Being as this thread is still going on and everyone making comments (all great by the way and Thanks for that!). I'll try and give a update as to where we are at right now the best we can.
Again if it hasn't been mentioned before...we don't have any steel supply issues. I get asked that question about a half a dozen times a month. Yes there are steel supply issues not just in the gun industry but everywhere. I'm way ahead of the game on our steel needs and have stuff scheduled from the mill into next year and we always keep extra material on hand to boot.
I know of a couple of new gun makers/barrel makers trying to get into the gun industry and cannot get steel until 2nd quarter of next year sometime. This was just conveyed to me about 4-6 weeks ago. I also know of the mills getting orders for steel and don't have anymore capacity for this year.
Material costs have been going up everywhere. I know you all have heard about ammo makers/bullet makers raising costs because of it and or things bullet wise are hard to get because raw material needs are in a pinch for them as well. I have heard of steel costs going up on for gun barrels as well. Just within the last month there was a 15% surcharge on some of the steel alloys like nickel etc....those surcharges don't get added until the steel is shipping from the mill because those alloys are traded on the stock market.....they get that pricing added to the overall material costs as of that day. So far we haven't been effected a ton. We are going to get hit with a slight price increase on our next shipment though...I was told that yesterday. I don't think it's going to effect us really at all at this time but I do know of other places getting hit pretty hard with material costs though.
Also the steel trade tariff's.....Trump did us a pretty big favor when he was in office by getting some of the tariff's off that his predecessor had put on. That helped hold the line somewhat to some extent and I was just told yesterday as well that the Biden administration was considering on reinstating those tariff's....and as of right now it's not going to happen but if it does...I'm told to expect another 25% increase in material costs. So keep your fingers crossed that does not happen.
So if you we're not ahead of the game on your steel needs.....you can be a bind one way or another.
Again for us we have machine time....just not enough people time per say.
I want to say for the last couple of months we on one hand did make progress on our backlog but...and this is a big but....the orders are still coming in and when we feel we're making some progress we get hit from somewhere else.
All of our customers are important!!!! For now I'll put things into 6 categories and in no particular order..... Our customers who buy the one or few barrels here and there, ammunition test barrel orders, overseas customers, customers who build guns and stock components like actions, stocks and barrels etc....and for gun manufacturers that we do special runs for.....for either prototypes and R&D projects and for when they need hi quality barrels for guns that need to meet a specific accuracy requirement where the factory barrels cannot meet the spec. they come to us as well. Last but not least for our armed forces.
So where we might see one category of buyers easing up...but the weight just seems to shift to one of the others. So overall I don't see things backing off at all. If I had to put a guess on it right now....I'll say things if they do start easing up....it will be into middle of next year some time but that is only a guess on my part. Everyone I talk to in the industry...ammo makers, bullet makers, gun makers etc...everyone is not seeing anything getting better here short term. So guys try to be patient with the people in the powder industry, bullet makers, custom gun makers, the scope people, the stock makers etc....and your friendly neighborhood barrel maker! I mean no offense if I left anyone out at all!
So again best I can say is....plan ahead the best you can.
Later, Frank