Luckily I have about 6 lbs of 4451 left, it goes quick though. Will need to develop other loads now with H4350 or RL16. So now I'll need to stock up on those.
Discontinued: IMR Enduron powders.
- Thread starter Petey308
- Start date
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Who produces our military propellant? And where?
Wrenches
Well-Known Member
I called Hodgdon and they stated that is wasn't a big seller. Makes me wonder if that is just a put off. I have one pound of 4451 unopened and an eight pound jug of 4955 unopened. Half way through an eight pounder of 7977. Now to start over with new powder loads. I scrapped all my loads from before the Endurons came out. Bummer
These powders were the only powders available this spring. Saying they couldn't get them regularly seems like BS. Seems reloaders are going to be forced to load with scrap powders very soon. Ammo manufactures suck up all the good powders and we are left having to pay hijack prices or use subpar powder.
7mmTikkaShooter
Well-Known Member
Well this just ruined my day! I really hoped that the powders would soon become available. Now it's back to starting over again with load development, shooting bullets, primers, and brass, that can't be bought anywhere. What little components I have will have to suffice I guess. So tired of the nonsense all. I'm not a competition shooter and honestly my hunting rarely uses up more than a handful of rounds. I just want to reload/hobby shoot and practice my skills to make ethical shots on game. It's super frustrating and I can't help but wonder how much of this stems from back door legislation and restrictions on imported powders etc.? Why bother with gun control when you can just take away ammo right? I hope I'm wrong and this ship rights itself but this info is yet another gut punch to me. I don't have the startup funds, or any knowledge how to do it, but anyone want to start a new DOMESTIC powder company with me?
Fotis
Well-Known Member
Right?????
I honestly don't know anymore. The Lake City Ammunition Plant produces the vast majority of all US military ammo. Last I knew, they made every part but the powder. It used to come from DuPont. After they broke apart I believe they sourced powder from their predecessors. Today that would most likely be General Dynamics. St Marks, in Florida, is another likely possibility.
I wish I knew the answer to that for sure though.
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Varmint Hunter
Well-Known Member
I was using 4451 in my Creed but it is a near clone to H4350. Using the same charge, the 4350 was about 30 ft/sec faster. Accuracy was about the same. Fortunately for us, H4350 has been popping up all around lately. They had a ton of it on the shelf at Cabelas in PA when I was there 2 weeks ago.
Sounds like we need a U.S. based powder manufacturer or Hodgdon needs to actually make powder instead of being a middle man. It would be so convenient and nice to have a domestic manufacturer that didn't have to deal with and rely on imports from overseas and problems out of their control. There's obviously a huge market and demand for quality powder whether we're in normal times or the predicament we're in now. With the number of ammunition manufacturers, bullet makers, and even new primer companies opening up, I'm really surprised there's no domestic smokeless powder manufacturers.
Yeah, H4350 comes from
ADI in Australia, along with all the other "Extreme" line of Hodgdon powders. Hodgdon has finally been getting powder shipments in from them the last few months. COVID really slowed down that process. It comes over on ships, then has to sit out in the harbor awaiting a hazmat port to open. I've heard there's only like two hazmat ports, and then there's only a few docks in each port. During peak COVID manning shortages and lockdowns, there were TONS of ships anchored in the harbor awaiting to dock.
Once they get a port and a dock, then it has to get offloaded and process through customs. After that, it gets trucked to their packaging facility.
So it's a slow process and that's one reason it's so slow and sporadic to show up on shelves and websites.
Hodgdon also doesn't know what is coming on those ships until they receive the shipping manifest. They place an order and they literally get what they get.
There needs to be a documentary made on all this lol.
They say that the current demand and lack of supply isn't sustainable enough to justify the HUGE expense and process of building the facility, the cost and process of being compliant with EPA and other regulations, hiring competent workers, etc, etc.
I can understand that. It seems like a no brainer, but honestly it would be a massive undertaking and would take a ton of money for the initial investment. It might actually be a worthwhile investment, but it's s huge gamble.
Right now, all they have to do is buy, package, and resell. They don't have to mess with hundreds to thousands of employees, the operating costs of a factory, and all the extra BS that goes into owning and operating such s facility.
There's a reason the like 40 some powder facilities that DuPont owned and operated in the US all shut down and went away. The US government I'm sure makes it pretty much not feasible to open up a new facility. Same reasons why so much US manufacturing went overseas.
Muddyboots
Well-Known Member
No different than refineries! Its not so much the CAA pollution control requirements but how long the regulatory agencies can stall the approvals of construction permits. A company cannot place one piece of equipment in place or even accept on property in most states until construction permits are approved. This is major delay to construct for any project. Depending upon Air Quality status of the area, emission offsets etc might have to be negotiated. Air Agencies can make the process as long as they can utilizing all sorts of "mitigating factors" to stall any project they don't want or perceived politically as negative impact on the agency.
Complying with regulatory pollution control requirements are walk in park in comparison to the construction permit administrative
.
Complying with regulatory pollution control requirements are walk in park in comparison to the construction permit administrative
.
Fotis
Well-Known Member
What we need is a few more powder AND primer manufacturers. I know someone in Texas just spent 100 million $$$ to open a new primer plant.
