Proper Cartridges

[chippy]

Sure, if it's legit. IMO, it's not good business practice advertising on a public forum that you can write off the VAT if you're self employed. You could apply the same logic to any VATable purchase if you wanted.  Joe the plumber is going to struggle the explain to HMRC why he bought 10,000 shotgun cartridges to entertain clients. I run a limited company and could probably get away with it but there's no way I would try it. I'd rather pay a for a decent shell at a good price including VAT.

There isn't an audit threshold, anyone can be audited.

You need a farm. Its amazing how many you need for pest control. And its surprising just how good 8 shot clay cartridges are for the job.

 

[Jim Wheeler]

I have followed this thread with interest, like everyone else, and i used to do home reloading, but having looked into reloads/New carts` in the UK, George is not far off with his costing. for his part, he buys in all components,  instead of `in-house` manufacture. all manufacturers use other companies for something, some make shot, or wads, may make shot, in house,but primer`s and propellants are too risky/specialized to make. Also, consider that a lot of manufacturers make a million carts a week , and can bargain down suppliers, plus George is not doing national advertising in magazines, or sponsoring various shooter`s with cheaper/free cart`s.  if he tried to do that, he would have a problem.

 

[525kev]

I'll volunteer for sponsership and might even wear the T shirt if it gets me some of them Proper Carts for nowt !

 

[Aris]

ok i am looking at lead again at the month end and will try to be competitive  but you are getting the best of gear  i have got the same cip proof test equipment as the birmingham proof house by sabre ballistics and you want to see the crap thats out there   do you ever get to the durham area     cheers  george

George, do some videos for us to see and put them on YouTube  - and when is your famous website being updated?  You used to have a video showing your machines working.

 

[kingo15]

I recently got some 28grams 8's of George for clays and have shot about 500 of them so far. Just as good as my superb 8's. A little less thumpy I think. But kill wise just as good. And at £30 per thousand cheaper. The only thing I have noticed is they are dirty but that's just an observation when looking down my barrells. But after shooting with a cheddite shooter yesterday they are no different to them. 

 

[Salopian]

I think this thread is a complete waste of time !

Hamster you are flogging a dead horse or more correctly a thick Geordie.

Proper Cartridges were available at North Wales Shooting School years ago , but George screwed it up.

He bleats on about running his machines efficiently, but fails to see the point that there are thousands more people shooting clays than there are Game or Pigeon Shooters .

Do the sums George , many , many premier grounds use 15,000+ cartridges a day , some are doing it 3-5 days a week every week , then you have charity and corporate events , before you even get to the weekend warrior many of whom are shooting 200 a day.

Most of us do not give a fig about economy powders, primers or wads , we just want a decent shell that performs reliably but not being led by the nose to the fatcats feeding trough to top up their lifestyle .All the reasons for increasing cartridge prices have just disappeared , oil per barrel price is down ( cheaper plastic and transport fuel) Lead price is down , £ is strenghtening ,worker's salaries have not increased substantially for years , so why the outrageous price increase of cartridges? 

An economy cartridge could make a manufacturer very popular.

 

[Westward]

There's a massive market out there for economy clay shells, Steve Nutbeam bought a batch of 100K Superfasts last year to beat the price rise and sold out within weeks.

George, you've has been gifted a fantastic business opportunity; an entrepreneur's wet dream, yet you seem to be quite happy keeping Proper Cartridges as a cottage industry supply a few handfuls of game shells here and there because the margins are better.

I'm lost for words. :???:

 

[propercartridges]

I think this thread is a complete waste of time !

Hamster you are flogging a dead horse or more correctly a thick Geordie.

Proper Cartridges were available at North Wales Shooting School years ago , but George screwed it up.

He bleats on about running his machines efficiently, but fails to see the point that there are thousands more people shooting clays than there are Game or Pigeon Shooters .

Do the sums George , many , many premier grounds use 15,000+ cartridges a day , some are doing it 3-5 days a week every week , then you have charity and corporate events , before you even get to the weekend warrior many of whom are shooting 200 a day.

Most of us do not give a fig about economy powders, primers or wads , we just want a decent shell that performs reliably but not being led by the nose to the fatcats feeding trough to top up their lifestyle .All the reasons for increasing cartridge prices have just disappeared , oil per barrel price is down ( cheaper plastic and transport fuel) Lead price is down , £ is strenghtening ,worker's salaries have not increased substantially for years , so why the outrageous price increase of cartridges? 

An economy cartridge could make a manufacturer very popular.

there are a number of things from your opinion you feel are right and some are most definatley wrong   please explain how i screwed up north wales shooting  school  please explain this and i will continue with the other part of your thread   thanks  george

 

[jwpzx9r]

The thing is, as I see it at least, the major shell producers could very easily produce and sell a budget cartridge... they already do, their cheapest load. Now if you look at the cartridge market as a whole there are probably millions of them shot every year. The companies that produce them have the marketing and transport logistics covered. To be fair to Prper cartridges although I am no financial consultant of any sort I would be loathe to advise them to start chasing a market and build up their enterprise based at taking on the "cartel"  because if Proper did take this route and the "cartel" took the hump they would have Proper out of business in months because the " cartel" would drop their own prices to a level that Proper could not compete with long term and starve them out because most shooters would return to their readily available " cartel" load... then the "cartel" would quite quickly return their own prices to previous levels and higher. That I am afraid is a fact no major producer is going to take a hit on their established market for long.

 

[propercartridges]

I recently got some 28grams 8's of George for clays and have shot about 500 of them so far. Just as good as my superb 8's. A little less thumpy I think. But kill wise just as good. And at £30 per thousand cheaper. The only thing I have noticed is they are dirty but that's just an observation when looking down my barrells. But after shooting with a cheddite shooter yesterday they are no different to them. 

pleased you liked them the  dirty powder is the  double base powder i use   now    you  know  who  we were talking about at your door has just gone with 45000 and i have another 16 k for him  possibly  to deliver this sunday in cambridge  on my way to collect powder  from great oakley   but please clarify  kingo  did you mean the total cartridge was in your opinion the same as cheddite  or did you mean the dirty barrells bit  if it were the full cart   which cart and do you know the price  cheers  george

 

[PhilR]

I'm sure I'm no different from the majority of shooters on here, or on Pigeonwatch.

The only information I want to know about cartridges is the pressure, speed, shot size, hardness, where to get them and finally the price for 24 and 28gm in plaswad and fibrewad.

The rest of the waffle on here and PW is irrelevant.You've got something to sell and you're not convincing potential buyers that your product is the one to use.

 

[kingo15]

pleased you liked them the  dirty powder is the  double base powder i use   now    you  know  who  we were talking about at your door has just gone with 45000 and i have another 16 k for him  possibly  to deliver this sunday in cambridge  on my way to collect powder  from great oakley   but please clarify  kingo  did you mean the total cartridge was in your opinion the same as cheddite  or did you mean the dirty barrells bit  if it were the full cart   which cart and do you know the price  cheers  george

It's was just the left over bits mate in the barrell. 

 

[ChrisPackham]

This is a genuine question, is Proper Cartridges George's main job or done on the side for pin money?

 

[Hamster]

This is a genuine question, is Proper Cartridges George's main job or done on the side for pin money?

Very good question, most info seems second or third hand but I heard he used his life savings/redundancy to buy his first machine but reading between the lines he's not 100% full time 8 till 6 busy, good luck to him say I. 

 

[MDP]

There could be several reasons why Proper Cartridges aren't pushing the clay cartridges at the prices suggested:

Not enough capacity on existing machines so why bother replacing existing sales with lower margin ones.

There's not enough margin in budget clay loads to be profitable (seems likely to me).

Can't buy the components in big enough volumes to get to the suggested pricing (linked to above, and also seems likely to me).

Doesn't want to upset the component suppliers because they are his competitors too (I think).

Niche assembler/manufacturer, normally better suited to low volumes, high margins.

Doesn't want to deal with lots of relatively small end users, rather deal with fewer distributors who cause him less hassle (I could understand that).

So I dont think he's being a 'thick Geordie' but there's probably more to it. Also, lead pricing is a bit more complex than just buying some when the price is low, and not buying any when its high. The major importers will have to be forward ordering up to six months in advance, and therefore carrying quite big stocks. So when the price falls they're likely to be sitting on a lot of stock and can't reduce prices. That's certainly the way it worked in the automotive industry.

I personally don't think there's enough margin, even for the big boys, to flood the market with cheap shells.

 

[Hamster]

There could be several reasons why Proper Cartridges aren't pushing the clay cartridges at the prices suggested:

Not enough capacity on existing machines so why bother replacing existing sales with lower margin ones.

There's not enough margin in budget clay loads to be profitable (seems likely to me).

Can't buy the components in big enough volumes to get to the suggested pricing (linked to above, and also seems likely to me).

Doesn't want to upset the component suppliers because they are his competitors too (I think).

Niche assembler/manufacturer, normally better suited to low volumes, high margins.

Doesn't want to deal with lots of relatively small end users, rather deal with fewer distributors who cause him less hassle (I could understand that).

So I dont think he's being a 'thick Geordie' but there's probably more to it. Also, lead pricing is a bit more complex than just buying some when the price is low, and not buying any when its high. The major importers will have to be forward ordering up to six months in advance, and therefore carrying quite big stocks. So when the price falls they're likely to be sitting on a lot of stock and can't reduce prices. That's certainly the way it worked in the automotive industry.

I personally don't think there's enough margin, even for the big boys, to flood the market with cheap shells.

That certainly could be a factor and you certainly have a point regarding purchasing lead in bulk and well in advance but I don't think he's working to anywhere near full capacity at the moment.

I also don't really believe the clay shells margins aren't worth chasing after  , anything is better than nowt, yes game shells have traditionally produced better profits but they're cyclical unlike the clay side which is a constant. 

Look at the discount supermarkets and their market gains from the big 5, they still make huge profits and yet somehow manage to be between 10% - 50% cheaper on every single item. 

 

[MDP]

...it was the budget clay shells I was referring to, but you may well be right.

The discount supermarkets have huge ranges to make margins back on, so they can afford loss leaders like milk, bread etc. Plus they sell alot of own brand against premium brand. A small cartridge company doesn't have the huge ranges to make up lost margin on a high volume/low price range. I dont think Proper are in the same league as Lidl etc yet!

 

[Hamster]

...it was the budget clay shells I was referring to, but you may well be right.

The discount supermarkets have huge ranges to make margins back on, so they can afford loss leaders like milk, bread etc. Plus they sell alot of own brand against premium brand. A small cartridge company doesn't have the huge ranges to make up lost margin on a high volume/low price range. I dont think Proper are in the same league as Lidl etc yet!

True but he has far far fewer mouths to feed, everything is relative, I was just using examples for the overall picture. 

 

[Westward]

There could be several reasons why Proper Cartridges aren't pushing the clay cartridges at the prices suggested:

Not enough capacity on existing machines so why bother replacing existing sales with lower margin ones.

There's not enough margin in budget clay loads to be profitable (seems likely to me).

Can't buy the components in big enough volumes to get to the suggested pricing (linked to above, and also seems likely to me).

Doesn't want to upset the component suppliers because they are his competitors too (I think).

Niche assembler/manufacturer, normally better suited to low volumes, high margins.

Doesn't want to deal with lots of relatively small end users, rather deal with fewer distributors who cause him less hassle (I could understand that).

That pretty well sums up the difference between the entrepreneur who addresses and overcomes such matters and the market trader who wants a simple life. If Proper Cartridges is content with being a boutique supplier there's nothing to add other than if it were an American, French or German company their shells would be flooding out into the marketplace.

The market conditions could hardly be better for an imaginative newcomer. The pound is down by 15% resulting in the avaricious mainstream suppliers ramping up prices yet again because they know there's a captive customer base who'll always cough up the extra £20/30 or 40 per thou.

 

[Rupert]

For those who believe there is money in clay loads, how do we get started?