Is there anyone here that works at, or has previously worked in, an ammunition plant?

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Exposure

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Like the title says!

If so, I would love a description, or better yet pics, of the actual process.

For the past year I have been heavily into reloading and for the life of me I can't figure out how ammunition manufacturers can turn out rounds by the millions and make any money at it. I can turn out loaded rounds relatively quickly on my home equipment. But the amount of ammo made on a daily basis has got to be staggering. How do they do it?

Also, if anyone could link to photos from inside ammo plants I would appreciate it. I have searched but haven't found much.
 
While photos would be interesting, I would think any employees posting those pictures would be in the unemployment line as soon as management found out.
 
IIRC there was an episode on ammunition production on Modern Marvels or something like that on either the History or Discovery channel.
 
I live a 1/2 hour from Hornady Manufacturing. They've been expanding and I've heard job ads on the radio for "Bullet Press Operators."

As a matter of fact, I ran into one such employee at the range last week. They get factory rejects for some ridiculously low price (i.e., his plinking ammo was TAP FPD). Helluva nice guy, and he had a nice Sig P226 he let me try.
 
Ammunition Making by George E. Frost

The NRA used to publish this book. Copyright 1990. It will tell you more than you'll ever be able to apply about the mass production of ammunition. No doubt some of the tooloing has been improved and better automation controls exist, but as the juggernaut economy of China is showing us, the basics of mass production are pretty simple to master with proper capital and access to cheap labor and raw materials. Loading the cartridges is only one small part of the process.

I always thought a cool job would be working in the proof house. I have a friend who once worked for a company that tested armor and they fired everything up to 20mm in their test tunnel. Some companies use special air guns to launch test projectiles though, which sort of takes the flashiness out of it.
 
I always thought a cool job would be working in the proof house.
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When I was in the Peace Corps in Yemen, the PCVs re-building houses damaged by earthquakes had to "proof" the houses by firing an AK-47 at them.

The Peace Corps Country Director forbid most volunteers from firing an AK-47. :( I did it anyway, even though I was an English teacher. :)

I used to have a picture somewhere of me hanging with out a bunch of tribesman in a village with an AK in my hand. The men danced with an AK in one hand, and a jambia (curved dagger" in the other.

Mike
 
i took sierra bullet's factory tour. was very interesting, but obviously, they don't make loaded ammo, only projectiles.
 
I did some contract work at the Lake City plant. Pictures? You gotta be kidding me. No way. Even detailed descriptions of their process and layout would likely earn me a visit by the boys in blue (or BDU's, one). No way you could get into the plant without a non-disclosure statement and full background check.

Suffice it to say that they don't use anything even remotely similar to the equipment that you (and I) use at home. It's all large scale, industrial manufacturing equipment.
 
Not quite. But I did work in a bicycle plant in the mid-60's. There were several pieces of large equipment covered by tarps sitting on the main floor in a locked crib. I asked the foreman about it and he told me it was equipment for manufacturing brass. He said it was shipped in from the old plant after ours came on-line.
 
Three words ... "Economy Of Scale"

Comparing your turret press to their continuous-run production lines is like comparing your shovel and wheelbarrow to a Tunnel Boring Machine.

Everything is on continuous run with each step in production occuring on a running basis. When you can produce a couple hundred thousand rounds an hour even a few cents profit per round becomes significant.

Plus, when you buy your bullets in powder in multi-ton lots, you tend to get a discount. :D

Brad
 
I can't figure out how ammunition manufacturers can turn out rounds by the millions and make any money at it. I can turn out loaded rounds relatively quickly on my home equipment. But the amount of ammo made on a daily basis has got to be staggering.
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Just to chime in again...
The Dillon 1050 can spit out over 1,000 rounds per hour. Let's assume you're going to start a cottage ammo plant. You buy 10 blue presses (approx. $15,000) and have 10 people work them. That is 1,000*8*10=80,000 rounds per day * 5 days = 400,000 rounds per week * 50 weeks (2 off for vacation) = 20,000,000 rounds per year. This is for a single shift, no weekends.

Now, obviously Remington, Winchester, and Alliant (Federal, Speer, CCI) are doing much more than that. But, 20 million rounds (combined) of specialty ammo such as Mk262, .303 British, .308 Match, M2 Ball replica, etc. could be nice. Given that eastern-bloc surplus is drying up, I believe there's a niche waiting to be filled for reasonably priced commie-caliber ammo such as 9x18 Makarov, 7.62 Tokarev, 7.62x39, 7.62x54R.

A THR member is trying to start his own ammo company. PM brighamr and ask him what the factory and equipment is like.
 
There is an ammo outfit here in the Salt lake valley who does exactly as the last post suggests. Several Dillon machines as well as an expensive automated system that from what the employees say is a big POS and is broken more than working. I have a Dillon 650 with all the toys and it will crank em out fast enough that I have considered buying some 1050's and selling ammo myself!
 
First, you have to understand that they don't have anyone pulling a handle, and the supplies to the machinery are always at hand. No stopping for ten minutes to load up more primer tubes.

Ever seen video of a bottling plant? It's alot like that...

The beginning of Lord of War isn't representative of a modern plant. Probably more like an 1880s ammo plant.
 
Several years ago I was laid off for a short period of time. While I was laid off I interviewed at a couple places. One of them was looking for someone to work on an ammunition loading machine. The project manager and I had a long chat about it during my interview. Pretty cool process. I got called back so never had the chance to work on that machine.

In many ways not a whole lot different than a reloading press. Same steps, just more automation. Lots of QA tests along the way as the round was being loaded.

This particular machine was for 308 IIRC. Bullets went in one hopper, brass in another (by the skid load). Primers came in special packaging that the machine was going to open and dump onto a table to orient them, kind of like what you would do at home. Powder came in big kegs that the machine also emptied somehow.

I think it made almost 100 rounds a minute. Part of it was parallelism. I think it had 200 stations, and it popped out like 5 rounds at a time.

The project manager was a shooter and was salivating at getting skid loads of 308 brass for testing.
 
Lots of good answers here, thanks everyone!

I had kind of figured that there were no "inside" photos to be had as I couldn't find any after lots of searching.

I recently found a link to pictures of a HUGE government ammunition plant that has been in mothballs for ages and sits cold and quiet even as I type this, waiting for the day when it is time to come back to life. There were no pictures of the loading equipment but the sheer size of the place really sparked my interest in just how Uncle Sam keeps our boys and girls supplied with ammo in the field.

Keep the info coming everyone, it is much appreciated and very interesting.
 
I have considered buying some 1050's and selling ammo myself!
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I did too. But, you need an FFL (07?). And you can't get an FFL until you have your local permits. Local permits can be difficult because of zoning, fire marshal, and OSHA rules. Storing drums of smokeless powder isn't like storing those 5-gal bottles for the water cooler. I'd also imagine there are other rules about employee health given the exposure to solvents and lead. If your local city council finds out your making ammo commercially in your basement, you'll probably be in a lot of hot water.

As for OSHA... I work in an office and we had an OSHA visit. We violated some rule and had to put a sign up that says "Stairs" where there are 3 stairs in the middle of the office. The sign has braille, too.
 
I went to a ammo plant. It is a smaller company that is getting larger. I went there while I was in college one day after class. A buddy and I drove down, BS'd with the guys and asked for a tour. I still remember it.

They had 55 Gallon Drums filled with Brass, 55 gallon drums filled with bullets. PILES of pallets of bullets from Sierra, Nosler etc. etc. Then the reloading stuff was all automated. Best way I can describe it is that had lots of automatic presses. Cases that were once fired could be tested somehow so they didn't get cracked cases. I think something to do with air and pressure. Anyway it was cool. The machines were going up and down and churning out ammo faster than you could think. Loaded ammo was either boxed or shipped in large bulk containers.

One of the guys popped the lid on a 55 Gallon drum that was sitting on a heavy duty pallet. It was filled with .45 230 Grain FMJ's. The guy told us what the pallet weighted in pounds, and we sat there and computed the pounds to grains then dividing it by 230 to get how many bullets where there. It came to something like 50,000 bullets. It was pretty cool.
 
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