madang55 wrote:Given the last post here was Dec22...So, I've trawled the websites, including ADI. Looks like they've got to the stage of "honestly, we can't tell you". Many of the slower Rifle powders look to be available, but the most sought after powders, pistol and small rifle, are obviously still lagging with every possible furphy put out there. Oh well, back to my rafters.
I haven't seen many furphies regarding the problem with their fast powders, they've admitted they screwed up their decision to replace the line with a new line that doesn't work. They can't simply switch back to the old line that did work because it doesn't exist anymore. They are still pumping out as much of the slower powders as they can, including limited runs of AR2205 and AR2207, which are the fastest they can currently produce, and at reasonable prices still.
The issue is what it will cost them to either try to fix the line so it does work, or replace it again with a new line. Both are expensive decisions that are likely decided by the market and/or their current production pace. Do they hire more staff to address the problem or do they redirect current assets into fixing the issue and perhaps reduce their current output to do that? They just survived a massive loss due to a major mistake with this, are they willing to risk another mistake so soon? Maybe they've decided that decision can't be made until they have recouped the losses of the first mistake? I'd like to think the government might step in with a large contract to supply all the ADF/Police pistol ammo for the next ten years, perhaps that might assist their decision making and help the local economy as well, but would probably upset the US suppliers, and we can't have that.
What it perhaps has done is artificially inflated the prices people are willing to pay for the faster powders, so maybe if they were to market these powders at $200/kg for example then they might go ahead sooner than if they were marketing at the same prices as the rifle powders.
I would be interested to know, of the people that were onboard with the first imports of Lovex, when no pricing had been tabled, how many of them opted out when the prices were finally known once it had landed here - from memory $420-odd per kilo (plus you had to buy a few hundred dollars worth of bullets to qualify to purchase powder) - after paying around $120/kg for their powders before that. There was no shortage of customers for these powders at that price because there was a very limited supply.
There is still one source of cheapish but readily-available fast powders, inside bulk field 12ga. loads. I haven't bought 12ga. since I started loading them myself but a quick Google puts them around the $120-$130 mark currently. Charges vary but are generally around the 20-22gn in my experience, so a case gets you about 5000-5500gn of powder or about a third of a kilo, and enough for perhaps 1200rds of pistol ammo.