Who makes Winchester primers?
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DocRock
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Primers are made by the Olin Corporation, as is Winchester ammunition. Not sure whether Olin makes th brass.
RON in PA
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To the best of my knowledge Olin owns the Winchester name and has done so for decades.
I just researched it, because Olin and Winchester have been linked my entire life. Winchester didn't do so well after WW1 and the Great Depression did them in. They were bought by Olin in 1931.
The Winchester company we all know today has, for all intents and purposes, always been Olin.
whughett
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Interesting read in Wikipedia on the history of the Olin Corporation. Points out the fact that one really never knows just how diverse giant corporations are.
George P
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You are confusing two differentt Winchester operations, the ammo/gun powder side and the firearms side. The firearms side was divested long ago and became USRAC; recently both Browning and Winchester guns were bought by FN in Belgium
I had to work occasionally, on computers, at the Olin Brass plant in Alton Illinois.
I can attest to the rather comical/dangerous equipment used to dry primers. They have a big chicken coop about 45 feet long and 20 feet deep with a flimsy roof and chicken wire for an outer wall. Everything was built to fall apart easily in case of an explosion. Inside are two or maybe more big cement mixer type drying bins. You could hear about 100,000 primers rattling going round and round. If they ever went off you would not want to be walking in front of the chicken wire.
How the drums were heated, well I never got close enough to find out.
Just being close to some of the ammo production machinery was impressive. Specially the 20mm brass production.
I can attest to the rather comical/dangerous equipment used to dry primers. They have a big chicken coop about 45 feet long and 20 feet deep with a flimsy roof and chicken wire for an outer wall. Everything was built to fall apart easily in case of an explosion. Inside are two or maybe more big cement mixer type drying bins. You could hear about 100,000 primers rattling going round and round. If they ever went off you would not want to be walking in front of the chicken wire.
How the drums were heated, well I never got close enough to find out.
Just being close to some of the ammo production machinery was impressive. Specially the 20mm brass production.
Anybody know?
LiveLife
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I thought Hodgdon was licensed to sell Winchester powders - https://www.hodgdon.com/company/about-us/
"In March 2006, Hodgdon Powder Company and Winchester® Ammunition announced that Winchester® branded reloading powders would be licensed to Hodgdon."
https://wwpowder.com/company/about-us/
"operations began ... in 1969 ... In March 2006, Hodgdon® Powder Company and Winchester Ammunition announced Winchester-branded reloading powders would be licensed to Hodgdon.
Today, Hodgdon Powder Company has Winchester Smokeless Propellants manufactured under license at the St. Marks plant ... Florida ..."
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jmorris
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They are the largest distributor, I think these guys make it.
https://www.gd-ots.com/propellant-and-propulsion/st-marks-powder-propellants/
Not just the ones with their labels either.
Not sure if they ever made any powder, IIRC years ago their extruded powders came from Imperial Chemical Industries in Scotland (that is the stuff that wasn’t just repackaged surplus), more recently ADI of Australia.
Olin used to own St. Marks but sold it to General Dynamics.
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Only powder Hodgdon ever made is Pyrodex! From the days when Bruce first bought and sold surplus 4895, 4831, and 380, all they have ever done is buy powder, package powder, and do an outstanding job of marketing it. Accurate/Western powder does the same thing.
What about Alliant Powder? Where are they made?
Alliant is also just a shell brand owned by Vista Outdoors (Federal, CCI, Speer etc.) The name Alliant comes from ATK Corporation (of Shuttle solid rocket booster, Delta rocket, and Atlas V fame). Alliant Techsystems Inc. spun their sporting stuff off to create Vista Outdoor and their space stuff to Orbital Systems which was later acquired by Northrop Grumman.
Alliant acquired the core of the smokeless propellant business from Hercules. Hercules itself was a spinoff of a former company named Hercules that was formed to compete with Giant Powder (Hercules is known as a giant-slayer). The main competition was in blasting powder. San Francisco-based Giant owned the US market rights to Alfred Nobel's "dynamite." The founder of Hercules created an alternative formulation and started a works in Santa Cruz, California. It was later merged with DuPont and Laflin & Rand powder companies and the powder works moved to what is today Hercules, California on the San Pablo Bay (basically part of San Francisco bay). Hercules/Dupont created some of the pioneering smokeless propellants like Bullseye and they were important suppliers during WWI and II, but by then they had moved back east to New Jersey, and DuPont was busted up by the Sherman Act. Hercules sold its rocket and gunpowder business to ATK and the rest became part of Ashland.
ATK/Orbital/Northrop Grumman still runs Lake City ammo plant (originally built by Remington), but I believe most of the popular Alliant powders that aren't imported are made at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. The commercial powders (sold as Alliant brand by Vista Outdoors) are made by New River Energetics (a tenant at RFAAP). ATK/Northrup Grumman is ultimately the owner/operater of New River Energetics, but it's complicated. BAE Systems is running Radford, but Northrup Grumman remains a big tenant which they have been since Joliet closed.
If I'm not mistaken, New River Energetics (Northrop Grumman) and St. Marks Powder (General Dynamics) are the only producers of smokeless propellants for commercial use in the USA.
Alliant acquired the core of the smokeless propellant business from Hercules. Hercules itself was a spinoff of a former company named Hercules that was formed to compete with Giant Powder (Hercules is known as a giant-slayer). The main competition was in blasting powder. San Francisco-based Giant owned the US market rights to Alfred Nobel's "dynamite." The founder of Hercules created an alternative formulation and started a works in Santa Cruz, California. It was later merged with DuPont and Laflin & Rand powder companies and the powder works moved to what is today Hercules, California on the San Pablo Bay (basically part of San Francisco bay). Hercules/Dupont created some of the pioneering smokeless propellants like Bullseye and they were important suppliers during WWI and II, but by then they had moved back east to New Jersey, and DuPont was busted up by the Sherman Act. Hercules sold its rocket and gunpowder business to ATK and the rest became part of Ashland.
ATK/Orbital/Northrop Grumman still runs Lake City ammo plant (originally built by Remington), but I believe most of the popular Alliant powders that aren't imported are made at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. The commercial powders (sold as Alliant brand by Vista Outdoors) are made by New River Energetics (a tenant at RFAAP). ATK/Northrup Grumman is ultimately the owner/operater of New River Energetics, but it's complicated. BAE Systems is running Radford, but Northrup Grumman remains a big tenant which they have been since Joliet closed.
If I'm not mistaken, New River Energetics (Northrop Grumman) and St. Marks Powder (General Dynamics) are the only producers of smokeless propellants for commercial use in the USA.
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Olin was originally a competitor of Winchester and Remington. Their brand was "Western." Olin succeeded and bought Winchester out in 1931. Olin had been very profitable during WWI and Winchester had made many failing attempts to diversify, ultimately failing during the Great Depression. Olin bought Winchester out of receivership. The cartridges would be branded "Winchester Western" after that. As was mentioned already, the New Haven gun works was sold to employees and became USRA at the end of 1980. USRA was bought by Herstal (FN) group in 1989 which ultimately closed New Haven in 2006. Olin kept the Winchester brand and licensed it to USRA etc. It sold St. Marks to General Dynamics in 1998. It continued to make ammunition, but GD was making the ball powders, and Hodgdon acquired the rights to sell the ball powders from St. Marks with the Winchester name on them. Olin sold its brass business to Global Brass and Copper (a US company) in 2007 which merged with Wieland Group (a German company) last year. Olin is still big in chemicals and acquired some DuPont assets recently. As far as ammo is concerned, it looks like they buy brass from Wieland, powder from General Dynamics, and they assemble the primers at an Olin-Winchester plant in Illinois (in East Alton where Frank Olin originally started the Equitable Powder Company, a blasting powder company that expanded into cartridges in 1898) as well as assembling the cartridges.
The East Alton Il. plant makes primers. They also have shot towers for making lead shot, the brass mill is there where they make brass and they have different buildings for loading different kinds of ammo.I'm not sure what they still do there now because they have been moving some ammo production to southern non union states over the last 10 years.
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