of rare brass types is a potential problem and thank you for the idea of having the customer send their own brass.
 
I have a friend who did this very thing under a Class 6 FFL. He said he made just enough to keep him broke all the time.

The liability insurance is going to be the unknown in this scenario. Don't forget about the ITAR licensing, too. The last time I looked, it was a couple thousand dollars per year, but I don't remember the exact amount.

Hope this helps.

Fred
 
Would a blanket umbrella insurance policy cover the liability?

I know if you have homeowners and possibly renters insurance there are umbrella policies available. The question would be what are the restrictions, what isn’t covered, and such.

I ask this as it might be a cheaper alternative if it gives the OP coverage.

Note this is a question and not advice, I’m not a lawyer, insurance expert, and didn5 stay in a hotel in quite awhile. Etc etc etc
 
If memory serves, a friend ran down this road and ended up with Lloyds of London. They'll cover anything.
 
Hokie_PhD wrote:
Would a blanket umbrella insurance policy cover the liability?

My current general liability policy specifically excludes business.

Like dgod said, I can always get a broker that can pick it up "on the floor" at Lloyds, so I know it is available, but whether it is affordable is something I would still need to find out.

What I was hoping someone would share with me were some of the high cost, low-demand calibers that I might be able to load for 50 or 70 cents and sell for 120 or 135 cents.
 
Reloader Fred wrote:
I have a friend who did this very thing under a Class 6 FFL. He said he made just enough to keep him broke all the time.

I'm only concerned with staying "broke-even" all the time. ;)

The only way to make it work is stay exclusively in the cartridges that people want to use on their annual or semi-annual hunting trip so that they're shooting 25, 50, maybe 100 rounds a year, so that the cost per round is less important than feeding the gun that their grandfather gave them.
 
ArchAngelCD, I was always going to incorporate, but I was thinking more along the lines of Spring River Custom Cartridges, LLC, or South Fork Custom Cartridges, LLC.
 
Sounds like a great way to ruin a hobby, turn it into a job.

If you want to get into the business of remanufactured ammunition, send me a PM, I know a place that is shutting down South of you and has everything you would need including employees that know how to run all of the equipment. With the right deal, you might even get the customer base and that's the most important part, aside from making the best product.
 
As others have mentioned the "Insurance" and other red tape will make it cost prohibitive.

If it was simple , easy and cheap there would be hundreds of people doing it.

Niche or boutique reloading does not seem like a profitable or viable business to engage in.

I thought you were going to invent new tumbling media or make tumblers?:D

I am a CBB,
Certified Business, "Bubble Buster":)
 
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My current general liability policy specifically excludes business.

Like dgod said, I can always get a broker that can pick it up "on the floor" at Lloyds, so I know it is available, but whether it is affordable is something I would still need to find out.

What I was hoping someone would share with me were some of the high cost, low-demand calibers that I might be able to load for 50 or 70 cents and sell for 120 or 135 cents.

While I understand completely what you are considering(I have done the same and had friends look into a similar thing), like most anything, one needs to stay competitive price wise with what's already out there, produce a quality product(folks who buy boutique ammo like quality components) and if one is in an area where he cannot distribute enough locally to make a profit, developer a marketing and shipping system. While I know you don;t want to make money(just want to make enough to pay for my own kinda thing), you still need to make money. If producing ammo in small quantities, it means for the most part you will either have to buy components in small quantities, or sit on them for a extended amount of time. Then there's the extra tooling for the niche calibers, i.e. die sets @ $50-$60. For example I reload a niche caliber, .469 S&W. Starline brass in quantities of 250 cost $188, or .$.75 apiece. Good Hunting projectiles in quantities of 1000 or less will cost you about $.40 apiece and the amount of powder and the primer you need to push that projectile will run you about $.20 cents apiece even when bought in quantity. That's $1.35 already and you've yet to have a box to put it in and the cost to get it to the customer. Even @ $2 a pop(lots of boutique ammo out there already for that and less) it will take you a coupla hundred rounds just to cover the cost of the dies. As a carpenter most all my life, I found that doing a weekend side job, pays me enough to cover my reloading costs for a year. Something I already do well, and need no more insurance, licensing or tools to do.

I wish you the best of luck in your retirement and your endeavors my friend, am not trying to bust a balloon. Just throwing out some thoughts.
 
Just to add to the above^^^^^

Just take into account shipping. You can't send it USPS priority mail It needs to be UPS or Fed EX ground ORM-D

How much does just shipping gonna cost??
 
I looked into doing something like this a few years ago and wound up not doing it. ITAR is a killer for a small business, as well as insurance. If you scale up the business and get enough volume you can spread out the cost, but at the quantities that a single loader can make, it's hard to get over that $2,250 fee. You're probably only looking at a few dollars profit per box which would have to go into all of the things not directly related to cost of goods sold like equipment/replacement, utilities, rent, etc.

If you decide to go without insurance through multiple corps, sit down with a lawyer and an account and make sure that there is absolutely no way to pierce the liability protections. (And if there's another country involved, include an expert in that country's legal system as well). Things like renting the business a portion of your garage for business use, charging the business for utilities, etc. it may be simpler to just build a separate building with a stand alone address for this purpose. There are lawyers who make a living piercing corporate veils, so make sure you have everything well set up.
Another downside is if you do have something happen and have to liquidate, you likely will loose a LOT of credibility in the market should you come back with a different corp. It would be hard to recover from a reputation of "he blew up my rifle with a double charged .50 BMG and then found a loophole to get out of paying for my medical bills".

i think this would be a tough market to get into because most of the people shooting guns that have boxes of ammo that cost $100+ probably already reload out of necessity. I would look at things like weatherby magnum calibers and the magnum revolver calibers for hunting. Components will likely be expensive though, which will eat into your profit margin.
 
"...The licenses and permits aren't very expensive..." You've missed something. It's not just Federal and State licenses and permits. You need local municipal licenses and permits too.
"...My current general liability policy specifically excludes business..." Talk to your agent. If he/she doesn't do commercial liability in$urance(lotta businesses close or never open because of that cost) do a net search. NRA might have something.
Oh and .25 ACP isn't a 'commodity' cartridge. Very few people load it. The money makers on your list will be the 9mm, .45, .38/.357 and .223.
 
You might circumvent the insurance and government regs by opening a "reloading boutique" where you simply supply the reloading press and dies, and the customer actually does all the physical reloading. In that way the customer has physically and legally made all the reloaded cartridges, just the same as if a neighbor came over.

You might need to install some cameras on the press and reloading room to remain truly liability-free, but those type recording systems are very inexpensive these days.
 
I played that game for a few years. @Sunray obviously has never carried his Type 6, else he wouldn't be making up gibberish about a dozen licenses and permits to be carried. Other than the FFL, it's no different than operating any other business, in terms of licenses. The liability insurance is expensive, and the ITAR requirements can be a headache.

I'll also comment, there are a lot more guys who shoot these high dollar weatherby and DG type rounds who do NOT reload than a person would organically think. That was a big part of how I justified my business when I carried my Type 6. It's just a matter of finding the right customer base - because a lot of those folks will buy a rifle, make a trip across the pond, and then resell it afterwards. Not a bad cradle-to-grave business opportunity if you can manage some inventory cost, get your Type 1 and 6, member up with DSC & SCI local chapters, have rifles for sale and load the ammo to go with them. Heck, "rent" the rifle for the trips if you so desired. It's incredibly difficult to hold any profit margin on bulk ammo for blasters - but ONE way around that is to load for competitive shooters. They need high volume ammo, but they also need specialty loads/dimensions, AND they'd rather spend their time practicing instead of loading (and you should market your services as such!!), so there IS a market there. Hook into local CAS/SASS, IDPA/IPSC, 3gun, etc clubs.

I've loaded for a lot of people over the years, ranging from no-money-exchanged to letting folks use my gear to selling for profit under a Type 6. I use a holding company to "own" the equipment, then an LLC for the operations. I do carry liability insurance, I wanna say something on the order of $2m, would have to check my policy to be sure - I know I carry less than my father who O/O a industrial/commercial facility pest control company, where he has employees in company owned vehicles running hazmat up and down the road, and applying even in medical institutions and pharmaceutical production facilities, and my insurance premium is lower than his. There's a release of liability (nothing covers negligence, so cover your production method appropriately to refute negligence) I've used with customers - recognizing the inherent danger of the products and of sporting firearms use. I had 2 turrets and 3 progressives set up, and I can't recall how many different turret heads - I had drawers on drawers of tackle boxes with dummy rounds for different customers Custom dimension ammo.

If you're able to find a large enough volume of obsolete or wildcat cartridge customers, you can justify your own headstamps and your own production runs of these brass, OR you can justify doing your own brass forming work (hydroforming dies can let you "fireform" to produce rounds which require it). There are companies out there selling custom produced or custom formed obsolete cartridge brass, it's a niche market, but if you can access it, you might be able to stay competitive since you're not looking for typical margins.
 
Conversely, if one turns their fun hobby into a job, they may never have to 'work' again.



As to cartridges, I think the six Dasher and it's prairiedog hunt brethren would specialty enough, while also high volume. Two eighteen Bee, perhaps. Something like taking the seating depth dimensions, powder charge and what components to use for the customer and assembling them. That sounds fun. Small batch, hand crafted ammunition. Like specialty beer.:)
 
In this area there are several such companies that show up for most of the gun shows. So, you might go to some local gun shows and see what the competition is doing and see what tips they might share. I never seem them selling very much but they always seem to have lots of different ammo types laid out for display. They also have signs indicating that they will make ammo using the components and loads that you specify.
 
I think it really comes down to whether the OP really wants to engage in a full time venture to make a sizable profit. I've read this thread and his other on the subject and it seems he is just interested in making only enough monies to cover his own cost of shooting. I believe he is looking at only himself reloading maybe 500 rounds a week. My question is not if it can be done, but can it be done legitimately at that level, to recoup ones cost and to justify the effort. Most of us originally took up reloading "to save money". For most of us, that did not happen. We get to shoot more and enjoy reloading as a hobby, but for many of us the dive into the darkside has created a demon that empties our wallet much more than filling it. Kinda what hobbies do and they need no justification as per time spent. The minute we attempt to make money from a hobby, we need to put a legitimate value on that time. Does working guns shows every other weekend justify recouping the cost of our shooting? How about spending a few hours daily buying supplies, stuffing cases, packaging and making the trip to the post office/UPS to ship? How about spending the night at the bench because someone called at the last minute needs one box of ammo for next weeks hunt. Is that that time worth minimum wage? $10 an hour? $20? Most hobby farmers do not make money. Most folks who have their own grapes and make their own wine save money, but don't make money. Crafters save money by making gifts for their own use and for gifts to friends, but in order to really make money, they need to work at it. None of us can tell the OP what his time is worth and whether or not sacrificing that time from doing something else is worth it for something that is basically going to be a "part time job". Only he can do that. Is it possible? Of course it is, but is it worth the effort, time and money spent for such a small return?
 
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