Who the hell is Ace barrles? And ask Mr Green he seems honest and straight forward about this stuff.
Probably the work force and applicants?
Wish i would have gotten an education past soi.
- Thread starter Frank Green
- Start date
Probably the work force and applicants?
Wish i would have gotten an education past soi.
Yeah that's one of the big reasons, but that's not the only reason. It's a huge expense and it's a huge undertaking to get a new machine, to set up a new machine (which I've done more than once) and then to get a new operator for a new machine. It's not a small thing and it's not a quick thing either. That's probably the single biggest issue for action and barrel makers ect... Frank obviously can speak much more on this subject.
That said, there's also some pretty low expectations that most out there are fine with accommodating that also is a major contributor. They know people will ultimately wait so if they are making money, why risk a big expenditure and all theat goes with it to make it where you have a months worth of work ahead of you instead of 6 months of work ahead of you? If it isn't going to cost you business, why would you do it, especially when in the past it hasn't been such a linear demand situation
As far back as I can remember Manners and McMillian stocks have had a 3-6+ month lead time, so I'm willing to bet your 2nd paragraph is more true than the first.
They produce barrels for Vudoo as well as supply other smiths, such as Unknown Munitions who seem to be 1/2 of the S2H podcast.
I know Frank has been open about it, and I thought it was funny listening to the Ace podcast that they were clearly calling out Bartlein.
Same as with Stockys calling out Manners/McMillan.
I'm not trying to shit on Bartlein, more just bringing up a discussion point that seemed relevant.
Now the covid madness has slowed down the Bartlein barrel lead time has dropped from 2 years down back to 6months, so obviously they would've been crazy to tool up to manage that peak demand.
Maybe so. I mean, it makes sense as a business, which is what these places are after all.
Yes, we all have no skin in the game, but wasn't it that long ago that Hornady invested a bunch on production and almost got screwed? Like it or not the gun industry is living in a political nightmare. Think about that. How much do you want to invest now? Trump gets elected again and everything is back to normal and crap i just spent 2 million on machines.
Or Joe and the hoe get 4 more and your out of business for good.
It took 9 months to get a McMillan A5 for my Howa 6 Creed build. And McMillan actually fucked up my order and got the stock wrong. They sent a SA when I ordered a LA. So my smith had to make it work, because McMillans response was to just send it back and wait another 9 months for another stock. I said fuck that. Not hard to fill and redrill action screw holes. That was some BS on McMillans part.
Also took 1.5 years to get a .224" Bartlein 29" HV 8 twist for a 223 build.
It sucks to have to wait that long for rifle parts these days, but that's just the times we live in now. There's nothing anyone can do about it. If you want the best, you gotta wait for it, plain and simple. No sense in bitching about it. If ya don't like it, get something else. That's what makes America great, plenty of other options for ya...
Also took 1.5 years to get a .224" Bartlein 29" HV 8 twist for a 223 build.
It sucks to have to wait that long for rifle parts these days, but that's just the times we live in now. There's nothing anyone can do about it. If you want the best, you gotta wait for it, plain and simple. No sense in bitching about it. If ya don't like it, get something else. That's what makes America great, plenty of other options for ya...
Edit..forgot to separate Bartlein from the rest of the industry
@Frank Green
This is not aimed at you..you are out here everyday trying to help, answering every question and PM.
In general lead times aren’t an issue, they can be accounted for during production.
The issue is the absolute disregard for customer communication by most companies.
If every part of a build took 6 months and the build itself takes 2 months than a average lead time is 8 months etc
If/we the customer understood that ..we would order a rifle 8 months in advance across the board.
This industry quotes a lead time, then not only missed the due date but has limited comms or inaccurate info/ updates when asked.
there is nothing wrong with a controlled growth plan especially when equipment cost is high and procurement time for that equipment time is over a year (I believe barrel machines are 18 months if not more but don’t quote me), but if you are not increasing capacity the planning is even easier.
Simple rate, hours, equals output.
Schedule around the bottle neck department
Plan to a reasonable uptime
factor in made to stock/ forecast items
The remainder is made to order
Campaign when possible for efficiencies
PM time scheduled in
That’s the facility production schedule..it’s scheduling 101
the issue becomes holding inventory because inventory is expensive but in this industry there is no inventory because everything is always back ordered, so the fear of sitting on a pile of dead money “is less”.
Ordering materials that are a 2 year contract etc can be scary as well because you’re now in the hook for big dollars but that’s the business. Thinking that you can run a business in a long lead time industry and not think you need long lead time planning is just not intelligent.
The mfg knows when the next “cycle of product is coming through with in reason”, but that dies in their hands.
If they don’t know,,how do they order raw materials..so if course they know.
They just let the customer flap in the wind on buyer yet the same guys complain and go back for more.
Of course there are nuances and nothing is easy but that is why you make more than running a candy store.
@Frank Green
This is not aimed at you..you are out here everyday trying to help, answering every question and PM.
In general lead times aren’t an issue, they can be accounted for during production.
The issue is the absolute disregard for customer communication by most companies.
If every part of a build took 6 months and the build itself takes 2 months than a average lead time is 8 months etc
If/we the customer understood that ..we would order a rifle 8 months in advance across the board.
This industry quotes a lead time, then not only missed the due date but has limited comms or inaccurate info/ updates when asked.
there is nothing wrong with a controlled growth plan especially when equipment cost is high and procurement time for that equipment time is over a year (I believe barrel machines are 18 months if not more but don’t quote me), but if you are not increasing capacity the planning is even easier.
Simple rate, hours, equals output.
Schedule around the bottle neck department
Plan to a reasonable uptime
factor in made to stock/ forecast items
The remainder is made to order
Campaign when possible for efficiencies
PM time scheduled in
That’s the facility production schedule..it’s scheduling 101
the issue becomes holding inventory because inventory is expensive but in this industry there is no inventory because everything is always back ordered, so the fear of sitting on a pile of dead money “is less”.
Ordering materials that are a 2 year contract etc can be scary as well because you’re now in the hook for big dollars but that’s the business. Thinking that you can run a business in a long lead time industry and not think you need long lead time planning is just not intelligent.
The mfg knows when the next “cycle of product is coming through with in reason”, but that dies in their hands.
If they don’t know,,how do they order raw materials..so if course they know.
They just let the customer flap in the wind on buyer yet the same guys complain and go back for more.
Of course there are nuances and nothing is easy but that is why you make more than running a candy store.
Last edited:
What you are not accounting for are the capacity demand shift over which many of them have limited control over. As Frank said a few days ago he gets in meetings with the government which has the right to exercise capacity overrides, to place emergent demand that has to be dealt with. There are material shortages everywhere. And in smaller shops (even Bartlein is not that big in terms of numbers of machines compared to many of the huge machine shops out there) there are delays and issues keeping capacity up (machines running). These days no one no mater how big or small is immune to lead time extensions, live with it.
" back ordered 1.5 years because of parts and going back to covid!"
Have your buddy call SRP in Phoenix, AZ. SRP is tossing all the manual meters and putting in 'smart' meters.
they should be able to get a 100,000k meters cheap. Those manual ones run for over a 100 years; smart ones not so much.
Must be all those 6ARCs the gov wantslol
on the meter!No not just 6ARC's. I got an emergency request for those back in early December and had to get them done in 2 weeks! It's 50bmg (the powder maker burns a 50bmg test barrel up at the rate of one per week when making that powder. We got the order the beginning of March and they needed them delivered in 4 weeks or less.
Those and 5.56 and 7.62 and 270cal test barrels as well. Always have priority ratings on them.
I'm still waiting on some chamber reamers I ordered back in the first week of December. We've got barrels here to finish (test barrels) and can't finish them because we can't get the tools and it's past the delivery dates. I called a couple of weeks ago to check on them and one of the tools is done but the gauges are not done and they told me it's due to Gov't priority's.
I gave a quote yesterday for 12.7x108mm test barrels. I tried to cover my butt by writing on the quote.... lead time can get affected beyond our control to the delivery time of the chamber reamer and gages.
Also have an order for test barrels that were due in Jan... and now the 2nd batch of them where due here in the beginning of April. It's top secret voodoo stuff and the customer supplied the tools and In this case the tools were made wrong. They won't cut. They are trying to get them reworked and nothing I can do about it. I suggested taking them to a different reamer maker (name with held) and give them a copy of the print and ask them to get on it yesterday... and I was told that's a no go as they don't have a NDA in place. I said screw the NDA. They won't give the information out even to me if I ask for a copy. Last year between getting our computers updated etc...it took us almost 6 months just to get the NDA sent to us. Here I figured it was for the prints.... nope I was wrong! And we wonder why hammers cost $800!
Now once we get tools in that work.... we have to try and get those two jobs back in for finishing as soon as possible.... it just messes up the schedule even more when things like this happen.
Yep, that was what I so crudely tried to allude to. Unfortunately I am not sure when or if the situation will get better with everything else else that’s going on.
Sorry for all the troubles Frank. I'm out of large scale manufacturing, but when I was in it could be a pain. I'm sure it's exponentially worse after the pandemic AND world current events. Hang in there Bud, and thanks for the update.
No sorry's needed bud.
Yes we are not out of the woods from pandemic/riot year BS and the two wars have just made things worse on the whole gun industry.
Add in the requirements writers for some of the contracts aren't always the best/greatest, in some instances and you get bigger problems when you have to MOD the contract because they missed something or didn't know how to properly account for end user requirements/needs. It's a crazy world we live in.
Has there been any time in the last 10+ years that didn't have some world event messing up the gun industry?
Honest question.
Seem's like people have been complaining about lack of something (223 ammo, 22lr ammo, primers, everything, etc) for a very long time now.
I guess you just get used to operating with a high degree of uncertainty, somewhat knowing uncertainty is actually the the norm?
In the last 10 years, no. I think it started around 2008. Just before obummer took office.
Last edited:
We have gauges or milestone events: pre-Obama, Sandy Hook era, the Clinton/Trump election run-up, Trump Slump, and the Covid era.
^^^^ that pretty much sums it up.
We've seen shortages of gun parts or reloading components in the past etc... but nothing on the scale we are seeing currently.
There was a bump in stuff the last time we went into Iraq in 2003 time frame. Then came the Obama era and all the anti gun rhetoric.... he did more for gun sales than any other person in history not to mention screwing industries when his administration let GM and Chrysler forgive all they're debt.... I can tell you how it effected the gun industry in some cases and directly effected us, the elections haven't been helping every time a democrat wins and every time a dem wins how it has a negative effect on our military, and yes than the covid/riot year starting in 2020 which then leads into the two wars going on now. The start of Covid really screwed up the supply chain and production more than anything else and not to mention prices/inflation. Then you have the stuff where the one powder/nitrocellulose plant blew up in France in 2022. There are only 3 plants that make nitrocellulose in the world to my knowledge. So basically a 1/3 of the worlds production is offline for the next two years is what I get out of it and each 105mm type shell basically consumes 30# of that material.... so which leads to a shortage of gun powder etc...
And now... we are in another election year.
The roller coaster ride isn't over....
Along those lines the penalties and chargebacks for missing delivery on govt contracts blow civilian/regular companies out if the water.
I know from a “ vitamin” side the ship date adherence penalties from Walmart (which are known for being steep at times) pale in comparison the large supply houses (ABC, Cardinal etc) which are smaller in total sales etc.
they supply hospitals etc so the govt has a hand in those contracts because it’s a necessity not like CVS.
So besides the govt defense contracts holding a different level of delivery priority and legal penalties not just monetary as can be imagined…civilians will never see a ounce until the most important contracts are filled
Whats all that mean…don’t plan on seeing varget on the shelf or cheaper anytime soon
Similar threads
