Got this from RMR in an email today and thought I'd share, since it is kind of relevant to the shortage situation in general.
Okay, I have a ton to update everyone on. This will likely be a long email so if you just want to see what is in stock go to the bottom of this email. If you want to know about order delivery times just keep reading. If you are concerned about price increases, please read this so you understand why we have to do it.
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.
I'm giving you a few days to put in orders before I change the prices. This means we are going to get a TON of orders between today and the beginning of the new year. Please expect a long wait time for shipping on the orders placed between now and then. Especially if you order 115 or 124 FMJ RN. Those are currently about 12 weeks out.
Now, some good news is that we finally got another high speed 9mm machine running as of today. We purchased this new machine before Thanksgiving. The shipping company had it on the 3rd of December. They broke the leg off. They were trying to hide their mistake by just not contacting us and telling us they broke it. So, it sat with them for three weeks while we worried about where it was. We finally got it and it looked like this.
It took us a couple of days to fix the machine and get it ready for production. Anyway, because of the delays in shipping and the repair time, we lost about two million bullets worth of production. We were hoping to have the 115 and 124 FMJ caught up to at least November. It's probably going to take us couple of months but we will hopefully get the backorder times to under a month. If all goes well with the new machine, we will be back to shipping within a week by the end of March. I know how stupid that sounds. It's just the reality of where we are as a country right now. With this machine we will be able to produce 350k+ rounds each day and we will still be behind. Please understand that our delayed shipping times are not because we are lazy. It's all just crazy demand brought on by our prices and our willingness to take backorders. Just know that we are working tirelessly as well as beyond tired to get as much out as we can each day. I'm constantly working to increase our production capacity and our shipping times. We've got an amazing crew right now and they're kicking butt.
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.
Okay, I have a ton to update everyone on. This will likely be a long email so if you just want to see what is in stock go to the bottom of this email. If you want to know about order delivery times just keep reading. If you are concerned about price increases, please read this so you understand why we have to do it.
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.
I'm giving you a few days to put in orders before I change the prices. This means we are going to get a TON of orders between today and the beginning of the new year. Please expect a long wait time for shipping on the orders placed between now and then. Especially if you order 115 or 124 FMJ RN. Those are currently about 12 weeks out.
Now, some good news is that we finally got another high speed 9mm machine running as of today. We purchased this new machine before Thanksgiving. The shipping company had it on the 3rd of December. They broke the leg off. They were trying to hide their mistake by just not contacting us and telling us they broke it. So, it sat with them for three weeks while we worried about where it was. We finally got it and it looked like this.
It took us a couple of days to fix the machine and get it ready for production. Anyway, because of the delays in shipping and the repair time, we lost about two million bullets worth of production. We were hoping to have the 115 and 124 FMJ caught up to at least November. It's probably going to take us couple of months but we will hopefully get the backorder times to under a month. If all goes well with the new machine, we will be back to shipping within a week by the end of March. I know how stupid that sounds. It's just the reality of where we are as a country right now. With this machine we will be able to produce 350k+ rounds each day and we will still be behind. Please understand that our delayed shipping times are not because we are lazy. It's all just crazy demand brought on by our prices and our willingness to take backorders. Just know that we are working tirelessly as well as beyond tired to get as much out as we can each day. I'm constantly working to increase our production capacity and our shipping times. We've got an amazing crew right now and they're kicking butt.
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.
