When I traveled to California this week I spent a little time with Jim from Prime Ammo. Part of the discussion was about the way forward and new ammo offerings for 2020. With that in mind, a novel new concept was born and wanted your feedback on the subject.
This post is a bit long, but also consider this, without getting too deep, consider the 2nd Amendment restrictions we are seeing today. Consider the fact banks will not loan money, or support the firearms industry. Every day we read more and more articles about the Anti Gun Politicians actively working to stifle the industry as a whole by legislating limitations to how we operate. It's gonna require a new approach and one that puts all gun owners into a collective group of like-minded souls who can then band together in order to circumvent these limitations.
So, here is the thought process from Jim:
The last several months have been very good for PRIME. Thanks to the sheer will of PRIME's customer base we obtained a very good settlement from our former foreign supplier after a protracted legal battle and are enjoying a very good relationship with our new, U.S. based partners. PRIME has reemerged with even better products than we historically offered, and this has proven to be a true Godsend for PRIME. There is a famous cliché that says: "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." This is exactly what has transpired at PRIME. Our products are now 100% American Made, have lower SDs/ESs, are more accurate and are delivered directly to the end-users at prices commensurate with the value they impart. To say that everyone at Team PRIME is grateful for what our customer base did for us is a massive understatement. We have all redoubled our efforts to find new and better ways to provide the very best ammunition products at the best possible prices.
The commodity-based, ultra-low-end "free shipping" crowd that purchases the very cheapest ammunition listed at the top of Ammoseek will always exist. As will the companies offering insane "deals" as they either liquidate their remaining inventory as they go out of business or offer loss leaders just to drive traffic to their site hoping customers also purchase something on which they have some margin. We all know that there is no such thing as "free shipping" and that the old adage of "you get what you pay for" will always be true. The "Wal-Marting of America" has caused most American's to value cheap pricing over actual value and the following link is what you get when that mindset is applied to the ammunition world: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/freedom-munitions-bankruptcy/
Also, the world's largest ammunition company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy – so we know from these examples that we need to something different.
Indirectly addressing our goal of providing the best products at the best prices, over the last several years have I have come to understand the very unique challenges that the Ammunition industry faces. These are serious obstacles not faced by most other industries and include but are not limited to:
· Massive amounts of the politically engineered stigma associated with the ammunition industry creating nearly insufferable reputational risk for all industry participants - especially investors, lenders, and manufacturers
· Almost a complete lack of access to traditional forms of capital for investment and financing activities
· Things such as purchasing advertising from google/FB/YouTube, traditional banking, taking PayPal payments and crowdsourcing are all completely closed to our industry
· Extremely antiquated manufacturing and supply chain systems as the industry is very small
· The "Politically Incorrect" nature that causes "Reputational Risk" dissuades top-level management from entering the industries
· Almost a complete lack of Just In Time suppliers of components and sub-components for ammunition
· Lack of supply in general
· Limited Research & Development taking place to advance ammunition component manufacturing
· Limited Research & Development taking place to advance ammunition component assembly
· Limited Research & Development taking place for assembly process and procedures of ammunition
· Many major suppliers of ammunition components are Governments
· Ammunition is a heavy, hazardous material not accepted by the USPS and is therefore not inexpensive to ship
· The world's largest retailer of ammunition has announced very significant restrictions on what they will continue to carry
These problems create a situation where we face a lot of uncertainty in terms of what raw materials to purchase, inventory, order, and when to have them on hand and in what quantities.
One of the major competitive advantages the United States still possesses is our world-leading system of partnership between post doctorial academia and industry which produces many of the major discoveries and inventions that quickly make their way to the consumer market. There is no such partnership along these lines for Ammunition related advancements baring some very specialized railgun-based research and some optical-based ballistic solving research not likely to impact "civilian" based ammunition production. To make matters worse, the toxic nature of projectile, propellant and explosives production have placed and continue to place massive amounts of pressure on the producers of bullets, gun powder and primers to the point where much of the commercially viable supplies come from outside the U.S. and are delivered on an infrequent basis. The only answers to these issues from what I can determine is to deploy modern communication and e-commerce related systems to fully understand demand in the effort to manage the supply constraints and therefore more closely match our supply to the demands of the end-users in an effort to keep end-user pricing as low as possible.
I'm talking about obtaining real-time information about the supply of the components, quickly sharing that information with end-users via various modern communication solutions and then using the same communication systems to take orders with payment for products matching the supplies that exist. This then allows PRIME and Sniper's Hide to obtain the components, having them assembled to the specifications provided by our customers and then get them onto FedEx/UPS trucks as fast as possible and on their way to our customer's homes.
The real lesson I learned in going through what just transpired with PRIME was to ALWAYS trust your CUSTOMERS! Based on the very humbling experience of making a bad business mistake of trusting a sole foreign supplier and then having our customer base literally save PRIME I have made an important decision as to how PRIME will move forward. PRIME will once again trust our customer base by turning to them in obtaining the final formulations and demand for the ammunition products enabled by the brass, powders, primers, and projectiles accessible via PRIME's relationships with our new U.S. based suppliers.
Before I had an ammunition company, I worked in the Internet infrastructure business. Requests For Comments are how the Internet was, is and will continue to be built. I think it’s time that an ammunition company deploys the same type of "open community" process in gathering information for the products it makes. In case your members are not familiar with RFCs here is a Wikipedia entry that explains them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments
PRIME has access to a wide variety of very high-quality brass products, we need to use a combination of Internet-based tools and the established trusted relationships we have with our combined customer bases to:
· Gather specific input on what to load in the brass
· Understand how much of it to make and when to make it
· Access lower-cost capital in the form of group purchases in order to procure the components and finance their assembly and fulfillment directly to the end-users via a method similar to the crowdsourcing solutions other industries enjoy that heretofore have been closed to the ammunition industry
We are asking for your partnership to assist PRIME in gathering information on what we should bring to the market. In return for the assistance from your members, PRIME will be offering group purchase based incentives to your membership that will literally enable PRIME to make what your members want in a way not seen before in the ammunition industry. The bottom line is this, many people ask for things and make suggestions but then they don't actually purchase it - and in an industry that has very large challenges in supplying components in a timely manner this leaves large amounts of products on the shelves unsold and literally forces many businesses out of existence. Therefore, we'll be turning this around and will:
· Ask customers what they want, how much of it they are willing to purchase, over what time period, and at what price
· Determine the availability of components necessary to make what customers want at the volumes and delivery time frames they desire
· Communicate the reality of the availability of the necessary components and take orders via group purchases in the form of something resembling crowdsourcing
· Assemble the crowdsourced order and deliver it in the agreed-upon timeframe
The ability to execute on this new system of determining demand, sourcing components, assembling and delivering will rely heavily on trust. The trust Sniper's Hide members have for your community and the trust PRIME has from its customer base are both very significant. It is this combined trust that will enable our new system to work. The key to maintaining this trust is transparency. PRIME is 100% on board and willing to provide a very high level of transparency to any group that makes a group purchase from Sniper's Hide/PRIME. The number one risk that must be avoided is that of a supplier not delivering a key component that holds up the entire process of assembling the ammunition components. Obviously, missing just one of any of the six components (cups, cartridge case, gun powder, primer, projectile, and packaging) can cause very significant delays that will destroy the trust imparted by the group making the purchase.
These risks can and will be successfully managed using the practices I sent you under a separate email. These risk management components are proprietary and that’s why I sent them to you separately.
Here are the calibers for which we currently, have access to brass:
· 22 Creedmoor
· 6x47
· 6 Creedmoor
· 6XC
· .243 Win
· 6.5 Creedmoor
· 6.5x47
· .260 Rem
· 28 Nosler
· 30-06
· 7mm-08
· .300 Win Mag
· .300 Norma Mag
· .338 Norma Mag
· .338 Lapua Mag
· .375 Cheytac
Brass we can obtain:
· 6GT
· .224 Valkyrie
· 6.5 PRC
· 6.5 Grendal
· .300 PRC
· .416
· 50 BMG
· Others???
We look forward to working with you in what we feel will be a new and promising way to gauge demand, finance, procure and deliver high-quality ammunition products to those who need them and are willing to pay a fair price and wait a short period of time for them. PRIME is enthusiastic to work with you in order to determine “next steps”.
As we all know, in order to have a "commercially viable" amount of all the calibers listed above on the shelf and ready for sale without the benefit of knowing the demand, the amount of investment necessary would be taxing on even the largest ammunition company. With the new system of "group purchases" that we are discussing, even a young ammunition company such as PRIME will be able to afford to offer all of these calibers while providing excellent customer service.
Best,
Jim O'Shaughnessy, CEO
PRIME
500 N. Rainbow Road
Suite 300
Las Vegas, NV 89107
702.637.4424 Ext. 762 - Office
www.primeammo.com
This post is a bit long, but also consider this, without getting too deep, consider the 2nd Amendment restrictions we are seeing today. Consider the fact banks will not loan money, or support the firearms industry. Every day we read more and more articles about the Anti Gun Politicians actively working to stifle the industry as a whole by legislating limitations to how we operate. It's gonna require a new approach and one that puts all gun owners into a collective group of like-minded souls who can then band together in order to circumvent these limitations.
So, here is the thought process from Jim:
The last several months have been very good for PRIME. Thanks to the sheer will of PRIME's customer base we obtained a very good settlement from our former foreign supplier after a protracted legal battle and are enjoying a very good relationship with our new, U.S. based partners. PRIME has reemerged with even better products than we historically offered, and this has proven to be a true Godsend for PRIME. There is a famous cliché that says: "That which does not kill you makes you stronger." This is exactly what has transpired at PRIME. Our products are now 100% American Made, have lower SDs/ESs, are more accurate and are delivered directly to the end-users at prices commensurate with the value they impart. To say that everyone at Team PRIME is grateful for what our customer base did for us is a massive understatement. We have all redoubled our efforts to find new and better ways to provide the very best ammunition products at the best possible prices.
The commodity-based, ultra-low-end "free shipping" crowd that purchases the very cheapest ammunition listed at the top of Ammoseek will always exist. As will the companies offering insane "deals" as they either liquidate their remaining inventory as they go out of business or offer loss leaders just to drive traffic to their site hoping customers also purchase something on which they have some margin. We all know that there is no such thing as "free shipping" and that the old adage of "you get what you pay for" will always be true. The "Wal-Marting of America" has caused most American's to value cheap pricing over actual value and the following link is what you get when that mindset is applied to the ammunition world: https://www.pewpewtactical.com/freedom-munitions-bankruptcy/
Also, the world's largest ammunition company is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy – so we know from these examples that we need to something different.
Indirectly addressing our goal of providing the best products at the best prices, over the last several years have I have come to understand the very unique challenges that the Ammunition industry faces. These are serious obstacles not faced by most other industries and include but are not limited to:
· Massive amounts of the politically engineered stigma associated with the ammunition industry creating nearly insufferable reputational risk for all industry participants - especially investors, lenders, and manufacturers
· Almost a complete lack of access to traditional forms of capital for investment and financing activities
· Things such as purchasing advertising from google/FB/YouTube, traditional banking, taking PayPal payments and crowdsourcing are all completely closed to our industry
· Extremely antiquated manufacturing and supply chain systems as the industry is very small
· The "Politically Incorrect" nature that causes "Reputational Risk" dissuades top-level management from entering the industries
· Almost a complete lack of Just In Time suppliers of components and sub-components for ammunition
· Lack of supply in general
· Limited Research & Development taking place to advance ammunition component manufacturing
· Limited Research & Development taking place to advance ammunition component assembly
· Limited Research & Development taking place for assembly process and procedures of ammunition
· Many major suppliers of ammunition components are Governments
· Ammunition is a heavy, hazardous material not accepted by the USPS and is therefore not inexpensive to ship
· The world's largest retailer of ammunition has announced very significant restrictions on what they will continue to carry
These problems create a situation where we face a lot of uncertainty in terms of what raw materials to purchase, inventory, order, and when to have them on hand and in what quantities.
One of the major competitive advantages the United States still possesses is our world-leading system of partnership between post doctorial academia and industry which produces many of the major discoveries and inventions that quickly make their way to the consumer market. There is no such partnership along these lines for Ammunition related advancements baring some very specialized railgun-based research and some optical-based ballistic solving research not likely to impact "civilian" based ammunition production. To make matters worse, the toxic nature of projectile, propellant and explosives production have placed and continue to place massive amounts of pressure on the producers of bullets, gun powder and primers to the point where much of the commercially viable supplies come from outside the U.S. and are delivered on an infrequent basis. The only answers to these issues from what I can determine is to deploy modern communication and e-commerce related systems to fully understand demand in the effort to manage the supply constraints and therefore more closely match our supply to the demands of the end-users in an effort to keep end-user pricing as low as possible.
I'm talking about obtaining real-time information about the supply of the components, quickly sharing that information with end-users via various modern communication solutions and then using the same communication systems to take orders with payment for products matching the supplies that exist. This then allows PRIME and Sniper's Hide to obtain the components, having them assembled to the specifications provided by our customers and then get them onto FedEx/UPS trucks as fast as possible and on their way to our customer's homes.
The real lesson I learned in going through what just transpired with PRIME was to ALWAYS trust your CUSTOMERS! Based on the very humbling experience of making a bad business mistake of trusting a sole foreign supplier and then having our customer base literally save PRIME I have made an important decision as to how PRIME will move forward. PRIME will once again trust our customer base by turning to them in obtaining the final formulations and demand for the ammunition products enabled by the brass, powders, primers, and projectiles accessible via PRIME's relationships with our new U.S. based suppliers.
Before I had an ammunition company, I worked in the Internet infrastructure business. Requests For Comments are how the Internet was, is and will continue to be built. I think it’s time that an ammunition company deploys the same type of "open community" process in gathering information for the products it makes. In case your members are not familiar with RFCs here is a Wikipedia entry that explains them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments
PRIME has access to a wide variety of very high-quality brass products, we need to use a combination of Internet-based tools and the established trusted relationships we have with our combined customer bases to:
· Gather specific input on what to load in the brass
· Understand how much of it to make and when to make it
· Access lower-cost capital in the form of group purchases in order to procure the components and finance their assembly and fulfillment directly to the end-users via a method similar to the crowdsourcing solutions other industries enjoy that heretofore have been closed to the ammunition industry
We are asking for your partnership to assist PRIME in gathering information on what we should bring to the market. In return for the assistance from your members, PRIME will be offering group purchase based incentives to your membership that will literally enable PRIME to make what your members want in a way not seen before in the ammunition industry. The bottom line is this, many people ask for things and make suggestions but then they don't actually purchase it - and in an industry that has very large challenges in supplying components in a timely manner this leaves large amounts of products on the shelves unsold and literally forces many businesses out of existence. Therefore, we'll be turning this around and will:
· Ask customers what they want, how much of it they are willing to purchase, over what time period, and at what price
· Determine the availability of components necessary to make what customers want at the volumes and delivery time frames they desire
· Communicate the reality of the availability of the necessary components and take orders via group purchases in the form of something resembling crowdsourcing
· Assemble the crowdsourced order and deliver it in the agreed-upon timeframe
The ability to execute on this new system of determining demand, sourcing components, assembling and delivering will rely heavily on trust. The trust Sniper's Hide members have for your community and the trust PRIME has from its customer base are both very significant. It is this combined trust that will enable our new system to work. The key to maintaining this trust is transparency. PRIME is 100% on board and willing to provide a very high level of transparency to any group that makes a group purchase from Sniper's Hide/PRIME. The number one risk that must be avoided is that of a supplier not delivering a key component that holds up the entire process of assembling the ammunition components. Obviously, missing just one of any of the six components (cups, cartridge case, gun powder, primer, projectile, and packaging) can cause very significant delays that will destroy the trust imparted by the group making the purchase.
These risks can and will be successfully managed using the practices I sent you under a separate email. These risk management components are proprietary and that’s why I sent them to you separately.
Here are the calibers for which we currently, have access to brass:
· 22 Creedmoor
· 6x47
· 6 Creedmoor
· 6XC
· .243 Win
· 6.5 Creedmoor
· 6.5x47
· .260 Rem
· 28 Nosler
· 30-06
· 7mm-08
· .300 Win Mag
· .300 Norma Mag
· .338 Norma Mag
· .338 Lapua Mag
· .375 Cheytac
Brass we can obtain:
· 6GT
· .224 Valkyrie
· 6.5 PRC
· 6.5 Grendal
· .300 PRC
· .416
· 50 BMG
· Others???
We look forward to working with you in what we feel will be a new and promising way to gauge demand, finance, procure and deliver high-quality ammunition products to those who need them and are willing to pay a fair price and wait a short period of time for them. PRIME is enthusiastic to work with you in order to determine “next steps”.
As we all know, in order to have a "commercially viable" amount of all the calibers listed above on the shelf and ready for sale without the benefit of knowing the demand, the amount of investment necessary would be taxing on even the largest ammunition company. With the new system of "group purchases" that we are discussing, even a young ammunition company such as PRIME will be able to afford to offer all of these calibers while providing excellent customer service.
Best,
Jim O'Shaughnessy, CEO
PRIME
500 N. Rainbow Road
Suite 300
Las Vegas, NV 89107
702.637.4424 Ext. 762 - Office
www.primeammo.com