07/07/2021
Update on the FSR production
**FSR Production Update via Ben Larson**
Hey gang- it has come to my attention that players are looking for an update on FSR production, so I will address it here and we will share it to the applicable pages.
The Good News, all machines that were converted to PepperBall production have now been converted back. We are currently running all capable FSR machines 3 shifts, 7 days a week. This is the most projectiles we have produced weekly in my tenure here at First Strike!! Additionally, we have kicked off the early stages of building a new machine that should be fully operational in 2022.
The Bad News, due to the downtime created by PepperBall production, significant backorders and significant growth in Magfed participation in all forms we are far from out of the woods. We expect to begin shipping to retail stores in Q3, but we do not expect any significant excess supply until 2022. We also expect some level of hoarding similar to the ammo shortages over the past few years, which could further impact availability. The ammo industry and retailers fixed that by taking prices even higher and limiting purchase quantities. We are desperately trying to avoid that at this time.
At this point we have also prioritized events over our retail partners, Amazon and our retail website. Even with this policy we have had to continue to short all orders to allow us to supply as many games as possible. We have continued to work closely with our distributors, field owners and event promoters to schedule production for games, which to date has consumed 99% of our production.
If I could snap my fingers and fill the pipeline with FSR, I certainly would have already. Covid dealt us at UTS (United Tactical Systems), like nearly all other industries, an interesting hand and we are playing it the best we can to ensure supply for the growth we expect over the next few years.
As always feel free to reach out to me directly or First Strike with any questions or concerns. We typically respond to our FB messages pretty quickly. I have seen some random posts that tag FS with questions and these are getting harder for our small staff to find and respond to, so please send us a DM for best results.
It goes without saying, but I appreciate your patience, understanding and continued support of the First Strike brand and our products.
Thank you,
Ben Larson
