I met up with my friend Ken and his wife Sam at the range today. I just had my Rossi 461 .357 Magnum and about 100 rounds of Tula 158 gr FMJ .357 Magnum ammo plus 50 rounds of Magtech 158 gr JSP .38 Special and a few other odds and ends.
My Rossi does NOT like the Tula AT ALL.
Extraction is extremely difficult, and out of my 3" Rossi, recoil is somewhat painful. It also shoots about 4 inches high at 21 feet. Whereas the Magtech 158 gr JSP's shoot to point of aim and are a joy to shoot.
I tried some of my old Speer Lawman 110 gr JHP .357 Magnum, and while recoil was brisk, and it was LOUD, it didn't feel as punishing as the Tula and also shot to point of aim.
Ken let me shoot his Colt Mustang .380, and while it was very accurate even on rapid fire, I kept shooting a little low with it, probably because of my ape hands and I was gripping it too hard when my pinkie finger slipped under the magazine baseplate.
With his wife Sam's, Ruger LCP, which was almost exactly like my mom's Kel-Tec P-32, I did the same thing, shooting about 2 inches low at 21 feet. And rapid fire on the LCP doesn't punish the outside of the knuckle of my trigger finger like my mom's P-32 does.
Ken then decided to let me try some of the ammo he runs through his 2.5 inch snubbie.
A Remington 158 gr JHP .357 Mag and a Federal 158 gr JSP .357 Mag.
OUCH!
Both shot to P.O.A. but the Federal recoil was worse than the Tula, except the brass cased Federal extracted properly.
And both were MUCH louder than the Tula.
Just for fun, I stuck a Shoot and See target over the B-27 I was using and went back to the bench at 75 feet to see how accurate I could be with the Rossi.
Taking my time and holding the front sight about 6 inches below the stick on, remember the Tula shoots high, I could put 5 out of 6 Tula rounds about 3 inches below the bull and about an inch to the left.
Using the Magtech, holding even with the bull, I got 3 rounds about 3 inches to the right and an inch or two above the bull in about a 2-3 inch group. The B-27 was covered in holes already so I don't know what my other 3 rounds did, but they were probably the other 2-3 inch group just about an inch off the shoot and see to the right of and equal with the bull. Remember this is at 75 feet with a 3" revolver.
Ken, Sam and I worked on Sam's grip, she is new to the LCP, her regular pistol is a Glock G19 with fiber optic sights. with which she can put 15 rounds on a 4-5 inch group at 21 feet, but the grip size and shape of the LCP plus the sights, are something she still hasn't gotten used to. Add to that, she is left handed but Right Eye Dominant. So shooting with her right hand is a little difficult for her.
And Ken and I also talked to another shooter on the range who was shooting his new to him Gen 4 Glock 17, to get ready for the CCW class and qualification. He was worried about the time factor involved and it was affecting his accuracy.
Ken and I both told him the trick. Take your time in a hurry.
Which sounds like a misnomer or non sequitur, but if you think about it, it does make sense.
The largest issue with shooting a handgun fast is accuracy. You can jerk the trigger until you reach slide lock, but that doesn't put your rounds in the 10 ring. So to get faster, you have to be more accurate. To get accurate, you have to have proper CONTROL of your pistol.
If you limp wrist it or hold it incorrectly, you are not going to get rounds where you need them to go. You have to have a proper firm grip, proper sight alignment, proper presentation towards the target, and proper trigger control. Once you have all of those for each and every shot, you will get better accuracy. And with that control and accuracy, you will get increased speed.
As we wound down our shooting, we just sat there on the bench seats and talked about various loads and firearms. Ken had a surprise for me when he presented me with a midsized box that weighed about 25 lbs, which was full of old wheel weights, I'm going to have fun sorting through them to get rid of the Zinc and Iron weights, but I already have a idea about a 180 gr, gas checked, hard cast, SWC to see if I can get a mold.
Finally a little bit before the range closed, we loaded up and headed out. They went to go get some crawdads for dinner, me, I came home to get off of my feet and to allow my spine to stretch out and realign itself.
So I had a pretty good day today. I got my big blue car hauler trailer moved to where the boys and I can fix it, I got some shooting with some friends and my son Sprog #6 is making spaghetti for tonight's dinner.
How was your weekend?
The Replica Prop Forum
Very cool site I am also a member of
Showing posts with label Remington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remington. Show all posts
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Thoughts on Ammunition and Firearms costs volatility
I have a couple of new firearms that I have been wanting for a long time. One of the ones I wanted to get came into stock and sold out of stock so quickly, you would think it was shortly after Newtown and the pol's were talking about banning firearms again.
That lead me to think on just how volatile the markets actually are when it comes to firearms and ammunition.
Every time, a politician even mentions the possibility of a ban on either a firearm or ammunition, ALL firearms and ammunition, suddenly becomes hard to get if not almost impossible to get.
You have to think about that.
If someone wanted to try to game the markets, all they would have to do is to buy up a bunch of a particular firearm or ammunition, then start a rumor that there is a ban being proposed.
If you think that is far fetched,look at the availability of .22LR ammunition to this day.
Ammo speculators but up as much as they can and hoard it, letting it dribble out on Gun Broker and other similar sites, Artificially inflating the prices and limiting the availability of .22 LR ammo, because others who see those high prices, buy up all they can for themselves depressing the availability for everyone else.
Making the rarity of supply of .22 LR ammo a self fulfilling prophecy.
I was at my local Walmart the other day, and I saw the "Speculators" who I have seen before. These are the guys who would go from store to store to store buying all the .22 LR ammo before anyone else could, and then posting it for sale on an auction site.
Right now doing a quick check on AmmoSeek, the cheapest per round price of .22 LR ammo is .052 cents per round with a One Box limit. the next cheapest is .085 cents per round and that is for a specialty CB Cap round, not standard ammo. the next cheapest standard velocity ammo is .09 cents a round and again a One Box limit.
On Gunbroker.com, the LOWEST price per round on auctions that are close to completion is all over 11 cents per round. On buy it now only auctions, the lowest price per round I've found is over 12.3 cents per round. Add in Shipping and Handling, and the costs per round can easily exceed .18 cents per round.
This on an ammunition that most of us used to pay less than 1.3 cents per round on. And many years ago, I actually paid less than .05 cents per round. Yes, a half a cent per round. When I was a kid, I could buy a 100 round box of Remington or Winchester .22 LR ammo for right at a dollar a box. If I wanted to buy .22 Shorts, I could get a 50 round box of short's for as little as .25 cents a box. And I remember my uncle calling THAT highway robbery as he used to be able to buy .22 Shorts for .05 cents a box of 50.
There are some who say that it is the ammunition companies that are marking up their prices. I don't believe that is the problem. For the most part ammunition companies can only run so many lines of production before they HAVE to shut down for maintenance or changeover to another product/caliber. Many of the machines being used are decades old and they require proper maintenance, they require parts, and they require some time off to for their operators to get some rest themselves.
I don't know how many of my readers have ever worked on a production factory floor, but I have. For Contico Plastics and at an Onion Ring Plant. And even with a good maintenance department, the machinery NEEDS downtime beyond basic maintenance to destress the parts. Otherwise you start having larger numbers of and increased severity of breakdowns. It's just like your car or truck. You CANNOT have it run 24/7/365, it needs some downtime to cool down, have maintenance performed and have preventive maintenance done to head off problems.
Remember when I said above that a lot of the machinery used to manufacture ammunition is decades old? I know for a FACT that the Olin Plant in Alton, Illinois had and probably still does have machinery from the early 1900's on their production floor. Some of that stuff is pushing 100 years old, if not older. Would you like to try to find parts for those machines yourself? You probably can't. However Olin's Maintenance Department also has a good machine shop, and they make a lot those parts themselves. Or have them sent out to a custom machine shop if they can't do it themselves.
Many other ammunition producers WANT to increase their output. However they do NOT want to have to purchase new, very expensive equipment to do so, and then find themselves stuck with the interest payments on that new equipment after the market catches up.
Firearms manufacturers are in the same quandary. Do they spend millions of dollars on new mills, lathes and CNC equipments which costs upwards of a hundred thousand dollars, or do they do their best to try to keep up, without their quality dropping off and killing their market share?
And the speculators, remember them? The speculators are also in the firearms markets as well. There is a guy down in Corpus Christi, sitting on over 200 80% AR-15 receivers, and when I last saw, he had dozens of unopened boxes containing nothing but AR-15 Magazines. And he keeps buying more and more. He had more ammo in his garage, mostly 5.56 and 5.45, than I saw in the back room at Gander Mountain in College Station. He WANTS Congress to try to ban stuff again, so he can try to make back his money.
Once again, remember those old machines? And how a lot of them need parts custom made for them? How do you think those parts are paid for? How do you think the people working on those machines are paid for? What about the operators of those machines?
Through SALES of their product.
The manufacturer's don't WANT congress to try to ban their products, they don't want state or local governments to do it either. They want their product to be available to whoever can legally own it at a price they can afford to pay for them.
That way, the manufacturers can sell you more of their product down the road, for your kids and grandkids to enjoy.
There was a video by a YouTuber who said that everyone needed to stop buying ammo and AR-15's, because they were driving up the prices so HE couldn't buy them himself. Kind of shot sighted and narcissistic of him, isn't it?
So remember this, the current volatility isn't the manufacturers trying to get more money, even though many of them have had their costs of materials rise, which needs to be added in to the cost we pay, the volatility is the DEMAND, which so far has been outstripping the supply.
Granted also that when the M855 ban was being floated there WAS quite a bit of price gouging by certain distributors. However it wasn't really as bad as some people make it out to have been. Yes the cost for all 5.56 ammo has risen and supplies have gotten scarce, but the market is starting to come back down. It was NOT the manufacturer's who did that though. They know where their bread is buttered, and they would much rather have loyal customers for life than annoyed customers for right this minute. Loyal customers will always come back to buy their product, annoyed customers will take their money elsewhere.
And it only take one bad customer review to cost a company untold amounts of money. So the good manufacturer's will do whatever they can that is reasonable to keep their customer base, and to keep them happy.
I have written e-mail to Remington, Winchester, and a few other manufacturers asking them if they would be willing to comment on this. I'll update as it comes through.
The response from Vista Outdoor (ATK - Speer) -
" Thank you for your inquiry.
The current market and environment is causing stronger than usual demand for products in our industry. The current increase in demand is attributed to the civilian market. Our facilities operate 24-hours a day. We are continually making process improvements to increase our efficiency and investing in capital and personnel where we have sustained demand. We are bringing additional capacity online again this year.
If you'd like further comment on the topic, Mike Bazinet at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is providing insight from an industry perspective. He can be reached at -------@------------ or ***-***-****
We wish you the best with your blog.
Appreciatively,
Vista Outdoor Communications Team"
I have sent Mr. Bazinet an e-mail, and have received notices of my messages to other companies being forwarded to their PR departments. As more replies come in I will up date this post.
That lead me to think on just how volatile the markets actually are when it comes to firearms and ammunition.
Every time, a politician even mentions the possibility of a ban on either a firearm or ammunition, ALL firearms and ammunition, suddenly becomes hard to get if not almost impossible to get.
You have to think about that.
If someone wanted to try to game the markets, all they would have to do is to buy up a bunch of a particular firearm or ammunition, then start a rumor that there is a ban being proposed.
If you think that is far fetched,look at the availability of .22LR ammunition to this day.
Ammo speculators but up as much as they can and hoard it, letting it dribble out on Gun Broker and other similar sites, Artificially inflating the prices and limiting the availability of .22 LR ammo, because others who see those high prices, buy up all they can for themselves depressing the availability for everyone else.
Making the rarity of supply of .22 LR ammo a self fulfilling prophecy.
I was at my local Walmart the other day, and I saw the "Speculators" who I have seen before. These are the guys who would go from store to store to store buying all the .22 LR ammo before anyone else could, and then posting it for sale on an auction site.
Right now doing a quick check on AmmoSeek, the cheapest per round price of .22 LR ammo is .052 cents per round with a One Box limit. the next cheapest is .085 cents per round and that is for a specialty CB Cap round, not standard ammo. the next cheapest standard velocity ammo is .09 cents a round and again a One Box limit.
On Gunbroker.com, the LOWEST price per round on auctions that are close to completion is all over 11 cents per round. On buy it now only auctions, the lowest price per round I've found is over 12.3 cents per round. Add in Shipping and Handling, and the costs per round can easily exceed .18 cents per round.
This on an ammunition that most of us used to pay less than 1.3 cents per round on. And many years ago, I actually paid less than .05 cents per round. Yes, a half a cent per round. When I was a kid, I could buy a 100 round box of Remington or Winchester .22 LR ammo for right at a dollar a box. If I wanted to buy .22 Shorts, I could get a 50 round box of short's for as little as .25 cents a box. And I remember my uncle calling THAT highway robbery as he used to be able to buy .22 Shorts for .05 cents a box of 50.
There are some who say that it is the ammunition companies that are marking up their prices. I don't believe that is the problem. For the most part ammunition companies can only run so many lines of production before they HAVE to shut down for maintenance or changeover to another product/caliber. Many of the machines being used are decades old and they require proper maintenance, they require parts, and they require some time off to for their operators to get some rest themselves.
I don't know how many of my readers have ever worked on a production factory floor, but I have. For Contico Plastics and at an Onion Ring Plant. And even with a good maintenance department, the machinery NEEDS downtime beyond basic maintenance to destress the parts. Otherwise you start having larger numbers of and increased severity of breakdowns. It's just like your car or truck. You CANNOT have it run 24/7/365, it needs some downtime to cool down, have maintenance performed and have preventive maintenance done to head off problems.
Remember when I said above that a lot of the machinery used to manufacture ammunition is decades old? I know for a FACT that the Olin Plant in Alton, Illinois had and probably still does have machinery from the early 1900's on their production floor. Some of that stuff is pushing 100 years old, if not older. Would you like to try to find parts for those machines yourself? You probably can't. However Olin's Maintenance Department also has a good machine shop, and they make a lot those parts themselves. Or have them sent out to a custom machine shop if they can't do it themselves.
Many other ammunition producers WANT to increase their output. However they do NOT want to have to purchase new, very expensive equipment to do so, and then find themselves stuck with the interest payments on that new equipment after the market catches up.
Firearms manufacturers are in the same quandary. Do they spend millions of dollars on new mills, lathes and CNC equipments which costs upwards of a hundred thousand dollars, or do they do their best to try to keep up, without their quality dropping off and killing their market share?
And the speculators, remember them? The speculators are also in the firearms markets as well. There is a guy down in Corpus Christi, sitting on over 200 80% AR-15 receivers, and when I last saw, he had dozens of unopened boxes containing nothing but AR-15 Magazines. And he keeps buying more and more. He had more ammo in his garage, mostly 5.56 and 5.45, than I saw in the back room at Gander Mountain in College Station. He WANTS Congress to try to ban stuff again, so he can try to make back his money.
Once again, remember those old machines? And how a lot of them need parts custom made for them? How do you think those parts are paid for? How do you think the people working on those machines are paid for? What about the operators of those machines?
Through SALES of their product.
The manufacturer's don't WANT congress to try to ban their products, they don't want state or local governments to do it either. They want their product to be available to whoever can legally own it at a price they can afford to pay for them.
That way, the manufacturers can sell you more of their product down the road, for your kids and grandkids to enjoy.
There was a video by a YouTuber who said that everyone needed to stop buying ammo and AR-15's, because they were driving up the prices so HE couldn't buy them himself. Kind of shot sighted and narcissistic of him, isn't it?
So remember this, the current volatility isn't the manufacturers trying to get more money, even though many of them have had their costs of materials rise, which needs to be added in to the cost we pay, the volatility is the DEMAND, which so far has been outstripping the supply.
Granted also that when the M855 ban was being floated there WAS quite a bit of price gouging by certain distributors. However it wasn't really as bad as some people make it out to have been. Yes the cost for all 5.56 ammo has risen and supplies have gotten scarce, but the market is starting to come back down. It was NOT the manufacturer's who did that though. They know where their bread is buttered, and they would much rather have loyal customers for life than annoyed customers for right this minute. Loyal customers will always come back to buy their product, annoyed customers will take their money elsewhere.
And it only take one bad customer review to cost a company untold amounts of money. So the good manufacturer's will do whatever they can that is reasonable to keep their customer base, and to keep them happy.
I have written e-mail to Remington, Winchester, and a few other manufacturers asking them if they would be willing to comment on this. I'll update as it comes through.
The response from Vista Outdoor (ATK - Speer) -
" Thank you for your inquiry.
The current market and environment is causing stronger than usual demand for products in our industry. The current increase in demand is attributed to the civilian market. Our facilities operate 24-hours a day. We are continually making process improvements to increase our efficiency and investing in capital and personnel where we have sustained demand. We are bringing additional capacity online again this year.
If you'd like further comment on the topic, Mike Bazinet at the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) is providing insight from an industry perspective. He can be reached at -------@------------ or ***-***-****
We wish you the best with your blog.
Appreciatively,
Vista Outdoor Communications Team"
I have sent Mr. Bazinet an e-mail, and have received notices of my messages to other companies being forwarded to their PR departments. As more replies come in I will up date this post.
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