A buddy showed me some projectiles and brass in packets he had been buying since last year with the price tags still on them. He laid them out in age order to show me.
Starline brass went $42, 44, 45, 47, $50 per 100.
The projectiles went $44, $52, $59 per 100
Another brand of projectile jumped from $45 per 100 to $63 the same month in one store

Who is cashing in on this- US manufactures, Aus importers, the gunstores, or all three?

Probably all in the supply change. When whatever circumstance that caused the price increases goes away the prices remain unchanged. People accept the price increases and sales continue - best way to judge a fair price. The correct price is whatever people are willing to pay. Political unrest in the US drives up the demand and the price.

There has been a dramatic rise in the price of bullets in NZ too. Also, a shortage of the more popular ones which are getting hard to find.

fair prices can still be subject to price gouging, exclusive dealing, market manipulation, price fixing and other anti-competitive acts. I'm a bit wary of considering what the average guy wants to pay as fair, hes too dumb to know fair if it bit him on the leg. Keeping an eye on dealings between the big players is always a good policy.

Yes, I was being sarcastic with the "fair" and "correct price". Prices go up and people keep paying them - I think sales volume is preventing proper competitive pricing, might as well jump on the bandwagon with price increase across the board. Political and social unrest affects the market. I think manufacturers/suppliers are playing with pricing between them.

My strategy has been to bulk buy, to some extent - ended up being an excellent choice in all cases IMO.

Ah gotcha mate, sorry for being so dogmatic.

Hello all,

Starline Brass here.

We usually do not try and engage on forums as we believe this is your space to speak freely. This was sent to us however and I figured I would at least address it from our standpoint.

Starline announced a small yearly increase late in 2019 that took effect at the beginning of 2020 and our prices have not changed since then. We do not plan to change those prices until the end of the year unless something dramatic changes to our costs (ie materials). This can easily be verified with our online pricing which has not changed since the first of the year.

I have personally rode a few of these panic buying events out over the decades and I will have to say the vast amount of manufactures do not participate in any gouging. It usually happens further downstream where the laws of supply and demand allow it to happen easier. Manufactures usually understand that this is a poor business practice, especially during a time our customers need us the most.

I can only speak 100% about ourselves and we have not increased our prices at all.

Carry on!

Matt

Thanks SB

Great to hear Matt. So its further down the chain.Glad I stocked up on your brass before this happened too.

Thanks for the reply Matt. And thanks for your apparent respect for your customers. It's good to get the facts direct from the source.

When the demand goes up sharply as it has here in the states, there seems to be two choices:
1. raise the price
2. Suffer outages.

While none of us like the price increases, we dislike even more the inability to get things at all

It's the law of economics as it must be.

the law of economics is still subject to other laws to ensure fair competition. The big importers here announced a 15-17% price hike across all products just into lockdown and it seemed a bit premature and unilateral to be just individual item demand. Not saying it was impropiety, maybe its shipping related, government charges, increased export costs from the US etc.

Thanks Matt, good information.

158XTP: I do NOT know the answer to your question but I indeed do feel bad for the horrific price increases you are experiencing.
You did not touch on the problem we have here in the U.S. of A.
And that problem is "availability"!
I am also puzzled as to the base cause of the excessive cost increases and the availability decreases!
Hoping for better times for you all down under and hereabouts as well.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Someone in the chain is screwing us on prices but only because they can. We appear to pay more than other countries for the same products and can't all be blamed on shipping costs. In fact quite the opposite - years ago, for example, I remember that you could buy Australian wine cheaper in the US than in Australia (including allowance for the currency difference).

I was chatting to a gun/ammo company sales rep in a Melbourne gunshop that re-opened today after Covid lockdown. Aparently there's a lot of product on backorder (in Australia) even with Melbourne shops not restocking for months. Thinks there could be local shortages for a while (months?). If you are thinking of buying anything, I wouldn't wait.

Don’t mean to “engage”, but been buying your handgun brass for a good while and just started with your rifle brass about a year ago. Great stuff! Finally got around to checking the 6.5 Grendel brass and found it to be very uniform and just a bit lighter than the Brand X (Hornady) I’ve been using.

Nice work. Don’t let the Conglomerators swallow you up!

I bet Dillon Precision's prices on tools and other catalog items is the same as it was in March.

Question is though, how is their supply doing? I haven't checked this year.

Me and the boys were sitting outside our LGS waiting for it to open so that we could rush in and buy up every available component, regardless of whether or not we need it, before some other a-hole got to it.

None of us can understand why shortages are happening and prices are rising either.

Not sure if you read the whole thread but the Australian price hikes were way before any shortages. In fact we only started getting shortages this year, not when I posted this thread 14 months ago. The ''a-holes'' in this case are further up the supply chain than regular consumers. Even now we are not having anywhere near as much trouble with shortages as the US is.

I’ve had little trouble acquiring Matt’s excellent brass, but you have to be vigilant and quick. I order when it is available for backorder, and so far, it’s shipped quickly thereafter.

Since my shooting’s not “mission critical”, I seldom overpay. I just wait for a better deal and shoot something else in the meantime. There are still some bargains to be found.

I would tend to believe the "shortages" are marketing supply side strategy (gouging) more than anything else, it's amazing now that a lot of prices have increased 300% what is readily available,
( in the U.S.). Primers are still the Achilles Heel, of the component "shortage".