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Old June 21, 2011, 04:24 PM   #1
Poodleshooter
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rifle bullet prices-odd

I was shopping bullet prices today, as my stock is getting lower, and noticed something odd.

I was surprised to see how much Remington Corelokt and Winchester power-points have gone up in price, and how little the prices have changed for offerings for Hornady, Sierra, Speer, etc.

My last boxes of .308" 150 and 165gr CoreLokts ran about $10-12 per 100, back when Hornady or Sierra's in equal weight ran $17-20. Now the old Corelokts are about $26 per 100, while a superior Hornady/Sierra spire point or boattail is only about $21-25.

My only conclusions here are that:
A. Hornady and Sierra must take a long time to roll over inventory made and sold to retailers at lower cost.
B. Remington and Winchester must have such fast inventory turnover that price increases hit them first.
or
C. Remington and Winchester have sprinkled magical "1 MOA or less" fairy dust on their previously ho-hum bullet offerings to make them somehow more valuable than Sierras Gamekings.
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Old June 21, 2011, 04:32 PM   #2
oneoldsap
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The Rem. Core-Lokt has always been supierior to the Sierra Game King in on Game performance . I did indeed notice that Rem. had nearly doubled the price of their Bullets . I'm blaming the Bean Counters for it !
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Old June 21, 2011, 04:59 PM   #3
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One thing I've noticed recently is that some of the better deals around are often in the smaller shops that have old stock & old prices on their component bullets. I recently got a great deal on two old boxes of Hornady .308's that were marked at something like half of their current value.
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Old June 21, 2011, 05:40 PM   #4
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Maybe, just maybe, it might have something to do with production runs, volumes, etc............
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Old June 21, 2011, 06:03 PM   #5
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Hornady Interlocks are the way to go for budget bullets if your gun will shoot them well.
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Old June 21, 2011, 07:45 PM   #6
625cnd
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Some places just do not keep up with the increases as fast as others, but they could have been over stocked.....

Lapua brass is going up 7.5 percent and bullets are going up 10 percent the first of July.
Lapua raised their 22.250 brass big time over last year the first of the year as they did not figure out costs properly
Places can have great prices, but what good does that do you when they are out of stock. .


ATK had 5to15 percent increases across their product line. ( Federal and CCI)

Hornady bullets went up 5 percent the first of May

Sierra bullets went up 3 percent the first of May

Swift bullest went up 7 percent the first of May

Barnes bullets went up 5 percent the first of April.

Nosler bullets went up 10 percent the first of April.
Nolser brass went up 7 percent the first of April.

Winchester has had a stout price hike across their product line.
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Old June 21, 2011, 07:54 PM   #7
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If you think bullet prices are bad, you haven't looked at case prices lately.

I use to buy 243 cases at $24.00-26.00 per hundred, now you are lucky to get them for $40.00 per 100. I know that brass cost went up, but give me a break, almost 100%????

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Old June 21, 2011, 08:58 PM   #8
oneounceload
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Have you looked at how sorry the US Dollar is doing?

How about the demand for brass from China and India?

There's a lot more to these commodities than just bullets and brass
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Old June 21, 2011, 09:21 PM   #9
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Prices going up, what’s new? In my 50 years of reloading I’ve seen them really climb, but so has everything else. It’s no longer manufacturing costs plus a profit, now it’s how much the buyer is willing to pay for the product, bullets, cars, whatever.
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Old June 22, 2011, 11:19 AM   #10
Poodleshooter
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Oh yeah, I understand the commodities prices going up. What I can't figure out is why Remington and Winchester went up in price so much relative to the "better" manufacturers.
I do wonder how fast the bullet companies turn over their inventory? I had assumed that Remington and Winchester were huge compared to Hornady/Sierra/Nosler/Speer,etc,and that they turned over much faster than the better quality bullet manufacturers. In a rising commodities price market, the faster turnover vendors would have to raise prices faster. That said, I would think that would make Rem-chester bullet sales screech to a halt. Who's going to buy Core-lokts when you can get ProHunters and Interlocks for the same price or even less?

As for cases...well, that's why most people like military cartridges.
There's very little that I can't accomplish with only a .223 and .308 shooting cheap LC brass. I have enough of that to last until I'm an old man.
Anything else, and it's time to break out the old annealing equipment.
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Old June 22, 2011, 11:40 AM   #11
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They are having issues with the presses ......

The ones at the Treasury. It ain't the commodities that are getting more expensive. It's that the dollars that you are paying for them are worth less.

The space between those last two words there will shrink as they continue to shrink, until it is one word.
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Old June 22, 2011, 04:56 PM   #12
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It's all the above. The dollar is lower, but not enough to account for 2:1 differences in metals prices. Remington and Winchester are importing more from overseas contractors, so the weak dollar probably affects them more than the 100% domestic makers.

At the same time, competition for metals by both China and India are through the roof. They a getting copper for wire and lead for batteries as cars begin to become more common in those places. A fellow at Sierra told me that when the last shortage due to military orders started in late 2006, Sierra thought it had two years of metal stock left and could wait out the metals price jump and didn't get in the pipeline. When the shortage hit and the hoarders started to panic, he said their two year supply was gone in four months and they had to order at the new, much higher (double for copper, I think) spot market prices, and wait for it to get through the pipeline, making the shortage still more acute.
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