Ammunition interests, quality or quantity?

Would you try a new ammunition brand in your firearms?

  • Yes, if it were considerably cheaper.

    Votes: 58 47.9%

  • Yes, if it were cheaper and built to match standards.

    Votes: 30 24.8%

  • Yes, if it was nationally recognized and used in matches.

    Votes: 5 4.1%

  • Yes, if the company also produced for the army

    Votes: 4 3.3%

  • Maybe, It depends on a lot of specifics

    Votes: 34 28.1%

  • Only if it were offered in bulk

    Votes: 12 9.9%

  • Only if it were proven to be extremely accurate and reliable

    Votes: 9 7.4%

  • No, I'm loyal to my current brand of ammunition

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • Total voters
    121
  • Poll closed .
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There is certainly a market for manufacturing ammunition. You have to get people over the perception that the ammo is just reloads. New brass helps. I'm sure you have read or heard people say that they won't shoot other people's reloads.

Once the operation is started, you begin having a tables at gun shows as a form of advertising, generating sales, and having face to face discussions with customers. Name recognition is very important. Once your name is known, you could probably begin getting shelf space at some of the big stores that sell ammo such as Bass Pro, Gander Mt, Cabelas, Sportsmans Warehouse etc. But it will be cheaper to just sell from a web site as long as it continues to be legal to ship to private individuals. Price is very important.

I would suggest you make a trip to visit someone like GA Arms and see their operation. Just depends on the scale of operation you envision.
 
In my .223's I shoot almost exclusively Black Hills reloads and Remington UMC, price ranges from $7/20 - $24/50. So I'm not interested in really cheap surplus or Russian stuff. I want reasonably clean, reasonably accurate at a reasonable price. But I'm probably not in the majority, most posts people are asking what is the absolute cheapest ammo they can buy, that seems to be the big market.

In pistols the vast majority of my shooting is Remington UMC and Winchester in both 9mm and .40. Whenever the Remington value paks go on sale I pick up a couple.
 
22-rimfire,

i was thinking along those thoughts. Basically, I want the company to pay for itself, but not anything else, and I wont be taking a salary (trying to keep sales price of ammo as cheap as possible). I plan on visiting a MAST facility in two weeks to review their operation and expenses (if they'll let me of course, most people want to keep the books closed). If everything still seems pheasable, I want to get bulk offerings available first. My goal is for bulk, quality, accuracy but also affordability.

At that time, I will be sending a few cases to 'testers' who can attest to the quality, accuracy, reload possiblities and affordability. If all goes well at this point, then it's onto the SHOT show and national matches to toot my own horn.

In the end however, I plan on selling most of the ammunition on-line from the wherehouse to keep price down. (No retail mark-up) I know some states have or are banning online ammunition sales, but I'll have to address that on a state by state basis. As a backup plan, if a federal "no online ammo" ban is passed, I may be supplying bulk to the large retailers as you suggested. For now, it's all about affordability and any retailer large or small would have to markup the price to pay their shipping and licensing fees which I'd like to avoid.


As a general concenseous, it appears most people want bulk, good quality ammo that can be reloaded, but at a decent price and with proof\guarentee to back it up. Another crowd wants bulk, high quality ammo for their precision rifles. Did I miss anyone?
 
A few random thoughts.

1. I would be willing to bet that you cannot make a WWB equivalent and sell it at a profit for less than what WalMart is already selling WWB for.

2. IMO, aluminum cases are not such a good idea. It just opens up the variations you have to deal with. And right now, they are not significantly cheaper than brass cased ammo.

3. My guess is that you will have a very hard time competing price wise against S&B and WWB in the more popular calibers like 9mm, 40SW, and 45ACP, maybe even 223 and 7.62X39. Might make more sense to stick to other calibers, but the economies of scale start to hurt you there.

4. There are LOTS of commercial reloaders out there. If you look at their price lists, you will note that often you can buy the jacketed ammo in the same size either at WalMart or mail order for about what these guys are charging for lead reloads. You see the big guys have long term contracts for the raw materials that somewhat insulate them from the raw materials cost increases, not completely, but to some extent.
 
I'd jump at new production/brass ammo priced comparable to Georgia Arms' 'Canned Heat' reloads.
 
If you can produce standard loads (like M2 ball or 124gr 9mm FMJ) with strong brass that fires relatively cleanly and you can undercut everyone else who does that, you'll have my business without hesitation.

I also think you should either take a salary or receive a bonus, but not both. The key to your business's profitability shouldn't be markup, it should be growth and revenue generation. If the market price for a particular $100 case of ammunition is $130, then undercutting that price and selling two $100 cases of ammunition at 20% markup ($40 profit) is better than selling one $100 case at 30% markup ($30 profit).
 
There were no truly applicable choices that I could pick in the poll so this is my answer.

I shoot mostly .380 ACP.

I am always interested in inexpensive range ammo that is fresh (not reloaded), fairly accurate, fairly consistent, fairly clean, and cycles reliably. I will shoot anything that fits these criteria. It does not have to be match grade; in fact I’m not interested in paying more for match grade quality. When I buy range ammo I generally wait until I can find it at a very good price then I order it by the case.

So, in a nut shell…
If your ammo is cheap, fresh, fairly accurate, fairly consistent, fairly clean, and cycles reliably I’d buy it!
 
ilBob - thank you for your thoughts. I am planning this endeavor and all constructive criticism is welcome :) I'll answer your questions\comments below.

[Quote - ilBob]
1. I would be willing to bet that you cannot make a WWB equivalent and sell it at a profit for less than what WalMart is already selling WWB for.

2. IMO, aluminum cases are not such a good idea. It just opens up the variations you have to deal with. And right now, they are not significantly cheaper than brass cased ammo.

3. My guess is that you will have a very hard time competing price wise against S&B and WWB in the more popular calibers like 9mm, 40SW, and 45ACP, maybe even 223 and 7.62X39. Might make more sense to stick to other calibers, but the economies of scale start to hurt you there.

4. There are LOTS of commercial reloaders out there. If you look at their price lists, you will note that often you can buy the jacketed ammo in the same size either at WalMart or mail order for about what these guys are charging for lead reloads. You see the big guys have long term contracts for the raw materials that somewhat insulate them from the raw materials cost increases, not completely, but to some extent.
[/quote]

1. I'm not trying to compete with or undercut anyone. I wont have the actual sale's price for several weeks at the least, so I'll have to get back to you on this one. Just keep in mind, the whole idea is for bulk, good ammo. You can't buy anything in 2000 round cases from Wal-Mart...

2. I wont use aluminum casings, never liked them much. However I will be speculating with some other materials. Again, more on this later.

3. Yes, it will be vary difficult to compete with the big boys. Every other business in existance had to start at some point right? When Dell computers came out, it had to compete with HP, IBM, etc. Did Dell try to compete with them the first day on the job? nope. I don't plan on competing with them either right now. I just want a cheaper but still good quality cartridge, ordered from the factory straight to your door. - and I think I can achieve this by mitigating some of the factors from the cost equation. I will be starting somewhat small for the industry, but hopefully quality and availability will help. Only time can tell.

4. I do see that the big boys have big contracts. I also see several continents on the globe supplying raw materials, and not all of them are already contracted to suppression (ie, they're accepting new customers). The world is one big market place, none of it is 100% monopolized, with the exception being Microsoft ;)
 
I'm always interested in inexpensive standard calibers, but some of the milsurp seems to be drying up and leaving a void.

If you can compete with Prvi Partizan/Wolf Gold on FMJ in relatively popular military loads, (8mm, 6.5x55, 7.5x55, .303) where the surplus had dried up, you could carve out quite a niche. It could also help to subsidize the .45ACP, .308, etc.

Just a thought, I'll be onboard to try whatever you come up with.
RT
 
FWIW, I like this idea. Factory-direct bulk ammunition vendor. If you offer ball ammunition in 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, and 10,000 round quantities, I think you'll be catering to a large portion of the milsurp market. Bonus points if it's non-corrosive. :D
 
Just a question - for those checking "maybe - it depends on a lot of specifics" are you thinking of specific calibers? or are you looking for performance, shelf life, quantity, etc, etc? Please post or PM me the specifics you're looking for, it would be appreciated.
 
I recently read an article in , I think, American Rifleman, about a new ammunition company. They started with one caliber (I think it was .50 BMG) and supplied match shooters. Soon they expanded, branched out and started making other calibers.

That seems a safer way to grow; start with one or two calibers you know will sell, then expand as sales justify it.

There are niche markets as well. 28 ga and .410 shotshells cost less to produce then 12 ga, but cost twice as much at the retail level.
 
Not particularly interested.

I only buy commercial .22 rimfire.

I handload for the other 24 chamberings, many of which are wildcat, obsolete, or otherwise custom projects. I couldn't afford to shoot them all otherwise. ;)
 
As others have noted, the market for stuff like 9mm is brutal. Getting under WWB at Wally World would be a trick.

My old boss managed to thrive by being where the others ain't - a boutique round that still has a large following would bear a decent mark-up. The problem is that I can't think of much that might fit that description.

Maybe .41 magnum - that's what pushed me into reloading. Generally a buck a round at retail but can be made with virgin Starline and XTPs for under 0.40 without shopping hard.

I've stopped shooting my CZ-52s because of an issue I had with S&B and who wants FMJ anyway. I'd buy 7.62X25 loaded with decent bullets. Can't find any around here. My online-fu is weak with that round as well.

The Makarov round (9X18 isn't it?). Seems overpriced for what one gets.

I had a .416 Rigby that I sold before I started reloading due to a shortage of "plinker rounds" which were inexplicably available in .458 Win. In fact, .416 Rem and .458 Win both managed to sneak well under the Rigby's 6 bucks a toss. Too bad the total Rigby sales wouldn't pay for a regular order of fries. But aren't there other rounds that suffer from "premium only stuff available" syndrome? Like .500 and .460 S&W. I keep seeing "cost of ammo" as a factor in those chamberings.

The absence of match grade stuff wouldn't trouble me. I was troubled by the absence of "plinker grade" stuff in the boutique chamberings. There appears to be no shortage of high-end ammo being marketed.
 
Best wishes for your efforts but I only shoot factory stuff if I need fresh cases. (At least until now. New stuff is so high that I buy components only! :fire:)

Please do me a favor. If you manufacture .223 Remington, please make a heavy bullet (about 69gr) medium speed (about 2600fps) recipe so I won't have to read/listen to folks whine about how "inaccurate" the Ruger Mini-14/Ranch Rifle is. :evil:

I'm still breaking in a new Ranch Rifle but it only took the third guess/recipe to find the first load that stays under my red dot at 100m. It wasn't even hard: a commercial case (Federal), good primer (CCI #41), Sierra 69gr match bullet and some care taken with primer pocket uniformity, flash hole deburring and case/OAL.

I think most .223 shooters hardly ever shoot past 100m. I'm sure a few do 200m work but a medium speed load would still take care of them. Please don't worry about "speed freaks"! :rolleyes:
 
.223/5.56 would sell best IMO. There is an extreme shortage, and a very high demand. If this is any good, and more importantly economical, I could probably get a 10K(or more) order together from the guys I shoot with.


ETA: 55 grain.
 
If you are looking for cheap reloadable ammo, the price standard has to be Aquila. Take a look at some prices I found at Cole Distributing. I have only fired a few boxes of centerfire Aguila (I shoot mostly reloads) but their SV 22 is reliable, cheap, and very accurate. Many serious target shooters use it for practice.

45 ACP 230gr. FMJ $9.95 (temp out of stock)
38 SPECIAL 158gr.Seim-Jacketed Hollow Point $7.95 (also TOOS)
357 Magnum SJHP $9.95 (TOOS)
40S&W 180 grain FMJ.$9.50 (TOOS)
9mm Luger FMJ, 124 grain $7.50 (TOOS)

I am guessing even Aguila is having trouble keeping up with the demand for cheap ammo, based on all the popular calibers being out of stock.
 
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