.327 Federal Club thread

[TylerD45ACP]

@ Crankylove -- Thats why I said its a specialized catridge because it is. It is just one certain people like to use. It is not one of the more common calibers. You make a point though. Its not really unecessary it just didnt become popular with the main crowd I guess.

 

[L2R]

Why, yes I did feel a twinge last night

quote, "when I get the .327 goodies, I can feel smug because I screwed over 75 other guys, not just 74!"

now I know what that was




All your lines made me laugh. I feel like family now and truly misery does love company.

I did get some brass last night at midsouth. I don't have much but I have enough to keep me busy for a while.

This is tough because I am excited. I have the means to start but not the knowledge. I am still reading.

I do hope to be a contributor soon. I love 2 ride my motorcycles (thus the name) and detest winter. I was looking for something that would hold my attention and give me something to look forward to during the winter months.

 

[FrankenMauser]

FrankenMauser, I took your advise and emailed Matt Reams. It is Saturday and he responded back within a couple hours. A very nice email but don't hold your breath. Basically, 'All our annual pistol caliber sales combined do not equal 2 months of our most popular rifle caliber.

Interesting. He's either:
A) Waiting for the "big reveal" to respond to my two (three?) emails.
Or, B) Interpreting my 'tone' incorrectly, and viewing me as hostile.

The questions I want answered are:
"What are your annual pistol caliber sales?"
"How is a pistol caliber supposed to compete with those rifle calibers, when you DON'T produce it?"
"What are the annual sales of your worst rifle caliber? And, when was the last time you ran it?"

Picking and choosing data to support lame excuses just makes me start grasping for more ammunition to throw in the fire.

Okay, maybe I am hostile.

 

[Cheapshooter]

I don't think there are any guns, or calabers that fit a "need" for me any more. More of a "gee, I don't have one of those". The 327 Fed. fits that catagory just fine for me. Now, if Ruger would just make an LCR in 327 Federal Magnum!!!

 

[L2R]

All good questions

FrankenMauser,

I don't even know ya but I already like ya. You have intelligent, well thought out questions. Doubt you are hostile but certainly frustrated.

My guess is that these questions corner him into answers that he would rather not give out.

But he is being clear that pistol ammo is far down on their list, In effect, 327 isn't on the list until the store shelves are full of everything else.

Rather than ask a sales guy 'why not', maybe we need to tell him 'why' he should reconsider.

So, to those diehards, sevens and frankenmauser, what do you think the average reloader would buy under these circumstances, and how many do you think are here that would commit? It would be interesting to know if that number would even get a sniff of interest from them?

 

[Sevens]

Yeah, sorry, I wouldn't commit to a single box from Sierra.

It's not that I have some axe to grind with Sierra... it's quite simply that Hornady actually did something about the dearth of .312" component slugs: they produced a bunch of them. I know... because I've been buying them!

All the component bullet makers had their products on the shelves. They all had a pretty good idea of how well they sold and how often they had to ship to keep that happy balance between not flooding the market and also not having empty shelves where their product sits.

What happened was: Before the Barackolypse, the only people who had any use for a .312" jacketed bullet were the few folks who hot-rodded the .32 H&R Magnum. Now if you think it's hard finding .327 Federal fans, it's harder finding the guys that love .32 H&R. And even when you do, many of them are simply loading their own home cast lead boolits. So at no point, really, were most retailers ever sitting on a huge supply of .32 cal jacketed bullets.

Then the .327 Federal came out and nobody could get component brass, so the handloaders started s-l-o-w-l-y with the brass the compiled when burning through factory ammo, which was HORRIBLY expensive and mostly available in over priced 20-round "premium defense" boxes before the American Eagle product really got flowing.

THEN BHO was elected to office and every red blooded male in America ran out and bought a gun... then he bought another. And three minutes after THAT happened, every one of those guys spent the mortgage money on ammo. (and stripped AR lowers! ) And when the ammo started to dry up, then everyone bought every last primer on earth and every component bullet on every shelf. (but I never saw anyone run out of powder... hmmmm... dunno why.)

And the only .312" jacketed slugs that were in anyone's stock were the few that were available for the .32 H&R guys. Much of that stock had been sitting there for quite some time.

To react to the complete absence of factory ammo in EVERY caliber, every manufacturer added shifts to produce at 100% of capability, or more if they invested in equipment. Those with the money expanded as they could without getting stupid. And you can bet that they spent 100% of that production time making 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 Automatic. Probably made a lot of .22LR, also, but I don't know if there was nearly as much panic buying on rimfire.

Anyone who bought ammo after November of 2008 can tell you that none of those manufacturers were using the 3 or 4 production shifts per day to make .380 Auto, so you can bet your Grandpa's farm that they were certainly not rolling that .32 caliber equipment from the dark corner of the building where it's been sitting unplugged for quite some time.

Sierra, as far as I can tell from FrankenMauser's entertaining tales, hasn't made any plans to react to the need or want for one of their products since the other stuff is selling so well. Not being the guy who owns or runs Sierra, I can't quite decide exactly how I should feel about that decision. I'm sure it all points to the bottom line... and as we've talked about many times on here, if Sierra is going to radically upset every single .327 Federal Magnum handloader on Earth, they'll probably sleep okay tonight as all 17 of us are horribly offended. Meanwhile, the 800,000 folks who are clamoring for more .224" and .243" rifle bullets are probably seeing a pretty good stream of product from Sierra and in the end, the folks running Sierra probably don't like the fact that they've gotten FrankenMauser "hostile", but they probably also see it as a business decision.

Hornady somehow found the time to make 85 and 100 grain XTP's. And those pretty little SOBs fly pretty truly for me! So I'm buying them.

And I'm wishing Hornady sold them by the 500 or 1000 for a major discount from the $16 per hundred I'm paying.

 

[FrankenMauser]

I stand by my previous statement:
(Speaking of Sierra and the 90 gr JHC)

They think it would be a low-return production run. But, if they ran 500,000 bullets... They'd sell out in less than 90 days. (I'd put money on 80% of vendors being sold out in less than 30 days, if they started shipping this Fall or Winter. Make it 45 days, if they ship in the Spring.) If they ran, say, 2 million, it might actually hold them over for a little while, while appeasing the .327 addicts.

BUT, the big news:
Matt Reams replied to me! Although we are no closer to getting the 90 gr JHC, he did take the time to type out a reply nearly 2 pages long (my last email to him was a bit, um... long ).

It would be a waste of time, and take up far too much space to post it all here, so I'll use select quotations. The quotes I'm pulling here are the most informative and applicable to this discussion. The overall tone of the email I received was much more friendly and "we're trying, we just can't justify it", than these quotes give credit for.

His explanation:

While your assessment of our inventory situations is spot on, I think your beliefs on why the shortages have happened are incorrect. Sierra has not ignored this bullet because we believe it is not marketable or worth running. It is simply a business decision we have had to make as a company the last few years to keep up with the unprecedented demand. We have added more presses in the last few years than we have in the 20 years prior to 2008. Same with adding new employees and we are working 24 hours per day 6 days a week and still not catching up with the demand. We still have presses being built and training people to run them when they are done, but this all takes time to do it right.

When we get this far behind – we have to make sacrifices. Obviously the military comes first – no questions asked. We will never let our people fighting overseas not have what they need because of us. After that we take care of our match rifle products as that is who we are and what keeps the lights on around here. Unfortunately when we start organizing our schedules by backorder status – all our handgun bullets go straight to the bottom of the list. Handgun bullets are a small part of what we do here and the .32’s are a small part of that handgun business. We currently have about 100,000 bullets on backorder on this bullet, which we do not like at all – but even if we quadruple that number, it is still less than ½ of how many 30 168 MatchKings we ship out of here every week

Not a canned response, but not unexpected. Onward...

My words:

As an avid reloader, I am not afraid of extremely unusual, odd-ball, wildcat, or rare cartridges. As such, I own something from several of those categories. I have slowly come to see a breakdown between a manufacturer's estimation of the demand for a product, and the actual demand for that product. It all comes back to the Internet. With the nearly countless number of online retailers and brick-and-mortar shops providing online storefronts, retailers have had to compromise. Rather than allowing back orders on "seasonal run" products, many of them simply list them as "out of stock". They provide no means to back order online; and often refuse to take back orders over the phone, or in person. This leads to customers waiting for the next production run to become available, while the manufacturer is waiting for enough orders to justify the production run. As time passes, and the few back orders that had been placed are slowly canceled, the manufacturer sees demand decrease; while actual demand is increasing on the street (as shooters/reloaders burn up their supplies).

Response: (My favorite: )

Your assessment of underestimating the market due to no availability is exactly right. You do not have an idea of the market demand if you do not have the product there to sell.

Give us a chance. Test the water!

Moving on:

Stopping a 168 {SMK} press to put the .32’s on would be like Ford stopping the F150 line for 6 months to run limo’s. It would be business suicide. People are still going to buy all those trucks; they are just going to buy them from someone else. So we can either choose to lose 100K-300K of 32 bullet sales per year, or millions of 168’s per month. Business is just that strong.

Sevens, you can safely continue with Hornady. Sierra has calculated the loss. That was actually a big point (several paragraphs) in my email: That the longer Sierra keeps this bullet on the back burner, the more people will turn their impatience into animosity. Their business will be lost for several years, at a minimum; possibly forever; and the bullet may die all together.
I think Sierra still underestimates how this will affect business. Until they provide me with a .32 caliber handgun bullet, I don't think I'll be replacing the Pro-Hunters and Game Kings, as I shoot them up. I want a balanced product line, not just the most profitable or in-demand products. (Could just be the American consumer in me. )

After a short discussion of how all handgun bullet customers are getting pretty angry and impatient:

We are very sorry for all the frustrations we have caused our customers and we have even talked about discontinuing the handgun lines – even temporarily – to cool some of that frustration. We did not think that was fair either for those that have waited for so long and have decided to keep them on and fill them when we can for those willing to wait.

Take it as you wish. Just remember that he was nice enough to type up a very long response. They do care. It's just that they don't care a whole lot, since we're the red-headed step children at the bottom of the septic tank. Feeding us means getting poop all over themselves.

 

[Sevens]

FM, in the most manly and beer-swilling voice I've got, "I love you, man!" and I consider you a very close ally both on TFL Forums and in the world of the .327 Federal. And in all shooting, even stuff that isn't handguns.

But...

I think Sierra still underestimates how this will affect business.

I can't agree. I don't think you could even effectively count the people who will hold this against Sierra as you will because the number is, and I say this with great care, statistically irrelevant.

His analogy of stopping the Ford F-150 production for six months to build limousines is pretty much exactly how I'm seeing the whole thing. Ford would be clinically insane to do something like that.

I do NOT like where we find ourselves. But I can't blame Sierra for where we are at and their reaction to it seems textbook -- and I find it horribly difficult to fault them for it.

In February of 2009, I tried to get Nosler to tell me why, for EIGHT MONTHS, I couldn't find that glorious 150 grain .400" JHP that made my G29 so damn happy and when they finally responded, it was nothing more than to tell me that their rifle bullets were dedicated lines and that handgun bullets were a rotating run that they set up and changed as they needed to produce handgun bullets.

I now find myself using a lot of the Nosler 240 grain .44 cal JHP and those SOB's are missing in action, too.

But Nosler and Sierra? And Barnes? These outfits make rifle bullets. That's what they are known for. Yeah, they make a few handgun slugs.

Hornady is also a rifle bullet pro. But they don't really have an equal in the market when it comes to handgun slugs. They make a lot of factory handgun ammo and they give us handloaders a darn good menu of component handgun bullets. You've got to also think that part of the reason they do support the handgun side with all guns blazing is because of the reloading tools and products they also market. Hell, they have been offering free bullets with a lot of their hardware for at least the last couple of years. They have to produce some slugs because they are promising FREE bullets when you buy their equipment.

I think Sierra is a fine company... Nosler also. I can't find fault in the way they have handled what's happened in this industry. And I think Hornady has pulled off their feats awfully well, too, since I can actually get my hands on a component bullet that a statistically irrelevant number of people are tripping over themselves to get.

I can't hate 'em for making the best of a difficult situation. If somehow they had the physical footprint to simply add the tooling and the money to add that tooling and the cash to operate the tooling and the raw materials to support the production AND the money to pay the wages to run all of that to make .312" bullets... what on earth would they do with the massive amount of bullets they'd have once the crazy run on this industry has leveled off?

How many people are going to keep buying .312" bullets by the thousand every month if we can't hardly even get ATK to produce component brass three full years after the cartridge was introduced? When only Ruger is actively building and promoting firearms that chamber it?

(I say only Ruger because the S&W's and their comical MSRP seem to be vaporware and because Taurus dropped it and because Charter dropped it and Bond Arms and Freedom probably don't account for a huge supply of them...)

His analogy might be more accurate if he suggested that Ford suspend production of the F-150 for six months so they can build a limited edition Anniversary Edsel model.

The .327 Federal is a blast. We love it.

The backlog in the industry as they react to the BHO factor has been tough times, but as a positive, there's a helluva lot of people pouring money in to the guns/ammo industry and you've gotta think that money (POWER) growing the industry is going to strengthen our ties to guns in this country.

I can't see a better way for Sierra to handle the problem.

 

[BillCA]

Thats why I said its a specialized catridge because it is. It is just one certain people like to use. It is not one of the more common calibers. You make a point though. Its not really unecessary it just didnt become popular with the main crowd I guess.

You're attempting to use logic to justify your own opinion that the .327 is a "specialized" or "niche" cartridge that only "certain people" like to use.

The factory loads for the .327 are measured from a 3-inch barrel, yet when compared to loads for the venerable .357 Magnum, they overlap the midrange of the .357. Start measuring the little .327 from four to six-inch barrels and it holds it's own with the .357.

Will it take down a deer, mountain lion or black bear like the .357 Magnum? I'm tempted to say yes with a solid slug, excellent aim, a smidgen of good luck and a big pair of brass ones. But asking the .327 to do those jobs is like asking the .357 Magnum to take on a charging Grizzly. You're stretching its limits and relying on a thin razor of luck.

The .327 was designed to fill a certain role. A powerful defensive cartridge that would allow you to carry six rounds in a 3-inch barreled SP-101/J-Frame package without the "fire & brimstone" or harsh recoil of the .357. This meant a muzzle energy between ~400 to 500 ft-lbs to drive a .32 caliber bullet hard enough to penetrate well. Not everyone needs the .357's ability to launch a 180 grain pill downrange at 1200 fps. There are too few bears prowling the streets of Tulsa or Omaha. However, the .327 should be just the right medicine for the two-legged wolves in those towns.

Like any new cartridge, we won't know how effective it is in reality until some thugs become voluntary test subjects. I'd expect it to be about on a par with the 9mm and .40 S&W.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Well said, sir. Well said.

Perhaps I should revise my comment to read:
"I think Sierra still underestimates the statistical irrelevancy of how this will affect business."
I understand that the bread and butter of their business is Match rifle bullets.

But.. When you send a bunch of customers to other manufacturers, because you are no longer producing the product those customers want; it will have an effect on brand loyalty.

I'm with you, in that I believe Sierra, as a whole, will eventually catch up, and won't be affected in the slightest by the lost handgun customers. However... it's likely to have a measurable impact on brand loyalty among those customers. Strengthening your competition isn't the greatest business move, unless you plan to narrow your product line, any way.

I see a future with diminished production of Sierra's handgun bullets (particularly the less popular stuff, like .32 and .41 calibers). But, I could be wrong.



Either way, the status quo remains. Hornady, Speer, Meister, and Federal* will get my business (*if they ever bring out the soft points under the Speer name).


I'm going to have to look into the likelihood of getting an 06 FFL and the business license past the zoning committee, after I move. I know I can make a better .327 bullet. (Says the man that hasn't swaged a bullet in his life. ) Even if I can't go commercial, I plan to make .312" dies a priority. I'll share the wealth, if I can.

 

[L2R]

wow

I gotta say that had I known all this before the purchase, I doubt I would have bought a gp in this caliber.

But now that I am hooked on the 327, I won't give it up now.

I am glad you all took time for the history lesson, that all explains a lot.

Sierra is doing what most every other company is doing. They won't hire and invest in these crazy times. To add to their misery, their fate is tied even closer to the politics and the presidential race is heating up. I would hate to speculate on a business forecast with all the upheaval taking place right now.

But moving on, I am reading what you guys have posted for recipes and maybe in a few months have something to contribute to the group. I have the added problem of a good place to shoot. There is a place close by that is to open their membership on Oct. 1st. I hope I can get in as they have great rifle ranges as well. wish me luck.

 

[Gdawgs]

I want one. That little SP101 taunts me every time I go into the local gun store. I think next year it will be mine.

 

[L2R]

buyer beware

I want one. That little SP101 taunts me every time I go into the local gun store. I think next year it will be mine.

I suggest you don't.. it's not just another caliber, it's an addiction- read on.

• you will shoot it and like it
• you will shoot other pistols, go back to it and like it more
• you will see that the 327 makes the sp101 all it was meant to be
• you will start looking at ammo and supplies and become bewildered
• bewilderment will turn to frustration
• Next, you will voluntarily pick up this torch to find others in your same delimma
• you will quit your job and dis your family to campaign for the production of more 327 bullets and brass.
• by this time, FM will have started a support group, online for 327 users.
  oddly enough, you will be the 327th member, making the number ring in your head at night, making your head hurt.
• Sevens will have mulitple recipes and keep supplying us with data. Ironically, the same forum that got us on this stuff, will try to help us minimize the affects of this affliction, will also enable us, feed our addiction and all in the same thread.

I urge you to reconsider the easy path, the tried and true path, the humble, proven 357 and don't look back.

BTW-I have an sp101 357 for sale with crimson trace.

 

[Sevens]

Holy Cow! Under fifty posts -- but this guy is one of us!

Y'know, FrankenMauser is moving his operation down in your neck of the woods. You guys could start a gang. I get down to western NC minimum once a year on the motorcycle... We could have a .327 rally.

 

[TylerD45ACP]

I was just trying to rationalize why it is not so very popular. I figure because a special group of people like the catridge/firearms. Yes thats imo, Id like to hear a reason they are not selling.

 

[secret_agent_man]

This voluminous thread, which shows no signs of abating anytime soon, is prima facie evidence of widespread interest in the .327 MAG. Nothing says home runs must be hit in the first inning.

 

[Sevens]

Meh, there's a few things at work here.

Some guy buys a .327 for WHATEVER reason. Could be any reason of a dozen or more... but he ends up with one.

If he's the hobbyist type that does more than simply buy a box of factory ammo and rip through it once every few months, he explores the round, probably makes his own ammo and learns to love it. The hobbyist takes pride in being a little bit different.

And when you get a bunch of hardcore hobbyist-type enthusiasts gathered on a discussion forum, and roll a thread of THIS length, it almost seems like a loud, passionate army of hardcore .327 Federal guys.

The reality is that it's simply not. Go to a gun show... You can find a dozen 75 year old gun cranks who eat, sleep and crap guns and haul their van load of stuff to a show 3 days out of every 7-day week that know absolute squat about the .327 Federal outside of the fact that they couldn't sell it, nobody ever asks about it and they maybe haven't even actually seen one with their own eyes.

I was just trying to rationalize why it is not so very popular.

Basically... it's because only one big gun maker is chambering it... The factory ammo selection is all being handled by one company (and quite poorly) and the support for the round by component makers and load data publishers is just this side of non-existent.

It arrived at a really tough time in the industry and that has had a MAJOR affect on it's success. And it's parents, ATK, have their heads way, WAY up their butts.

For the average Joe Sixpack gun store visitor (not the hardcore hobbyist type that hangs out at TFL Forums dissecting everything related to guns), it just barely even pops up on the radar. Wal-Mart doesn't sell .327 Federal Ammo. Glock and Kimber don't build a gun that shoots it.

 

[L2R]

Explaining success and failure

Tyler,

If you truly want to understand success and failure of all things including this caliber, I strongly recommend you read, 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell.

Shed your opinions and guesses. Others, including me, have insight but opinions differ and then you have to try a figure out who has insight as what is bs. Some will be good, some won't. The answer is here but gets lost in the 20 pages of opinion.

If this type of thing really has your curiousity, you will not be able to put the book down whether you like to read or not.

It explainis, scientifically, why things and people are successful and why they fail. The product itself is just a small part of the recipe.

I will give you one teaser. Most of the huge success stories where most of the billions was made over the last 2000 years happened twice over a very few years. Once was in the 1860s and once in the 1980s. A very few people made a ridiculous amount of money with their ideas and products.

All this to say that you are looking only at the product (the 327 caliber). It has been discussed to death on here that the economy tanked right when it launched. It was also when a run on other bullets took place so no ammo was available. No military or police picked up on this as marketing failed to sell it-again the effects of the economy? The 1911 might have died a slow death under those circumstances. (not picking on you, I own them and love them too)

Don't take my word for it or anyone else's. I challenge you to read the book so this makes sense to you.

 

[L2R]

what did you say?

Went to the local range today-

I brought my own AE .327 wife in tow as well as some other pieces. This is 'the' place to shot indoors in a medium sized town.

I asked if he had any 327 ammo. blank stare
Do you have any 32 h&r ammo? blank stare

finally, 'dude, I have been doing the ordering here for 4 years and you are the only one to ask for either of those.'

to call this a niche caliber would insult the word niche right now in my neck of the woods.

Anyway, I taught my wife to shoot and made her go to CC class a few years ago.

This is her 5 shots (38 special, AE off the shelf, standing not resting at 5 yards).

I know this off topic but next year I will be know as the reloader formerly known as the home protector.

 

[tjh]

E-mailed Hornady asking for 327mag componets and if they where going to offer factory ammo , a good 100gr or a new 115-120gr. would be great . Waiting for a reply .

Long live the 327mag. and the 41mag. all I need in a hand gun ...well maybe a 22lr.