Group buying?

[Roger B]

I wonder if we could get a price break on locks/ barrels if we bought multiple units as groups like we do powder? That is if the parts were available? Might not work or be worth the trouble. Just thinking, which is shaky ground for me.
Roger B.

[Dphariss]

Our guild has done group buy of parts and locks in the past. But you need to buy  10 or more to get a wholesale or near wholesale price. IIRC.

[Reegee/Flint]

I think if 10 or more people wanted the same lock or other item it would work. Would need to make a list of participants and then put the item out for bids.
Two cents worth....

[David Rase]

Group buys work best if everyone is in near proximity.  If not, logistics gets to be a problem for the lucky guy receiving the order.  Small flat rate box is over $9.00 now plus the time to label and get them to the post office.  Also, if your order contains a lock not in stock you may end up waiting several months for that style of lock to fit into the builders schedule.  If you have the dealer ship the group of locks that are  in stock then you get the other one later you pay for shipping again.
David

[T*O*F]

It used to be, at least with Dunlap and L&R, that if you bought 3 or more you got a price break.  Don't know if that is still true.

[A.Merrill]

   To get a deal you also need  a tax E number and they are not cheap. Then finding barrels in quantity could be a problem. Tip Curtis told me once he could get Green Mountain barrels at anytime, but he bought 100 barrels at a time.   Al

[Bob Roller]

I wonder if we could get a price break on locks/ barrels if we bought multiple units as groups like we do powder? That is if the parts were available? Might not work or be worth the trouble. Just thinking, which is shaky ground for me.
Roger B.

  As a former "supplier" of uncommon bench crafted items I can think of no real reason to take a cut in pay or pay anyone to buy what I made and there is no good reason for anyone else to either.
Bob Roller

[Dwshotwell]

Bulk purchases are really only an incentive for a supplier if they have inventory sitting around, trouble/cost finding their next customer, or if the bulk orders are big enough that they in turn can get a break on raw materials.

Given the current situation and price pressures, the problem is not a shortage of demand for barrels and locks etc. Lock and barrel makers aren’t having to look too hard for their next sale (at least not yet) and from anecdotal evidence based on wait times etc. they are cranking out products and selling them as quickly as they can. They have no incentive to lower their price unless it also lowers their cost, and I doubt ordering 10 items as a group means that they can order their raw steel for less and pass on the savings.

The whole inflation situation posses a more acute problem for a niche hobby market like this than it does for other broader parts of the economy. What we really need to do is find a way for these specialty makers to remain profitable and keep doing what they are doing until some of the inflationary pressure eases or becomes normalized as wages and other inputs rise as well.

[bob in the woods]

I'm a luthier. A self employed one guy shop. Many if not most of the suppliers of locks, barrels and mounts etc are one person operations or if more than one, can best be described as cottage industries.  IMO they deserve a fair price for what they do. We've lost more than one over the years for one reason or another and I miss them. There are a lot easier ways to make a living.

[flinter49]

I make gunstocks. Not so much muzzleloaders but the other guns. So far finding work isn't my problem. It's overhead. A 3/4" left hand carbide bit is $75.00 now when and if you can find them. Walnut has more than tripled in price.
My machine is is a 2 station so I can give a small discount if the order is for 2, 4, 6, ect; for the same thing. On the other hand I do not get any discount for buying a large number of cutting bits, there's no price break at all on walnut, and electricity just went up. Wish there was some good solution but I know muzzleloader suppliers are in the same trick I'm in. They have a back load of work, I once waited 4 years for a Rayl barrel for example, but current economic conditions are putting us all in a trick.

[Bob Roller]

In 2019 lock making became "Labor Intensive" and those are bad words to me.Over the years (decades) I did other jobs in my shop,mostly pertaining to cats and worked in othe shops like the one that catered to the coal industry here in WVa and off and on helped a friend who repaired EUROPEAN cars,no Asian cars at all.Also a 13 month job in a shop that made optics and had Government contracts for prisms and I made most of the tooling for it and all the prisms produced on the start up passed inspection.
   Getting back to mux=zzle loaders and the parts needed to make them,I have noticed that the contributors on THIS forum seem to be a more affluent gtoup than others I have dealt with in the past.Those folks convinced me that sending most of the locks and triggers to Europe was a wise idea.No moaning and groaning about $5.
I know we have lost a lot of skilled men like Bill Large but that was simply aging out and we all will sooner or later.I don't worry about it the inevitable.
Bob Roller

[ScottNE]

I wonder if we could get a price break on locks/ barrels if we bought multiple units as groups like we do powder? That is if the parts were available? Might not work or be worth the trouble. Just thinking, which is shaky ground for me.
Roger B.

I paid, iirc, $265 for a beautiful, .54 48” barrel from R.A. Hoyt last year. He’s a one man operation, and the fact that I can get such a barrel (even counting suppliers like Rice, there’s only a handful of places to source such an item from) for the price of an off-road truck tire…I’m satisfied. If he were to charge $500 for a barrel like that, I wouldn’t consider it unreasonable.

I can see the value of having enough people looking for a specific lock or barrel in that it might allow the maker to put up a production run that otherwise might not have happened for a while — we get our parts sooner, maker gets paid, fair all around. As far chiseling on the price, like I said, I feel like we already do quite well on prices and the makers aren’t racking huge profits margins at all. I’m happy to pay the price advertised without haggling.

[Bob Roller]

The fact that a barrel or lock or trigger or even powder for a muzzle loader today is odd.
Having people who revive old and long forgotten techniques has to be worth something.
Now we have traditional muzzle loaders and others that are called by that name because
there is no other way to load them.There are very few shops today that can be considered as
mass producers in the way we think of cars and trucks.Because of other interests I don't think I ever made 75
locks in any one year and didn't have to.I am glad there are those who want to roll the clock back
when it comes to gus and those who supply good,usable parts should not be asked to work at a
substandard wage.
Bob Roller