Starting a high volume and large scale bullet manufacturing business

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Machineguntony

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During this COVID shut down, I have time on my hands and I’m looking into starting a bullet manufacturing business.

First, please don’t go into the typical, ‘it’s a tough business, don’t do it blah blah blah’. It’s not a constructive line of dialogue because every successful business is tough.

Start up cost is NOT an issue. I’m looking at starting with something like Waterburyfarrel machines (website says 240 bullets per minute).

http://www.waterburyfarrel.com/bullets/bullet-assembly-machine

Where does one find employees who are familiar with running, maintaining, and operating these machines?

How easy or difficult is it nowadays to find the supplies like lead and copper to manufacture the bullets? I’m guessing this is the main impediment right now.

Anyone have experience with these machines?

Anyone have resources about the business they would care to share?

I’m in the exploration phase.
 
First suggestion is to set aside both the funds and the time to go visit the folks who are
currently in the business. Some of them are not monsters and can be openly helpful to a startup.
Instead of asking "the internet" save those really delicate and hardcore questions for the business folks you visit.
For example how to find employees who are familiar with the equipment, when you are surrounded by them,
maybe more direct questions will be evident.

You are in the exploration phase. DO exactly that. Explore those who are already there.
 
Where does one find employees who are familiar with running, maintaining, and operating these machines
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you don't. You find someone that has experience in a similar or related field and then send to the factory school or see if the factory sends a trainer to your location for several days to give one on one training.

highrolls gave some excellent advice. Go talk to some people who are walking the walk.
 
My two bits

Oregon Trails just sold their business to Two Rock. Maybe you can get advice from the former owner. Retired people are usually generous helping others as the Trade was their former passion. I think Dardas still has his machines and he has retired. He's known for selling quality bullets and being both knowledgeable and honest. I'd ask him and see how much he would charge for his machines with a deal to stay at my place and get everything up and running.
 
Based on the questions you are asking...
I can confidently say you are not ready to start such a venture
(just calling it as I see it)
 
As was already mentioned, employees do not need experience with bullet manufacturing. But they should be good at maintenance of automated equipment. Any manufacturing equipment has the same kind of wear and tear issues. Screws and bolts all twist in and out, lube needs to be applied to the correct places.

Your real issue is that customers are not going to appear out of thin air, so employee hiring will need to take a back seat to figuring out how to make quality bullets by yourself for a while. After you develop a quality bullet you need to market it. You won't need employees until you can't make, package and sell all of your products by yourself. Those machines can run at 240 bullets a minute, can you sell them at 240 per minute?

The machinery will sit idle for a few days at a time for a while when you are starting up. So use a maintenance/repair company to perform the routine maintenance until you can hire someone to do it full time. Maybe the guy that has already been working on your equipment will be tired of his boss and be willing to change employment.

Do your research and development first. Give some bullets to people who have YouTube channels that test bullets and demo handloading. They need new reviews to keep viewers coming back, and you can get free (or nearly free) advertising. But only if the quality is high enough that they compare your bullets to the major manufacturers with high regards.

Come up with a solid name for the company that is easy to remember and imparts trust in the product.

I don't have a YouTube channel, but I would test some bullets for you, and give you honest feedback on accuracy and experience. Perhaps I am not the only person on TFL willing to help in this regard.
 
Business models have some basic similarities. You are exploring so here are some questions to ask yourself and map an outline so you can get the details of questions like you asked above answered:

1. Who are you targeting for your ammo? Hunting? Benchrest competition? Rifle? Pistol?

2. Once you have the above answered you can answer the real question...What will be your starting Calibers? If its Hunting research the top 2-3 calibers used. If its competition, good luck cause many competitive shooters load themselves. Target and training will push you to more conventional calibers like 223/556, 308, 9mm, 45 ACP etc.

3. Decide if you are going to truly create a new bullet then load it to propriety ammo produced or if you are going to take popular mass produced bullets like Sierra, Hornady etc and just try and come up with better loads that are more forgiving across most barrel type. ( think Federal and their 308 loads with the sierra bullets)

Once those are answered then you can figure out employee make up. Cause production workers familiar with machinery is one thing, but enticing meturalogists( spelling) and ballisticians etc are entirely another. I think this is just a small taste of why some of the answers you will get might be a little less encouraging. In the shooting world...pick your target, then take aim.....then you can tell if your gonna pull the trigger.
 
Still need to ask similar questions...just change the verbiage:

Hunting, target or competition?

What diameter(s)?

Those will dictate the employees similarly....do you need engineers/ballisticians to design a bullet shape? Lead free line for those states who don't use traditional lead core? Standard bonding practices or innovate something different?

Just taking a standard design and producing is vastly different then coming up with a new/different one. The factory/machine folks are just a part of that employee equation.
 
I'm finding this an interesting exercise.

I keep coming back to needing to publish testing load data. I'm not sure how works. Are there labs that can be hired to do that work, or do the manufacturers all have that stuff in house?
 
Companies like Hornady that manufacture their own line of bullets and loaded ammo will have that in house. You may find outsourcing more economical at the start.
 
Machineguntony, if you get into swaged wadcutter bullets, and can copy the H&N .314 hollow base wadcutter, you will become an instant hit with Bullseye shooters across the country. These H&N bullets are extremely accurate in pistols that shoot the .32 S&W Long wadcutter. Unfortunately, they are no longer available in the USA.

https://www.hn-sport.de/en/reloading/wc-hb-314-100-gr-l
 
Starting a business in something that you know little to nothing about, what could possibly go wrong?:eek:

Don
 
Thanks for the replies, fellas. Some of your info was very helpful. Like I said, this is an exploration phase. This is how all my businesses started off. I must have thought of at least 100+ ideas, 96%+ not turning out. Of the four that generate almost all my income nowadays (real estate, hotels, automotive, and QSR franchising) I had no experience prior.

I’ll call Dardas on Monday. I used to buy his bullets. Based on my experience, people who are in most businesses will generally not help a potential competitor unless they’re retired or selling their businesses. Maybe the ammo and component manufacturing business is different, but I highly doubt it.
 
I believe you are trying to see what you need to come up to speed, but this forum isn't teaming with high volume bullet makers, so I don't know how much direct help we can be. The advice to speak with those experienced in the field is good.

I would make a determination to start with a particular type of bullet. Request samples of it or something close to it from the machine makers to see how well their machine can make them.

You'll need to start looking at metals sources, too. Sierra mentioned in an article that they try to get several years' worth of metals at a time by monitoring the metals market and jumping on drops in prices. They work with a foundry that makes their jacket alloy and rolls it into metal strips. I think I saw a video showing they have a large press they use to extrude their own lead wire for cutting into cores, and have something like four different alloys they use for that, depending on what kind of bullet it is going into.
 
Where does one find employees who are familiar with running, maintaining, and operating these machines?
Click to expand...

Odds are, you'll have to train them.

How easy or difficult is it nowadays to find the supplies like lead and copper to manufacture the bullets? I’m guessing this is the main impediment right now.
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This is one of the immediate problems. The last lead smelter in the US was closed some years ago. We get our lead from overseas (notably China) and from recycle.

With the state of the world today, I wouldn't count on being able to get lead in quantity from outside sources for some time to come.

Another point to consider, along with employees to run the machiery, you're going to need someone well versed in LAW. Specifically Environmental law, chemical management, and the required permits you will need to run a business dealing in hazardous materials.

Everything that leaves your "factory" will have govt imposed limits, requirements for monitoring, and permits needed. Everything, including the air and the rain water or snow melt that runs off your parking lot.

And, there are big fines for not being in compliance!

If you're not able (or willing) to wade through thousands of pages of CFR's AND correctly interpret what applies to what you are doing and what you have, you will need someone who can. Don't overlook that side of things in your startup planning.
 
Unclenick, 44 AMP. Thanks for the helpful feedback.

This thread is meant really to cast a line for info.

I’m a multi unit fast food franchisee of a major national brand. Most franchises will not allow a person with no experience to buy into their franchise without experience. They all require an operating partner with experience. I went to a forum and just asked general questions, much like I am doing now. Found my OP in a forum (their definition of ‘partner’ is not really what you think of when you think ‘partner’, but rather an employee who is incentivized to not leave). Now he runs all the units for me.

Btw, we don’t like the term fast food. It’s QSR, thank you very much.

Same with my hotel business. Found my general manager online. Moved from NY to Texas. Been with me for 6 years now. Great GM.

Maybe nothing comes of this. Don’t know. It’s the exploration phase. As with entry into most businesses at this level, it comes down to finding the right people.

It’s all about the people.
 
44 AMP,

Interesting you mentioned China. I didn’t think of that. Thanks. I buy steel from China.

On a side note, did you see your lead prices from China increase with the tariffs?

If I understand correctly, these bullet making machines don’t actually melt the lead. What machines are you guys using?
 
Machineguntony]Btw, we don’t like the term fast food. It’s QSR, thank you very much.
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And what, exactly, is "QSR" supposed to stand for? I realize I'm only 76 years old so there's probably a lot I haven't learned yet, but that's an abbreviation I have never encountered.


Back to the ammo business. I know nothing about making ammunition in bulk. I do know that, a few years ago, a guy upstate started up an ammunition business. He had a building, machines, a web site, the whole enchilada.

He lasted less than a year.
 
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