In 2005, Frank Brown the elder surprised his son with a career change after years of running a radiator shop in the small town of Ronan, Montana. He bought a small bullet business based in Philipsburg, Montana, about a two-hour drive south, and wanted Frankie to help him move the business back home to Ronan.
Fast-forward nearly two decades years later, and what started as a two-man show with two casting machines and two lubers has grown into a factory that ingested just shy of a million pounds of lead per year during the high-demand pandemic years of 2021 and 2022. At peak production, with about 33 employees processing lead, Rim Rock was producing 3.5 million bullets a month. Frankie expects that number to drop a bit for 2023, but he's currently running about 15 casting machines that each turn out 10,000 to 22,000 bullets per day. That's a lot of lead.
Rim Rock bought Oregon Trail Bullets in 2019, absorbing that customer load as well as supplying its own commercial accounts like Buffalo Bore – which was formerly also headquartered nearby in Montana – The Hunting Shack (HSM), Atomic Ammo, ArmsCor, and Bullseye Shooting Sports, to name a few.
Once cast, some bullets are done with their journey through the Rim Rock factory, while others continue to the lubing machine and the gas check room.
Chances are, if you need a bullet, Rim Rock can make it. There are a few hundred available combinations of size, caliber, and hardness, as well as cast, lubed, and gas checked varieties.
"The post office hates us," Frankie joked. But it's cheaper to ship via Priority Mail than by freight, so the delivery workers will just have to count it as arm day.
