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Intro and Q Re Bullet Jackets

Tikka595ii

Hello all my name is Matt allow me to briefly introduce myself as I have not been active on this site beyond information gathering for my own shooting interests. I am from southeast PA and while I have hunted and been around firearms most of my life and even considered myself a gun enthusiast my interest in precision shooting which started at a young age never got the chance to grow until a few years ago when I was inspired to try to shoot 1,000 yards and that pursuit has led to competing in various disciplines such as Ground hog shoots, long range steel benchrest, and Precision rifle series. I recently started working for a company that is looking to step into the bullet manufacturing business and I have some questions for the custom bullet makers and shooters here on this forum because We are looking to provide precision jackets to the market as well as bullets.

From you the bullet makers I would like to know what jackets you use the most both caliber and length? A breakdown of your normal yearly amounts and what amount you could produce in a year if the jackets where available all the time? You are welcome to pm me if you don’t want to post your numbers publicly. Also are there any caliber / length combos not provided currently you would like to purchase?

By knowing what is most in demand will help us make decisions moving forward as the startup costs are rather high and we will need to optimize the component size progression to the demand and product feasibility to meet the minimum viable product cost/return numbers necessary so we can provide you with the most options over the long term.

For the reloader/shooter using commercial bullets or would like to be using commercial bullets what is missing from the precision shooting market space? What can’t you get and what does not exist yet? Caliber/weight

Thanks for your time and consideration I look forward to hearing from you all

Matt
 
7mm long jackets, are extremely needed. However, anything that you produce has to be very consistent. That’s a major part, because custom bullet makers aren’t going to buy any that aren’t great quality.
 
Corbin would have a lot of general information concerning bullet jackets, manufacturing. It appears that .308 jackets are used in production of 6.5,.277,7mm jackets.
 
I would say do some development on the standard short range jackets in short 6mm and 30.
Send them out for testing to see if you can produce the quality that is necessary to compete with J4 and Hines 6mm .790 and .825 30cal .925 and 1"
If you can produce those that will compete, then your are off to the races and could expand what you offer
 
Tim Singleton said:
I would say do some development on the standard short range jackets in short 6mm and 30.
Send them out for testing to see if you can produce the quality that is necessary to compete with J4 and Hines 6mm .790 and .825 30cal .925 and 1"
If you can produce those that will compete, then your are off to the races and could expand what you offer
Click to expand...
I'll echo Tim's comments.

As a first step....working with the larger BR bullet makers and soliciting their input to produce what they need in a jacket and not what someone thinks they should accept would be paramount.

The .790/.825 6MM and .925/1.00 .30 jackets is where a companies reputation for a quality jacket for SR Benchrest (with a capital 'B') will be made. Proper annealing, almost perfect wall thickness variation along the entire length of the taper and a delivery schedule that works for people of all purchasing levels would be huge. Another thing to consider is the dimensions of current mass produced cores like the excellent cores supplied by Charlie Hood @ Hood Engineering.

I've always thought a smart thing for a jacket manufacturer would be to have a network of dealers that are bigger bullet makers. These 'warehouse' dealers could fill and ship from their inventory to customers, leaving the manufacturer to concentrate on production and bring the amount of time devoted to shipping down as the majority of shipping would be to the 'W.D.'s (Warehouse Dealers). This would be more efficient for the manufacturer and let the 'W.D.'s' get a slice of the pie, too. 'R.G'. Robinett (BIB Bullets), Bart Sauter, Ken Hottenstine, PRP Bullets, etc. would be some that would work in the different geographic regions, for example. This system would be excellent for supplying the many 'little guy' bullet makers such as myself.

Thanks for soliciting comments! :) -Al
 
Thank you for the replies I will try to address them in order.
7mm jackets. I am aware that there is no good option for these currently however the question is how long do they need to be? are the new generation of heavy 7mms even possible to make off the 1.440 jackets? and how many is there a demand for? I would love to provide these but it has to at least pay for the tooling to be feasible. If those who make or want to make custom 7mm want to chime in with numbers that would go along way with keeping it in the probable category.

In response to Tim and AIN thank you, yes short range Benchrest is the largest group of users currently the best estimate I can come up with is about 4,000,000 jackets a year combined and while that will be more that you could ever hope to make with multiple Corbin setups it doesn't reach the level needed to justify a dedicated machine that could still only run one product at a time. so that is why I am asking for more info to try and have the most accurate information possible to make decisions with.

I have talked with George Ulrich, and R.G. Robinett already and tried to reach Bart but still no connection made yet. I will try to talk to ken. if you have contact in for for any of the other bullet makers or you want to tag them here I would welcome it as I don't know them all yet.

Randy has been very helpful in explaining the nuances in precision jackets to me so far.

Dave thank you for chiming in I would be interested in hearing your experiences having been down this road with your products

Dusty that is kind of the rub isn't it how do you meet the demands of a custom industry where everyone has their own unique thing with out getting buried under a million different setups?
thanks for the replies so far
 
Tikka595ii said:
Thank you for the replies I will try to address them in order.
7mm jackets. I am aware that there is no good option for these currently however the question is how long do they need to be? are the new generation of heavy 7mms even possible to make off the 1.440 jackets? and how many is there a demand for? I would love to provide these but it has to at least pay for the tooling to be feasible. If those who make or want to make custom 7mm want to chime in with numbers that would go along way with keeping it in the probable category.

In response to Tim and AIN thank you, yes short range Benchrest is the largest group of users currently the best estimate I can come up with is about 4,000,000 jackets a year combined and while that will be more that you could ever hope to make with multiple Corbin setups it doesn't reach the level needed to justify a dedicated machine that could still only run one product at a time. so that is why I am asking for more info to try and have the most accurate information possible to make decisions with.

I have talked with George Ulrich, and R.G. Robinett already and tried to reach Bart but still no connection made yet. I will try to talk to ken. if you have contact in for for any of the other bullet makers or you want to tag them here I would welcome it as I don't know them all yet.

Randy has been very helpful in explaining the nuances in precision jackets to me so far.

Dave thank you for chiming in I would be interested in hearing your experiences having been down this road with your products

Dusty that is kind of the rub isn't it how do you meet the demands of a custom industry where everyone has their own unique thing with out getting buried under a million different setups?
thanks for the replies so far
Click to expand...
Also talk to JLK Bullets.
 
I'm sure you have thought of or have already studied the quality of the jackets that are on the market today
that benchrest custom bullet makers use.
It would not get off the ground if you couldn't meet those standards
Hines is my favorite. I'm not sure, but it seems the annealing is a little different than J4
they seem to work easier in my dies and boy do they shoot!
 
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