Trail Gun Question

things we need to build them we already have. Unless you wanted a special caliber like the 8.9 Kropochnik where I have to order a special reamer we are pretty much OK. I have a new Trail Hawk (which is the Trail Gun built on the Ruger Redhawk) that I am finishing right now that we will have on here this afternoon but again all the parts needed we have in stock.

The shortages are linked to our distributors. One of our distributors that we get Ruger parts from (actually 2 of our distributors) are always "out of stock" on probably 90% of the items we order. Even things like polishing compound, a very common thing, but they are always out of stock. Flat bar stock metal that we use for our Flattop Tools is normally out of stock. Round bar stock steel that we build our cylinders from is 50% of the time out of stock.

Look at the primer situation and the powder. Both extremely hard to get. One of our distributors recently called to let us know they had plenty of primers. The problem is my cost at wholesale was around $125 a brick. That is plus the Haz Mat charges and shipping charges. This means we have $150 or more per brick and we have to sell it at a scalping rate, and I won't do that. I would rather not have any at all than rape the customer on the charges. From what I hear there are several large container ships off the coast of southern California that are full of gun powder from Australia (most of our gun powder is coming from Australia these days) but the yoyos in charge are stalling on letting them unload their cargo. Florida's great governor has let the ships know to swing around to northern Florida and he will see that they are unloaded that day. So a lot of these shortages are man made and made by people that are doing their best to collapse our economy and blame it on the conservatives.

To get back to your initial question, go ahead and get your order in. I will find the parts necessary to get it done. About 18 months ago we were around 2 years behind due to these shortages. I normally have 6 machinists in my 2 machine shops but 2 of them decided they didn't want to work so they walked off and quit.

Since then we have hired 2 new guys and we are doing a lot better and are getting more guns finished and out the door. Robert is now my main man and there are very few things that he can't do so that helps a lot. Plus we managed to scrounge the parts up for many of these guns along with my guys working extra hours and now we are less than a year behind. A few of the orders are way behind but that is due to some of these unusual situations or special features the customer wants. Some shortages, like reamers for instance are simple shortages but still hold us up. Our reamer people are quoting me 5 to 6 months for a simple reamer. My shipments of Mongolian stag are held up in U.S. customs. Instead of them stamping the big boxes and sending them on thru they have to open everything and make sure we are not smuggling Asian women in the boxes.

So the shortages continue. We stock up when we can and we, in most situations, can get your gun finished in months rather than years. The main thing is we are back to taking orders so if you had held up sending your order in due to all the shortages, go ahead and get it in and I will get it in the line up.