I am not affiliated with this company, I am simply a customer who is re-posting an E-mail I received from them:
Friends, as existing customers of ours, a few updates:
Bad news first: Global supply chain problems look like they've killed off the world's only provider of one of our key anti-friction components. This stuff is integral to the slickness inherent in Black Rifle Balm, Field Balm, and especially the Bolt Balm. We're trying to acquire any remaining stocks they have, but it's looking grim.
What this means: As of this moment, our existing stocks of Black Rifle Balm, Field Balm, and Bolt Balm are all there is - first come, first served, and once it's gone, it's gone. It's unlikely we'll be able to replace this key component. Winter Balm and the Rimfire Remedy, however, are unaffected.
Good News: We've been busy during the pandemic with consistent, intense R&D, including in developing several advanced CLPs, and a number of high-performance grease formulations we expect to be able to re-tool as direct replacements for the Black Rifle Balm, Field Balm, and Bolt Balm. Many of these advancements come from what we learned engineering the Winter Balm and the Rimfire Remedy especially. As many of you know, they were also a part of what we engineered as OEM provider into Forward Controls Design's SGSO (aka, Super Good Snake Oil), which itself was initially engineered as a next-generation Black Rifle Balm. As the SGSO does not have this particular component we've lost access to, its production is completely unaffected - while we cannot provide a timeline on when we'll have direct replacements available for the Black Rifle Balm, Field Balm, or Bolt Balm, FCD's SGSO will continue to be available.
Where this matters most: It's most significant for those of you who may be dealing with a finicky gun. While the new formulations have some superior properties in terms of heat resistance, overall longevity, and round-count durability, this lost component is fairly irreplaceable at the extremes of friction reduction. Especially with that's occurring in guns at the boundary level between two sliding metal surfaces, and how their asperities interact during cycling (relatively slow part speeds, particular stop/start dynamics, filthy energy source and operating environments, etc). If you'd describe one of your guns as finicky, it matters most to you, and it would be best to jump on our remaining stocks while you can.
The loss of this tech is a tribological tragedy, especially for extreme performance in certain conditions. We're doing everything we can to keep access to it, but it's a difficult situation we just aren't seeing resolving quickly, if at all.
