What kind of presses do the bigtime ammo manufacturers use?

[teddy12b]

I'm doing a little research about what kind of presses & other equipment would I have or need to buy in order start manufacturing & selling ammunition.  I know to be legal and official I'd have to get an FFL License, but I'm just trying to do the research now.  I'm finishing up an MBA and as my final project I have to write a business plan and I'd like to create a business plan about starting up an ammunition manufacturing company.  I've been reloading my own ammo for about 9 years now every once in a while I start to day dream and think about how much fun I'd have working for myself reloading ammo, but I know I couldn't get very far with just me and my dillon 550B.

If any of you guys have any suggestions please let me know.

[SHOOTALL]

I would guess some kind of custom set up that would allow the volume they do. A call to Dillion , RCBS or others would let you know if they build custom lines for the big boys . Also it would depend on what you were talking about in volume as to your need  . I have seen ( I think it was Georga Arms ) where cement mixers were used for cleaning brass . That alone would suggest a production line set up over a off the shelf loader.
Maybe a call to one of the high volume reloaders or say Remington could get you a factory tour  never hurts to ask. I once got to Remington Arms to late for the factory tour so an engineer took my wife and I thru their custom shop , something he said they did little due to the cost of the work. I watched a guy engrave fly boxes for the President of Remington to pass out on a fishing trip he was going on with friends . Saw a guy lapping a bbl on a rifle for a country singers wife . And much more give it a try if you can they like to show their toys and ablitys

[wncchester]

You would need three more Dillon 550Bs of course.  

And plan to hire some help, nothing makes  a "fun" activity become work as fast as working at it does.

[SHOOTALL]

Where you located ? sounds like a good part time job ........

[rdmallory]

It has been a few year but I remember seeing one on gunbroker for doing .357/38 I believe. It was about 35K fully automatic from what I could see.

I would send an e-mail to www.TopBrass.com and ask them what they use and just tell them about your project. I know they process brass in house.


Doug

[teddy12b]

I'm in Indiana and based on what I find out in all of this I'd consider going at it at a part time level.

[SHOOTALL]

To far away , what do you plan to load ?

[Old Syko]

A lot of years ago I modified an RCBS Green machine with the use of an electric motor and a tapping head for a drive to make an automated press that worked quite well.  Just had to keep an eye on things and keep the hoppers full of brass, bullets and powder and make sure nothing fouled up, because when it did it fouled up in a major way.  With liability being what it is today and your need to do this as a business, I wouldn't have any part of it now.  What I made was all for personal use.  Call RCBS and give them the info you have given here and they will likely give you the facts of life as they exist today.  Best to be packin a big check book if you're serious about this venture as a real business.  If it's just to get a grade it's another story.  If you're just talking low volume, a few thousand rounds a month, it's not worth the liability expense nowadays IMHO.

[teddy12b]

I'm not really planning to load right now.  Right now I'm just trying to figure out what I would load for this business plan I have to right.  

On the one hand, I think it'd be wise to load some of the most common nato calibers available like 9mm, 45acp, 223, 308, but at least in my experience in life when I'm looking to buy that kind of ammo I go on the websites and sort by price.  Then maybe I search it for match accuracy quality ammo.  In either case there's plenty of of better known names out there and a seemingly saturated market.

It's kind of hard for me because I'm a reloader myself and when I think of buying factory ammo it's only to stockpile something that I don't want to take the time to make myself.  For example when 9mm was $20 a box I'd reload my own.  Now that it's $10 or less per 50 I may buy some factory ammo just to save me some time of reloading.

I think the best bet would be to hit the up and coming calibers like silver state with the 6.8mm spc years ago.  I think the best bet would be to look at calibers that have some potential to offer people but where the potential hasn't been maxed out yet.  For instance, I'd probably look at some of the AR15 variant calibers, the 10mm may make a come back in popularity also.  I might look at calibers where there were clear and huge savings to reloading your own like the remington ultra mag family of cartridges because to a bigtime producer it's more of a hassle for them to make a small specialty run of this ammo so they have to charge more.  I think there's more room to be competitive in that area.

[teddy12b]

If it's just to get a grade it's another story.  If you're just talking low volume, a few thousand rounds a month, it's not worth the liability expense nowadays IMHO.

You touched on a big part of what I have to cover in my research, liability insurance.  The startup costs of this venture would be huge, some kind of a small building, equipment & installation, materials, insurance costs and then the financing involved would be quite a bit more than I'm worth.  On the books these numbers can be depreciated, but in life people want people up front.  I think in order to make it work the business would have to start one caliber at a time.  One production line setup to run steadily and as bills get paid add another and then another.

[SHOOTALL]

sounds good , the guys who load big bore revolver hunting loads seem to always do well also.

[Old Syko]

You touched on a big part of what I have to cover in my research, liability insurance.  The startup costs of this venture would be huge, some kind of a small building, equipment & installation, materials, insurance costs and then the financing involved would be quite a bit more than I'm worth.  On the books these numbers can be depreciated, but in life people want people up front.  I think in order to make it work the business would have to start one caliber at a time.  One production line setup to run steadily and as bills get paid add another and then another.

No matter if you start out with one or ten different calibers, the liability, location, and other costs are not going to vary that much if at all.  The only variable will be manufacturing equipment which you will find are minor in comparison when talking startup.  Don't forget about local restrictions that will vary greatly in legality and expense, depending on location, cost of and location of high volume powder storage, lead storage, etc.  Financing?  If you don't have the cash up front either of your own right or a financier, who do you think will foot the bill?  Good luck with a bank!

[rdmallory]

Be sure to post back her your findings. I am sure we would all be interested.


Doug

[cybin]

I think that if I was going to start up a business based on reloading,--why not just look into a reloading supply business?  You could branch out into casting lead bullets as well. There is a couple of businesses here in Missouri that do only reloading supplies (they sell some guns, but not many) and they do a land office business from what I have seen. May have less liability selling other peoples products.

Just a thought.

cybin

[Lloyd Smale]

youd be best served buying lee pro 1000s. That way when the business failed and it will you wouldnt be out much

[teddy12b]

I think that if I was going to start up a business based on reloading,--why not just look into a reloading supply business?  You could branch out into casting lead bullets as well. There is a couple of businesses here in Missouri that do only reloading supplies (they sell some guns, but not many) and they do a land office business from what I have seen. May have less liability selling other peoples products.

Just a thought.

cybin

The reloading supply business (at least the way I perceive it) is like trying to be a middle man in an economy that's forcing out the middle man.  The way I see it there's enough internet based sellers of reloading supplies that it's to costly to get setup to compete with them on price.  I think the best way to succeed would be to create something instead of redistributing something someone else already made.

[teddy12b]

youd be best served buying lee pro 1000s. That way when the business failed and it will you wouldnt be out much

I'd never start a business with junk equipment. 

[SHOOTALL]

youd be best served buying lee pro 1000s. That way when the business failed and it will you wouldnt be out much

I'd never start a business with junk equipment. 

You would start with much either

[teddy12b]

huh?

[jlchucker]

When I worked at Winchester, back in the early 70's, case and bullet manufacture was done on Bliss and Waterbury Farrell presses.  These were gigantic, automated machines, with very complex tooling.  case and bullet jacket cutoff was done on automated machinery designed by Winchester and manufactured in CT and had been in production for decades.  You need to figure out what you'll manufacture and what you'll buy from whom.  I sugggest that you'd be best off to purchase primers from a company that is already set up to manufacture those to your specs. As far as perishable tooling for making cases and bullets, (dies, punches, bunters, etc) again you'd be wise to find a vendor who could make these to your specs.  Bliss and Waterbury Farrell are old US manufacturers now out of business but they both made machinery that would last--and probably could be purchased somewhere used.  The tooling would have to be designed and made.  You're looking into a complex process to make ammo from scratch. This goes way beyond buying anything from someone like RCBS, Dillon, Lee etc.  Before you spend any amount of time and/or money on this, you may want to go to an existing ammo manufacturer (Winchester, Remington, Hornaday, etc) and get a plant tour if they'll give you one.  You are talking volume manufacture here, with lots of operations--and lots of calibers requiring lots of tooling.  No amount of CNC technology or Just-in-time production control will make this a simple and cheap enterprise, even today.  Good luck!

[teddy12b]

When I worked at Winchester, back in the early 70's, case and bullet manufacture was done on Bliss and Waterbury Farrell presses.  These were gigantic, automated machines, with very complex tooling.  case and bullet jacket cutoff was done on automated machinery designed by Winchester and manufactured in CT and had been in production for decades.  You need to figure out what you'll manufacture and what you'll buy from whom.  I sugggest that you'd be best off to purchase primers from a company that is already set up to manufacture those to your specs. As far as perishable tooling for making cases and bullets, (dies, punches, bunters, etc) again you'd be wise to find a vendor who could make these to your specs.  Bliss and Waterbury Farrell are old US manufacturers now out of business but they both made machinery that would last--and probably could be purchased somewhere used.  The tooling would have to be designed and made.  You're looking into a complex process to make ammo from scratch. This goes way beyond buying anything from someone like RCBS, Dillon, Lee etc.  Before you spend any amount of time and/or money on this, you may want to go to an existing ammo manufacturer (Winchester, Remington, Hornaday, etc) and get a plant tour if they'll give you one.  You are talking volume manufacture here, with lots of operations--and lots of calibers requiring lots of tooling.  No amount of CNC technology or Just-in-time production control will make this a simple and cheap enterprise, even today.  Good luck!

Lots of great information here!  I’m going to be writing the paper from the standpoint of assembling reloading components made by other companies.  I feel comfortable doing that because I’ve been at it for a lot of years, but I don’t know anything about the actual making of brass casings, jacketed bullets, primers, or powder.  I think it’d be fascinating to see how that stuff was made, but there’s no way I’d try to tackle all of that right out of the gate with a new startup company.  I can’t imagine trying to pull that off in real life or how to write it up in a paper.  Thanks for telling me everything that you did it was very helpful!

[teddy12b]

After rereading some of the earlier posts I just want to be clear so people understand my intent.  I'm not going to start a business today or a year from now, or maybe a couple years from now.  I keep getting the impression that some of you guys think I'm about go to run out and start swiping a credit card on some half arsed idea that I’m going to strike it rich on my first day starting a company.  I am doing one part of a bigger research project to see if it'd be economically feasible to start a new ammo company.  I would guess at this point that it’s not going to be feasible without an overwhelmingly large amount of cash up front (that I obviously don’t have).

[SHOOTALL]

huh?

Sorry - you wouldn't be starting with much

[jlchucker]

After rereading some of the earlier posts I just want to be clear so people understand my intent.  I'm not going to start a business today or a year from now, or maybe a couple years from now.  I keep getting the impression that some of you guys think I'm about go to run out and start swiping a credit card on some half arsed idea that I’m going to strike it rich on my first day starting a company.  I am doing one part of a bigger research project to see if it'd be economically feasible to start a new ammo company.  I would guess at this point that it’s not going to be feasible without an overwhelmingly large amount of cash up front (that I obviously don’t have).

A new ammo company would be a huge undertaking.  Even the newer ones don't do the whole job.  As just one example:  Hornaday makes lots of bullets, and more recently cases. Bulletmaking is a whale of a process involving not only the forming of jackets from alloy cups, but swaging slugs and then assembling them to the jackets.  Lots of steps here. Case forming is several drawing operations, interspersed with annealing, heading, extractor-groove turning, case cutoff, etc.  Then you've got a separate stage that primes each case, loads powder, and then finally inserts the bullet into the case as a finished product.  Even then, it's not done until a sampling of finished ammo gets fired to see if it performs to spec. My example here is Hornaday, and you should notice that even this company does not make its own primers or powder.  They don't even make a full assortment of commercial ammo.  Even at that, I'll bet they have a huge budget for perishable tooling (punches, forming dies, etc) for the calibers they do make, and they have an outside source (with a corresponding budget) for primers and powder. As I said before, go to one of these companies and get a plant tour.  Bring earmuffs, though.  Lots of these operations are overwhelmingly noisy.  If you've never seen it done, you might find it very interesting, and helpful in doing your research.

[Savage]

Teddy,

Here you go. This is what you need!

http://ammoload.com/

Savage

[teddy12b]

That's what I'm talking about!  Thank you Sir!