Gas check prices a rip-off??

[MTWeatherman]

I think so! I don't see how current prices can be justified.

Midway just raised the price of their Hornady.44 checks to nearly $30 (although they are currently on sale)...Midsouth to over $24...another $5 per K increase over last year. Unless something changes, it will jump again. The "group buy" section had a buy on gator gas checks and in it I noted that Felix said this was the last time at that price...gilding sheet metal costs had doubled.

IMO the currently costly prices of Hornady and Lyman checks are a direct result of a near monopoly at two levels....the gilding metal manufacturer (maybe Hornady) and Hornady on the gas checks. I don't see how it can be otherwise. If Larry Blackmon, with limited production, can make Gators for only 1/2 of the cost of Hornady and buy his own gilding metal, it would appear that between Hornady and Midway there must be at least a 100% markup. My understanding is that Hornady also makes Lyman checks. If so, Hornady controls the price of those also.

We hear the price of gilding metal has doubled...to justify the rapid rise in gas check costs costs. Gilding metal is 95% copper and 5% zinc. Historical average price of copper is $1.31 a pound but is currently selling for about $2. Zinc is 95 cents a pound. A pound of gilding metal yields about 1 k of .44 gaschecks, so metal costs alone couldn't justify an increase of even 69 cents. Why would production costs increase so much in a single year that gilding metal doubles?

Who manufactures the guilding metal? Bullet makers use it, but do they alloy it themselves or purchase it elsewhere? Is there no competition to hold the price down? Anyone know the answer? One of the definitions of gilding is "to cover with a layer of gold"...seems the metal is appropriately named...maybe they've started doing that.

There just is not enough competition. It is a near monopoly for one or two manufacturers. If this trend continues it certainly seems to me to offer an opportunity for someone like Harry Blackmon...if he can just find a better source for the sheet gilding metal. Isn't there enough competition for other manufacturers to provide it at better cost? Granted, gas checks are a limited market, but that group buy from this board alone ran to a million gas checks. Seems to me somebody, with the expertise, should be able to go into business full time to produce gas checks, eliminate the middle man, significantly undercut Hornady at these prices, and make a good living at it.

[felix]

A rip off? Yes, indeed. You have to consider all the costs, though, not just the metal. Larry and I had a conversation about using a deep draw aluminum type of check, some metal that can be made into a check with current dies and machinery, and won't lead barrels. Tin can aluminum is the cheapest grade of aluminum there is, according to my brothers who both work for Noranda Aluminum in New Madrid MO. Tin can aluminum checks will streak (lead up) greatly when slid against barrel steel. I have not, as of yet, talked to them to see if their metal chemist on staff can come up with a formulation that will work for our application. ... felix

[MTWeatherman]

Felix:
I totally agree...its not just metal costs but production costs. However, metal costs are what are being held up as the reason for the price increase. It doesn't hold water when there isn't more than $2 worth of actual metal in 1k of those .44 gaschecks. I grant you that alloying the metal and turning it into a sheet would add cost...but thats tooling and labor. The tooling likely already existed and I doubt that labor costs doubled overnight.

So, if the gilding metal rise is hard to justify, would the rise in gas check costs be related to production and transportation costs for the checks themselves? Do they go up 25 to 30% a year for Hornady when they've already invested in all the tooling? Are those workers getting a 25% raise each year? Granted, Midsouth and Midway take a cut also, but for most business that is a fixed markup...gascheck prices are out of line with most other increases.

Seems the best explanation is greed...on the part of the gilding metal manufacturer (whoever that is) and Hornady. They can get away with it because they have no competition.

Interesting about the aluminum cans...that puts the use of the Freechec tool for manufacturing into question. I for one, wish Larry the best in his search for a substitute and am glad to hear that you and he are looking at a substitute for the gilding metal.

Who manufactures the gilding metal used for gas checks? Anyone know?

[felix]

Probably, and most likely, Olin. ... felix

[stocker]

Never having seen a Gator check I have to ask: are you buying direct from the manufacturer
when you buy them? As opposed to buying through retailers who acquire their Hornady or Lyman checks via whole sale distributors who are the ones who buy direct from Hornady. In other words there may be several layers of sale each taking a bite which adds to the final cost.

Other than that the price of copper has risen significantly enough to cause the reopening of mines in my immediate area that closed 10 or 12 years ago due to depressed prices.

[Blackwater]

I had an engineer buddy who used to work in the copper mines in Arizona, and the price of copper tends to go up every time we get into a shooting scrape overseas. We're apparently sending a lot of lead & copper downrange, and probably replentishing the depleted stores that were never resupplied under Klinton. Additionally, it's just getting more expensive for ALL businesses to operate, for all sorts of reasons, ambulance chasing lawyers and insurance companies' feet'a clay being large factors, among many. Then there's health care, but I won't open that can of worms here.

I'm not defending the gas check companies here, but I do doubt very seriously that it's Hornady's "greed." They're the LAST in a chain of factors that affect prices, but of course it's the providers who are always the first to be blamed, usually.

Mostly, I think there's plenty of blame to go around for the state of our nation's economy, and the real culprits are largely the last to be the focus of our ire. In fact, in reality and in the final analysis, I think ol' Pogo's comment from many years ago applies, in the end, in any nation like ours. He said, "We is met the enemy and he is us!" A darn good case can be made for that, at least. Jefferson, I believe, warned us a LONG time ago that when people learned they could simply vote themselves "benefits" from the big government's larder, we'd start to crumble, and IMO, that's the place where the greatest "blame," if you want to call it that, must inevitably be placed in the end. Pogo got it right.

[Ken O]

I think the price is crazy also. Look at a primer, a lot more processes and material (anvil, cup, etc), how can a GC cost more than a primer?

[versifier]

It can't cost more to make gas check than primers, and I'm sure it doesn't. However, millions more primers are made by several different manufacturers, some are imported, and they are sold in a fairly competitive market. Gas check comsumers are the victims of a monopoly. Not that Blackwater doesn't make a good point, he does. But we boolit casters are still getting screwed any way that you look at it, and arguments about the cost of raw materials (over the brand of vaseline they choose to use), can't convince my a*****e otherwise. Rape is rape.
The hopeful news is that one of us is at work on an affordable solution to the problem as we write, so let us be patient for a few months and see what he comes up with. I think I can put up with a little aluminum streaking from a home made soda can gas check, which if I have understood correctly only becomes a problem at very high velocities.

[JohnH]

Sounds like all the more reason to have a plain base boolit that works.

[imashooter2]

If you believe the price is artifically high, invest in the machinery and material, undercut the market leader and make a profit.

[StarMetal]

versifier,

Unless you use soda cans to make freechecks using them for gaschecks is a waste of time. You just can't use one thickness. If you're going to make gaschecks use a correct thickness material. That's what I do. They can go ahead and raise their gascheck prices because I screw them making my own.

Joe

[felix]

Joe, I feel the same way about cars as you do about gas checks! I like to get the largest engine possible that will fit in the cradle, and run it with cam durations approaching 196-198, and with heads/pistons to run with 86 octane gas. I hate paying for gas that can't be had to make a performance engine run. As you know, you have to MAKE your own gas formulation to get around the octane problem at the pump, at least you do in this part of the country. It ain't what it used to be. It ain't what it says on the pump. ... felix

[StarMetal]

Felix,

I have a good German friend in Frankfurt , Germany that is a bigger chevy motor head then me. He had an early Z28 Carmara that he has a hopped up 350 in and his delight is dusting off German made cars on the Autobann. Anyways althought their gasoline is alot more expensive then ours, I think last week he told me a liter was $1.68, that you can buy about 100 octane at the pump. Thus he's building another high performance 350 with 12 to 1 compression pistons. As you know that requires high octane. I guess they don't make it here in the states because there's not a high demand for it, dunno. The highest octane I've seen at the pump is Sunoco at 94. Most others are 93.

Joe

[Bret4207]

FWIW-Zinc Corporation of America got bought out by a Candian Co a couple years ago and is reopening a BIG mine down the road from, me. Good news for the several hundered workers. Not sure it'll help drive the cost of GC down.

As for the price itself- I think someone pointed out we're a niche market. How many GC sell each year? Maybe .001 percent of the number of primers and thats being optomistic. We're a little speck of the larger shooting world and special production runs drive prices up. I might buy a box of GC and they last 1-5 years or more. Not a big turn over overall. Add in increased raw material costs and prices will go up. As I said before, I would bet money that Lyman, for instance, makes more off sunglasses and recoil pads than reloading gear and moulds. So we pay more. Don't forget to add in inflation from higher energy cost, shipping, etc.

Everything in the economy is tied together. The guys making GC's have kids who want $130.00 sneakers and $50.00 jeans and $25.00 tee-shirts just like the lawyers kids wear. His wife wants the new $1500.00 washing machine, not the $300.00 cheapie. He wants the Freedom Arms revolver or Dakota rife or the full race AR platform that'll set him back $12-2000.00, not the $139.00 Handi-rifle. We're paying more for gas, taxes and happily buying $45,000.00 PICKUP TRUCKS that get 11mpg. Meanwhile Congress refuses to act on Social Security reform but they rake in the pork for the Senator Foghorn Leadbottom Memorial Hoosiewhatsit. There hasn't been a new refinery built in the US in something like 20 years, much less a power dam or a (GASP!) Nuke Plant. And your power bill to make GC's goes up? Huh. Billions of btu's worth of coal goes unused, oil and gas explorarion off our coasts is at a standstill due to enviromental regs/hysteria, bird lovers complain about wind towers, you can't use solar collectors in the desert because it'll cool the area, and Teddy Kennedy doesn't want wave and tidal generators off Martha's Vineyard. Meanwhile Unions have emasculated major Corps to the point of either leaving or shutting down, healthcare continues it's skyrocketing costs while the lawyers get richer, Jack Bauer is becoming more and more real to the vast number of Americans and no one knows the new Fed Chairmans name. Welcome to Modern American Life 101.

[45 2.1]

Welcome to Modern American Life 101.

Sounds like a Sociology class I had once, only your description is much better. You signing up to teach it?????

[44man]

I don't know where you get this but I checked the new Midsouth catalog I got today and my gaschecks are $19.73 and looking in last years catalog they are the same price.

[Ed Barrett]

I can see a big opening in the free market stert making gas checks cheaper and get "rich" not quite Bill Gates rich but you could make some money. The other thing you could do is set up a service to mill the gas check off moulds (molds) since everyone won't be able to afford gas checks anymore and all the gas check type molds will be bought on ebay-at-the-moon for $5.00 or less.

[MTWeatherman]

I don't know where you get this but I checked the new Midsouth catalog I got today and my gaschecks are $19.73 and looking in last years catalog they are the same price.

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.co...?sku=000037130

[nighthunter]

In Pennsylvania there is presently an Operation Clean Sweep in motion to remove all incumbents from office. Politicians have ruined this country. The vast majority of politicians are lawyers. Lawyers are not known to do anything that there isn't something in it for them. I say toss them all out and send a message to the future that we have had enough of their crapola. Legal fees are added into every single thing you spend money for, from a hair cut to your vehicle that you drive to McDonalds to get a cup of "warm" coffee. If there is a buck involved there is a lawyer involved. Politics were not meant to be a career. Politics were meant to be a service to your fellow citizens. The career politicians do not serve their constituants. They merley make promises to get a vote. After they are in office they serve no one but themselves. We pay the bill for their greed and we mortage our childrens future.
You will never see the Second Amendment to our Constitution argued before the Supreme Court. The Second Amendment will be withheld when the Federalist Papers are introduced as evidence as to the the thoughts and feelings of our founding fathers when the Constitution was written. The Second Amendtment will be withheld and we will then find out that three quarters of what our government does is illegal.
We have become a nation of graft and greed. I believe that my fellow members here are of the minority and that they are Americans by heart . Protect your childrens future by tossing out an incumbment.

[MTWeatherman]

Blackwater and Tpr. Bret:
I'm won't argue with a thing either of you said as it applies to the situation in general here in the U.S. I agree with the assessment. However, I still think plain old profit taking by a monopoly remains the best explanation for the rapid rise in gas check prices.

If the price rises are the result of increased costs due to military depletion of supplies, it should affect bullets more than gas checks. If the cost is related to guilding metal costs, production costs, labor costs, transportion costs, etc. bullets should increase more. There is more of each in bullets.

I got the 2006 Midway catalog a few days ago. I had the old one on hand also so thought I'd see if the price of Hornady bullets had gone up like gas checks during the past year. So, I checked for common bullets in each of three calibers...30, 35, and 44 and compared them to the costs of gas checks. Here's the result:

Hornady Bullet Cost 2005 Cost 2006
.308 180 gr. SPP 14.59 13.99
.358 200 gr. SPP 18.69 17.49
.429 265 gr. FP 19.39 19.49

In general, not much change in the price of bullets. In the listed examples, the average price actually decreased. In general, though...about the same as last year.

Hornady Gas Check Cost 2005 Cost 2006
30 Caliber 17.99 23.99
35 Caliber 16.59 21.49
44 Caliber 20.99 29.49

Thats a 30-40% increase in a single year. Since the 2006 Midsouth catalog was listing checks at 19.73, theirs jumped by less but still did a rapid increase to 24.13.

Why did bullets stay the same but gas checks jump in price?

Well, who manufactures bullets? Winchester, Remington, Hornady, Sierra, Speer, Nosler, Magtech, Barnes...+ many more domestic and foreign manufactures. Now thats good old American competition.

Who manufactures gas checks? Hornady under the Hornady and Lyman brand names...a monopoly which basically can charge what it wants and still sell its product...prices can go up until any further price increase results in such a loss of sales that profits actually decline. Think there might be a connection?

It could be I'm giving Hornady a bum rap. It's possible that the gilding supplier (Felix is guessing its Olin) has not significantly increased prices on guilding metal for bullets...but has skyrocketed their price on sheet guilding metal for checks. Same result...just a different monopoly. Maybe its both.

Interesting thing though. Lyman used to be the most expensive gas checks. However, their price is still about the same as last year which puts them on a par or lower than Hornady. If Hornady does manufacture Lyman checks, why would that be? Maybe more than greed is involved here. Maybe they're trying to move everyone over to Lyman so they can drop the Hornady name and do all the marketing under Lyman.

You nailed it, Bret, when you said we are a niche market which means limited demand so few suppliers. That can easily lead to a monopoly and it has. However, get the price high enough and other manufacturers may take notice. That's what we can hope for and I hope that people like Larry Blackmon have taken a real interest as a result.