Dear Starline:

[Ed K]

They CLAIM that they still make .480 brass; they just haven't done a production run in about 2 years, due to low demand. I'll wager that at least 50% of the people buying their .475 Linebaugh brass are trimming it down to .480 length.

I've got some spare .257 Roberts brass laying around...

I believe we castboolits types think there is more demand than in reality there is at times. I actually fell into that trap when complaining they had 475L in stock and no 480R despite it being the slightly more popular cartridge (Remember: about the only 475L guns are custom plus a few BFRs, etc). Then I learned the last 475L production run was from before the pandemic.

For example everyone here wants or has a lubrisizer. Wouldn't it be interesting to know if for example this forum owns 30% of all that have ever been made? Now that may or may not be true but you have to think like that sometimes. Not saying that this forum possesses most of the Dillon progressive presses or purchases a large percentage of Nosler bullets but we may be buying more molds or 480 Rugers on a percentage basis than we realize.

[Jeff Michel]

I think Ed K has pretty well nailed it. Starline is in the business of selling as much brass as possible regardless of the caliber. There are roughly 57000 members on this forum. Yes, a group buy might be a possibility but how many will you find to agree to one or two calibers especially if you are talking several hundred thousand rounds to constitute a group buy. I think we have to face the fact that we pretty much are a boutique segment of the reloading fraternity and as such, we aren't going to swing a very big scythe when it comes to negotiating a transaction of this magnitude. I don't know anybody in my sphere of hunters or shooters and gun cranks in general that cast bullets. In the last forty years I've started four different people into casting their own bullets, pistol mostly and some muzzle loader projectiles and they said "wow" that's really cool. Within one year of setting up, I ended up buying all their stuff because they couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Guess it wasn't as cool as they thought. Sure, I'm like everyone else, I'd like to see them make a run of 44 and 45 basic brass, but just how many of the members would be interested or nationwide for that matter? Unless your feeding a 44-77 or a 45-110 I don't think you would be interested in a 1K group buy and I don't think the number that would be could fill a phone booth. I'm happy that Starline even exists though their production is somewhat.....inconsistent. I still regret Jamison's demise but you have to have the customers to survive. Brass is out there, you have to be patient and attentive and sometimes lucky.

[zymguy]

There are some that make more sense than others. If your making 06, 270 why not 25-06, 280 ,35w etc if they were looking for low hanging fruit i know there are lots of opportunities like that for all the common parent cartridges. Its easy for us to move the necks a little so as long as they sell a cartrige in the family well be ok , with inaccurate handstamps. looking at what they do around the 220 Russian they know this . I dont think they are dumb , so I have to guess why ? I know we are having trouble getting aluminum at work. We've got the machine time , labor , sales and cannot get the aluminum at the quantity we want. Could be many things, but i dont suspect that starline is dumb . I wonder what kind of volume starline does compared to laupa or norma?

[zymguy]

Brass is out there, you have to be patient and attentive and sometimes lucky.

And that can be part of the fun . But it is nice to commiserate with you fellas who get it, dont find many in the wild.

I believe we castboolits types think there is more demand than in reality there is at times. .

which supports your point

[Four-Sixty]

Years ago, when I asked about a custom head stamp, their minimum was 250,000 pieces.

I can tell you they make brass for other companies, as I got Hornady brass mixed in with an order from the Starline factory one time. They may be under contract and that is why you don't see a lot of low demand stuff.

I bet, even if they did do a special run, you'd have to pay up front and still wait 12-24 months.

You could call and get good answers faster from them than by using email in my experience.

[LeonardC]

In terms of the .480 Ruger, I think picking on Starline is missing the target. HORNADY helped develop the cartridge with Ruger. HORNADY should be supporting the Ruger cartridges it helped develop! In my mind HORNADY has dropped the ball.

Thank goodness Starline has stepped up as much as they have. I'm sure they have $ motive for being so nice.

All that said, I have no Hornady .480 Ruger brass...I don't think I've ever seen any. Most of mine is Starline. I did buy some FC .480 Ruger brass that Midway had listed as an "overstock". Other than having FC instead of *-* it looks exactly the same.

Edit: Using Four-Sixty's quantity for a min. brass run and the recent listed cost of a piece of .32 WS brass $0.54 each; we end up with a price of a custom order of: 250,000 x $0.54 = $135,000 I might be a few cents off. That's a bit more than I can front.

[gnappi]

Starline has been a supporter of owners of obsolete and hard to find brass since forever. I'd like to see them make brass made for guns that are still available as opposed to guns that are long out of production and / or obsolete but they have a business model that's been keeping them going so who am I to complain?

So, be patient, maybe nudge their Email in box, check their site often and when they finally make your caliber JUMP ON IT NOW because hoarders, commercial reloaders, and opportunist brass investors won't hesitate!

[35 Rem]

Starline has been a supporter of owners of obsolete and hard to find brass since forever. I'd like to see them make brass made for guns that are still available as opposed to guns that are long out of production and / or obsolete but they have a business model that's been keeping them going so who am I to complain?

So, be patient, maybe nudge their Email in box, check their site often and when they finally make your caliber JUMP ON IT NOW because hoarders, commercial reloaders, and opportunist brass investors won't hesitate!

Your last comment is a significant contributor to the current shortages I think. We have fellow shooters who see the opportunity to buy up as much rare brass as they can get for resale. They buy a lot of 1,000 from Starline then offer up 10 lots of 100 on Gunbroker at double or more price.

The best way to fight this is to keep enough on hand during the times when brass is plentiful so that you can endure these long shortages. That will leave these characters without any customers. Let them choke on the 1,000 pieces of brass they don't own a gun for.

[gnappi]

Your last comment is a significant contributor to the current shortages I think. We have fellow shooters who see the opportunity to buy up as much rare brass as they can get for resale. They buy a lot of 1,000 from Starline then offer up 10 lots of 100 on Gunbroker at double or more price.

The best way to fight this is to keep enough on hand during the times when brass is plentiful so that you can endure these long shortages. That will leave these characters without any customers. Let them choke on the 1,000 pieces of brass they don't own a gun for.

Posts like yours need a like button!!!

[Jeff Michel]

You can't suggest not to buy brass and encouraging hoarding in the same breath. I think the number of people reselling brass is relatively small considering the current market and the reloaders I know won't cough up the asking price for some people are asking. Another thing to consider is carrying capacity, there's only so much household money that can be spared to buy items not necessary to sustaining life that would be brass in this case, not food, gasoline, mortgage, etc. Yes, nice to have a bunch of extra brass, but at the end of the day, it just sits there, doing nothing. Hard to justify the expenditure where there's other bills coming through the door. Brass sales (overpriced) aren't trapping as many people as they were a couple years ago so, yes these folks will eventually have to lower their prices or as it was pointed out, be stuck with them. From what I've been able to gather, Starline's raw material issues and prior commitments are just very close to being satisfied and they are starting to produce some of the slow moving, low volume calibers. Case in point, i just received a BO of 32-20 and was just notified they are doing a run of 44-40 so there's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, everything is uncertain if the current administration is re elected, unfortunately I think panic buying will once again be the rule of the day.

[35 Rem]

You can't suggest not to buy brass and encouraging hoarding in the same breath. I think the number of people reselling brass is relatively small considering the current market and the reloaders I know won't cough up the asking price for some people are asking. Another thing to consider is carrying capacity, there's only so much household money that can be spared to buy items not necessary to sustaining life that would be brass in this case, not food, gasoline, mortgage, etc. Yes, nice to have a bunch of extra brass, but at the end of the day, it just sits there, doing nothing. Hard to justify the expenditure where there's other bills coming through the door. Brass sales (overpriced) aren't trapping as many people as they were a couple years ago so, yes these folks will eventually have to lower their prices or as it was pointed out, be stuck with them. From what I've been able to gather, Starline's raw material issues and prior commitments are just very close to being satisfied and they are starting to produce some of the slow moving, low volume calibers. Case in point, i just received a BO of 32-20 and was just notified they are doing a run of 44-40 so there's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, everything is uncertain if the current administration is re elected, unfortunately I think panic buying will once again be the rule of the day.

There is no contradiction to buying up components when supply is plentiful and prices are low so that you don't have to deal with low supply and high prices later on. The word "Hoarding" gets twisted all the time. Going to a Walmart and buying up all the ammo on the shelf during a shortage is hoarding and selfish. Building up a supply of 10,000 rounds of 22LR over several years during times when gun shop shelves are full and prices are low is NOT hoarding. It's just being smart because we know for a fact that the shortages are coming. Unfortunately, guns are subject to all sorts of political influences and typically when a democrat gets in power you can count on lots of antigun hysteria and sky-high prices and low availability for 4 to 8 or more years. If you are smart you will keep enough of what you need on hand at all times to weather these bad times out. I've bought very little since bidet got into office, yet I have enough ammo components on hand that I could easily go through another bidet term without buying anything. If what I've done is "Hoarding" then we all should hoard because I'm adding nothing to the current shortages.

[akrifleman]

They CLAIM that they still make .480 brass; they just haven't done a production run in about 2 years, due to low demand. I'll wager that at least 50% of the people buying their .475 Linebaugh brass are trimming it down to .480 length.

I've got some spare .257 Roberts brass laying around...

??? I've had a Linebaugh order for over a year. Until they called me last week, it was unavailable. So, I'm not sure who was buying Linebaugh brass to trim or otherwise... as it hasn't been available either.

[John in WYO]

The heck with all of that odd-ball stuff. I just want some 44-40 brass.

Me, too.

I don’t play the game, but is Cowboy Action Shooting a dead Sport?

I’m looking for a 36” Bianchi B7 .44/.45 cartridge belt, but I can’t find one for sale.

Safariland no longer makes them under their Bianchi line.

[gnappi]

??? I've had a Linebaugh order for over a year. Until they called me last week, it was unavailable. So, I'm not sure who was buying Linebaugh brass to trim or otherwise... as it hasn't been available either.

To feed my .480 I bought a couple of hundred .475's from a "hoarder" at regular Starline prices and I chopped them and several I know of on other forums have also using a harbor freight mini chop saw.

[Bigslug]

IMO you have to make it easy for Starline. Random requests are likely ignored. The really odd ball requests are "shop humor".

Start with a group buy folr something that has decent volume...like .22 Hornet? Contact Starline and get a quote for 10k cases and 25k cases. They will respond to that.

Poll the forum and see if there is enough interest. Like we used to do with mold buys.

Manufacturing plants do not make money on inventory, and they have a minimum run size to be profitable.

A couple of hundred cases for your gun is important to you but not to Starline. You have to make it important to them. "Banked" orders have a chance of success.

Those 20 people who bought guns chambered for the .30SC are going to need to be patient to see if it gains any traction, and the five of those who reload should plan and prepare for it to end up as the next stillborn .45 GAP.

Starline will crank out limited batches of "dinosaur" rounds because they know the 100+ year old original guns or their replicas are out there in numbers to drive a predictable demand; OR if it can be wildcatted into other things (7x57), or shares the diameter and rim of other things they're making (.45-70 or the .32 revolver rounds). The .30SC has had only two years in which it has generated very little stir - and most of that negative questioning of the need for its existence in light of the sea of 9mm's it's trying to float on. The reality is the .32 family struggles for acceptance, and that's just with a group of revolver rounds that share the same rim for which the length and headstamp of the brass can be changed. The .30SC with it's unique rim is likely to be the black sheep of that family singing "All By Myself".

Not trying to strafe your Piper Cub while it's still on the runway, but that's a bit of the battle you're facing.

Don makes a very good point - joining forces with whoever else is serious and offering Starline to buy the entirety of whatever their minimum run number is and taking the risk as the seller of any surplus you don't need might be the necessary poke to get them interested. At that point, they'd make yours and probably a bit of an over-run as a low-risk attempt to sell a few on their own. Otherwise spooling up to produce the stuff probably makes little economic sense for them at present. Be prepared for that venture to sting. On an initial run, you'll probably be sucking up the cost of whatever tooling they'd need to add to make it. The good news at that point, you'd have taken one for the .30SC team, and the tooling to make more would then exist. It may end up in a dusty warehouse in a box next to the Ark of the Covenant, but it would exist.

[Thor's Daddy]

Dear Starline,

Thank you for the runs of 480 Ruger, 475 Linebaugh and 500 Smith & Wesson that you recently produced. Now we can all utilize our .475-caliber guns and our .500-caliber guns as well. Thousands of sidearms, once silent, now roar with delight. For this I offer my humble note of gratitude.

most sincerely,
Thor's Daddy