Bullet Manufacturing

[earlthegoat2]

Congratulations on wanting to take back a little control of your life.

A cnc, auto feeding lathe churning out copper bullets would be how i would start. I would think it would be cheaper than a press for cup and core bullets.

Mazak would be my brand of choice. The small Mazak at my machinist school could churn out threaded studs in 13 seconds. Thats a lot of bullets.

Since you are a startup, with relatively low capitol, i dont think the 'economy' bullet sector would make you any money. Hence my reasoning against the cup and core style.

Plus, you could turn out whatever bullet you wanted and not have expensive dies to change out.

9mm, .45, .223, and .308 would be what I would first focus on.

This advice has some merit. As a startup, you cannot think about right now. You have to think about next year and possibly even next decade.

It’s only a matter of time before lead is legislated away from common bullets. Even if not entirely, the market for lead free bullets is growing. All the other manufacturers know it and are waiting for it. You need to as well.

This is not to say you should put all your eggs into one emerging market either.

Also, what is your marketing plan? When I started my business earlier this year, I quickly learned that I could get by with the current knowledge I had on doing the things my business does. What I needed to know about was marketing and accounting.

 

[BigBlue 94]

Just rambling here... If a singe lathe ran 24/7, which an auto feed cnc can, and if a bullet takes 10 seconds to make, that's 8600 bullets a day, from one machine, minus feed and chucking time. Thats over 250k in a month. And it can run on its own, meaning you could be doing something else, like running a press making conventional jacketed lead bullets. And it adds to the variety of your offerings.

 

[Nature Boy]

Guys that compete shoot the most and they're generally shooting:

6mm
6.5mm
7mm

As custom bullet competition goes, there's some really good makers out there, ,most focused on the 6mm

 

[Orcon]

Just rambling here... If a singe lathe ran 24/7, which an auto feed cnc can, and if a bullet takes 10 seconds to make, that's 8600 bullets a day, from one machine, minus feed and chucking time. Thats over 250k in a month. And it can run on its own, meaning you could be doing something else, like running a press making conventional jacketed lead bullets. And it adds to the variety of your offerings.

Bliss and Waterbury-Farrel have assembly presses that can crank out 240 bullets per minute. That's 2.88 million bullets per month if you can run 50 hours per week.

 

[BigBlue 94]

How many do they do at once?

 

[Orcon]

I am unsure.

 

[BreechFace]

Kuddo's to you to not let politics and hand wringing stand in your way of pursuing a passion.

I think there is good room for subsonic use projectiles in calibers .308, .355, .429, .452, .458, .500. Suppressors are becoming more prevalent in personal safes these days and with the advent of 300 BO, 350 Legend, 450 Bushmaster, 458 Socom and 50 Beowulf in the AR/Bolt action platforms as well as 357 Mag, 44 Mag, 45 ACP and 45 Colt.

I think a focus on what is en vogue namely the 300 BO, 350 Legend, 450 BM, 458 Socom one would do well developing a good low velocity expanding bullet that could be used for quiet: hunting, pest control, self-defense. A big emphasis would be on terminal effectiveness (i.e. good expansion with retained penetration).

Just one thing that came to mind that wasn't being mentioned. For current bullet manufacturers to take a look at, see Maker's Rex, Lehigh both of which I'm sure you are familiar with.

Another thing to look at is with Barnes a little up in the air with the Remington sell off, it might be a good time to have some competition crop up with solid coppers. I know that I've been impatient with Barnes ability to supply to the market demands in the past. And with the greenies getting more air time these days, solid copper would be a good hedge.

 

[BreechFace]

Shouldn't be too hard to find willing participants to load test bullets for you...

 

[Walkalong]

just leave the political pearl clutching aside

Yep, keep it on topic

 

[Orcon]

Yeah that reminds me, I need to source test equipment.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Dogtown bullets ae currently listed as "limited availability" and "out of stock."

If you had a few hundred thousand quality .22 varmint bullets right now, and could sell them at a price competitive with Dogtown, you'd clean up.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

Bliss and Waterbury-Farrel have assembly presses that can crank out 240 bullets per minute. That's 2.88 million bullets per month is you can run 50 hours per week.

Your not counting maintenance and downtime. You will have lots of it. You can't count on how fast a machine can cycle as production numbers. We have machines at work that are supposed to run at 1500 fpm and most of our operators can only run them at 800-900 fpm to make a good product. That's realistic.

My experience is you can cut the max cycle speed of a machine in half and that's where it will usually be running at to make a good product, that's what you have to figure you have to be able to make a profit at when your starting out, so you can survive the first few years.

You also have to find someone that can run these machines from the get go, to help mitigate the learning curve and downtime.

Don't be afraid to pay the OEM to come do training sessions. It's expensive but starting a business is always expensive.

If you want to count on all the production that one machine should be able to make at full speed, you better have two machines.
Now, after going through several of these shortages, one thing stands out to me. I wouldn't make the most common bullets on the market, I would make the second or third most common bullets on the market as my mainstay until my company got on it's feet.

I can get on a list to buy 9mms and eventually get them, but I can't get good quality .38 cal and 44 cal jacketed or plated bullets for anything. Your competition has the 9mm and the .223 calibers covered, that seems to always be the case, but if your mainline was the second and third most common calibers, you will always have a market, In good times and especially, the way it is right now.

If you were starting out your business in normal times I would still feel the same about this, but your not starting out in normal times so you have to be able to produce a product at a higher price that people will buy. Your not going to do that with supplying 9mms and .223s while competing with companies that can produce circles around you at a lower price.

 

[rfwobbly]

I note that RMR started off by selling seconds, blems and pulls from a big maker co-located in the same town.

The place I'd start is by finding if there are there any big makers located near you.

 

[Orcon]

@tightgroup tiger You certainly have some valid points there on the manufacturing and mechanical side. I work in an industry where our operational goal is 97% run-time of our compression and O/U reporting of +/- 1.5%, budgeting values are allowed a 1% variance and compliance goals are set a 99.99%. I'm not saying I could get 10 hours a day 5 days a week but I'd fight my damnedest to get 50 hours per week if that's what was needed to meet production. And I fully intend on buying the training, service, and support options when it comes time to buy machines.

There seems to be some misplaced belief that I intend to compete with Hornady, Nosler, Berger, Speer, etc. I do not, or at least not anytime soon. Think about how most big productions operate. Let's take toilet paper as an example (noted that there are not many small TP mills in operation), they don't buy any materials, they don't make a single sheet of butt wipe until they have a purchase order and contract to make "X" tons of TP for a customer and set pricing agreements for what their product sells for. And they don't make a square more than what was paid for. This is a highly efficient but very rigid way of purchasing and producing goods. They simply cannot react fast enough to account for market fluctuations or changes in consumer preference, they can't drop a huge production order to make more supply or increase their prices to curb demand. A small independent TP mill could see that consumer demand has sky rocketed, cease production of their boutique aloe and chamomile infused ten-ply $14 per roll buttwipe and re-tool to produce lower cost economy rolls and market them regionally as well as through online direct sales. Same goes for bullets.

 

[BreechFace]

@tightgroup tiger A small independent TP mill could see that consumer demand has sky rocketed, cease production of their boutique aloe and chamomile infused ten-ply $14 per roll buttwipe and re-tool to produce lower cost economy rolls and market them regionally as well as through online direct sales. Same goes for bullets.

Hey...PBM, pampered butts matter.

I like where your heads at. Keep flexibility of end product at a core tenet of the business and be quick to react to a demand/supply curve change in the market to capitalize on large corporations product line rigidity.

 

[Orcon]

Bingo. I know it's generally bad business to keep stock on the shelves but keep enough of the high demand popular stuff in production for normal times but spend most of that time working on the more niche stuff. Retool before things go nuts and profit. Because how many of us as individuals knew stuff was getting stupid before the shelves were empty? I'd bet that almost everybody on this board knew to some degree what this year was going to look like even without the 'rona. I'd have been pumping out bullets like a maniac last fall.

 

[BreechFace]

Bingo. I know it's generally bad business to keep stock on the shelves but keep enough of the high demand popular stuff in production for normal times but spend most of that time working on the more niche stuff. Retool before things go nuts and profit. Because how many of us as individuals knew stuff was getting stupid before the shelves were empty? I'd bet that almost everybody on this board knew to some degree what this year was going to look like even without the 'rona. I'd have been pumping out bullets like a maniac last fall.

High demand, popular bullets = pay the bills, keep the lights on, keep the employees busy, make big money in markets such as we are in currently
Niche bullets = good margins, make a name for one's business as that guy who manufactures kick ass 0.XXX" bullets

 

[BreechFace]

Think MagPul, it’s DEFCON 1, everything is black coming out the end.

edited for my lack of readiness

 

[Orcon]

Yeah but DEFCON 5 is the lowest state of readiness, so MagPul is probably running DEFCON 1 right now.

 

[BreechFace]

Oops had it backwards.

 

[longdayjake]

I own RMR. I've spent the time and the money to learn about everyone in the industry that makes high speed bullet manufacturing equipment. There are only a couple that I think can make something worth buying and several that I wouldn't ever buy from. The company that I bought my machines from has now been selling to big companies like sig and sierra and their new pricing has pretty much kicked us out of their market. If you tell me what companies are quoting you and what you're looking to do, I can tell you if it will work or not. Or at least tell you what it will take to get it to work. At the moment, I don't know any high speed machines that will cost you less than $300,000 and everyone is at least a year away from delivery of a new machine. And that doesn't include the lead core machine ($55k-$100k). Also, keep in mind that most cities won't let you do metal forming anywhere but in an industrial zone. Industrial properties tend to be stupid expensive.

If you're planning on doing just the hand swaging or the hydraulic presses from Corbin, that may be a better option for starting out, but it's very dependent upon a high selling price. It is nearly impossible to join a market with a product that sells at a high price.

This I will tell you, if you buy a machine hoping that the customers will come to you, you will fail. I've personally seen it happen to a couple of companies. If you do not already have the customers, they won't just magically appear. The ONLY reason my manufacturing business has been successful is because I spent 10 years selling products from various manufacturers and built up a customer base and reputation before I started manufacturing. There are a lot of people who will be trying to do what you want to do right now. You will be one of several new companies that will be producing stuff. You will have to have some advantage over them to make it work.

Bullet presses are not typically caliber interchageable. At least not efficiently or easily. Most 9mm presses aren't the right thing for a .224 bullet. Making .224 cores and 9mm cores is a completely different chore and is better done on two separate machines. My guess is that the machine it would take to do both would cost you close to half a million and the changeover would not be worth the labor.

All that being said, I believe that there is plenty of money in this industry to go around and I don't mind helping someone who really wants to get into it. I am a big believer that we can make more money working together than we can as competitors so if you need help just ask me. That said, I am a capitalist to the core so some of the stuff I know is trade secret and can only be shared at a price.

 

[Orcon]

@longdayjake Hey, thanks for the info! I was going to get in touch with you once things settled down a bit, I figured you were crazy busy and didn't want to bother you. I'll send you a PM that you can respond to at your leisure.

 

[George P]

Have you looked into sourcing raw components? Machinery is great, but if raw materials are scarce to unobtainable, that poses an entirely different scenario.

 

[DM~]

IF you want to actually make any money at it, a couple hundred thousand should at least get you going... Then add more tooling as you grow...

DM

 

[mstreddy]

As I'm reading the thread/posts, I keep thinking, LongDayJake has been through this. Many of us were here back when he started out.
And Jake - RMR joins the discussion and offers advice and help.
This is THR, indeed.
Well done Jake.
And, I keep thinking of MBC as well. Brad and Joanne started their bullet casting business and grew it to the respected company it is today. RIP Brad, MBC earned a well-deserved solid reputation around here.