It's not a ploy...just a fact of life.
Barrels start as steel blanks months and months in advance of them ever being usable as anything. We have to predict a half year to a year in advance which blanks to have on hand. When the blanks are advancing toward being barrels, they have to be cut to the working length, stress relieved, drilled, reamed, rifled, stress relieved again in some cases, profiled, cut to final length, crowned and gauged. Then they have to be tested, then the extension has to be installed, the gas port drilled, in many cases cryoed, and then tested again. One glitch anywhere in that process doesn't throw off just that particular batch of barrels, but all barrels that are in the production line up...some can be moved up to the extent possible, some have to be pushed back, etc..
It's all predicated on guessing 6-12 months in advance as to how many of which blanks you're going to need. That doesn't allow for political events, sales spikes, or anything else that's going to skew that need, and also explains why we can't just "get more barrels" whenever we want them. They aren't "off the shelf" items that everyone in the industry draws from...They are made to order, to specific drawings. There are always blanks flowing through and barrels flowing in and out...but one does not equal the other.
In this particular case, we use that barrel on two s pecific models. If demand for one or both outpaces the anticipated need, we have to either reprioritize blanks (which in turn screws everyone waiting for a different barrel that uses the same blanks), reprioritize the production runs (screwing everyone waiting for barrels that have been lowered in priority), or suck it up a little and wait a few weeks longer than planned. We do a combination of all three. we aren't going to reset machine centers that are running a specific barrel in large quantities to throw in a run of dissimilar barrels and then restart the large batch. Stainless takes longer than moly. Chrome-lined takes longer than unlined. The cryoed barrels take longer than non-cryoed.
If I give a projection on when a particular barrel is going to come in, it's just that...a projection. Not a promise. Not a guarantee. And if I'm off by a half a day, someone will be on this very forum screaming about how we lied to him. I stopped giving projections a long time ago for that very reason. On the fluted 18" stainless 223s, I have a good idea of when they'll be in, and in what quantity. When they're here, we'll be able to fill every back order currently in the system, and have more for shelf inventory...assuming that order rate and actual quantity received are approximately what they "should" be. We try to stock most barrels, at least in small quantities, at all times, but that isn't always possible.
No vast conspiracy. Just a case of over 200 different barrels over multiple calibers, all of which have to be made at some point, in differing quantities and different intervals between runs. Even if we reprioritize a barrel with a lower demand than others, whomever is waitin gfor that barrel feels just like you do right now.,
Steve/RRA