American made Powders?

[Ovis Venator]

I'm poking around my reloding bench and noticed that my bottle of RL 15 says "made in Sweden", RL 17 and RL 26 say "made in Switzerland", all my Hodgdon powders are from Austrlia, and my Ramshot Big Game, which has a MT phone number and a Miles City address, was made in Belgium. Does anyone know why all these powders are made else where? And are there any truly American powders?

 

[VikingsGuy]

The only one I am aware of is General Dynamics who makes ball powders for Winchester and others in a Florida facility.

 

[Don Fischer]

Where my powder is made doesn't move me much. Been reloading about 50 yrs and have never bothered to check on where a powder is made, only if the rifle shoot's well using it!

 

[GlockZ]

Most powders are made overseas. Actually, I’m not sure if any powder is manufactured here in the US. But I could be wrong.

 

[Losing_Sanity]

Learn something new everyday...

 

[std7mag]

I think it has more to do with our EPA than anything.
A lot of the chemicals used to help control burn rates, anti copper, and such are highly toxic.

 

[sbhooper]

I think it has more to do with our EPA than anything.
A lot of the chemicals used to help control burn rates, anti copper, and such are highly toxic.

I think that you are correct. Add to that, the liability of having employees making that stuff, under our liability laws and the answer is pretty evident.

 

[VikingsGuy]

Europeans (who have a number of the large powder manufacturers) have stronger environmental and labor laws than US so I doubt those are the reasons.

 

[ImBillT]

I think it has more to do with our EPA than anything.
A lot of the chemicals used to help control burn rates, anti copper, and such are highly toxic.

I’m pretty sure alot of the powders that claim to reduce copper fouling, also claim to be environmentally friendly.

 

[sbhooper]

Europeans (who have a number of the large powder manufacturers) have stronger environmental and labor laws than US so I doubt those are the reasons.

Maybe labor laws are stronger, but maybe not the liability laws.

 

[VikingsGuy]

Maybe labor laws are stronger, but maybe not the liability laws.

Liability for environmental and labor violations they are more stringent. I agree they don't have the personal injury type liability that the US does, but since they advertise and sell in the US, the manufacturers and their distributors are still on the hook, so really not a location differentiator.

 

[sbhooper]

Liability for environmental and labor violations they are more stringent. I agree they don't have the personal injury type liability that the US does, but since they advertise and sell in the US, the manufacturers and their distributors are still on the hook, so really not a location differentiator.

Then how do you explain that the manufacturers are not in this country?

 

[VikingsGuy]

Then how do you explain that the manufacturers are not in this country?

I have no idea. Maybe the European and Australian governments subsidized (see, Airbus) and the US didn’t. Maybe US export controls made difficult/impossible to run global business. Maybe tariff quirks regarding raw materials or end products. Lots of reasons businesses cluster in (or away from) geographies, but I have no idea in this particular instance.

 

[Festus]

Alliant has a large plant 30 mins from my office in Radford, VA.
Pretty sure they only make pistol and shotgun powder there these days.

 

[antelopedundee]

Then how do you explain that the manufacturers are not in this country?

Has anyone contacted the distributors to ask why powders are imported and not manufactured here? I expect cost might be one reason.

 

[antelopedundee]

I’m pretty sure alot of the powders that claim to reduce copper fouling, also claim to be environmentally friendly.

I doubt that you'd want to use those chemicals as food additives. Unless they are organic in nature, they don't disappear when the powder is burned, but get blown out into the air and eventually settle onto the ground somewhere. IRC from some reading awhile back they use "rare earth" chemicals as additives and that the practice is not widespread ; YET.

I assume there are other additives also.

Are the powders containing these marked in any way so that the user knows what is what?

 

[ImBillT]

I doubt that you'd want to use those chemicals as food additives. Unless they are organic in nature, they don't disappear when the powder is burned, but get blown out into the air and eventually settle onto the ground somewhere. IRC from some reading awhile back they use "rare earth" chemicals as additives and that the practice is not widespread ; YET.

I assume there are other additives also.

Are the powders containing these marked in any way so that the user knows what is what?

If you don’t know what the additive is, then you can’t say that they don’t disappear when the powder is burned. Smokeless rifle powder burns in excess of 3000 degrees F. A quick look at the SDS for Reloader series powders doesn’t show anything that stands out as probably surviving that burn.

Nitrocellulose-well that’s the base of all smokeless powder.

Nitroglycerin-C3H5N3O9- nothing but carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen here.

diphennylamine- (C6H5)2NH- still just carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.

Centralite- C17H20N2O- yet again, the same four elements.

It looks like the only things making it into the SDS are organic nitrates. What isn’t burned, is not likely going to cause any serious harm to the environment. Some soil fungus or bacteria should handle it fine.


No I wouldn’t eat the gun powder, but I wouldn’t eat wood or deer crap either.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Then how do you explain that the manufacturers are not in this country?

If I had to take a swing at it I would imagine that it has to do with the global potassium nitrate supply chain. My assumption is that there are relatively few sources of potassium nitrate worldwide (industrial scale sources), there are probably less in the US than in Europe/Asia and those in the US are probably ear marked for the military.

Europe/Canada have militaries a fraction the size of ours per capita so they probably don't restrict the commercial use of domestically produced potassium nitrate. The other components are fairly common, so I would imagine you build your factory near the source of the most limited ingredient.

I'm sure the real answer is vastly more complicated, but it probably goes something like that...

 

[Ben Lamb]

General Dynamics manufacturers something around 95% of US Military powder needs and they own the Winchester & Hogdon lines. I think they have the Ramshot line too.

I would imagine that it's an economy of geography & scale that has a lot of powder producers overseas, along with supply chain issues. Europeans were the first to adopt smokeless as a standard military powder (8x57I round), and they were the predominant military forces in the world until after WW2, so having the means to manufacture there was critical to military superiority. So with multiple militaries needing powder, which consume such at a much higher rate than hunters/reloaders in every nation with the possible exception of the USA, it would make sense on a global economic scale to have your facilities where you can reach the largest market share with the least expense. That would mean Europe if you're selling to a large segment of the world.

 

[antelopedundee]

If you don’t know what the additive is, then you can’t say that they don’t disappear when the powder is burned. Smokeless rifle powder burns in excess of 3000 degrees F. A quick look at the SDS for Reloader series powders doesn’t show anything that stands out as probably surviving that burn.

Nitrocellulose-well that’s the base of all smokeless powder.

Nitroglycerin-C3H5N3O9- nothing but carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen here.

diphennylamine- (C6H5)2NH- still just carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.

Centralite- C17H20N2O- yet again, the same four elements.

It looks like the only things making it into the SDS are organic nitrates. What isn’t burned, is not likely going to cause any serious harm to the environment. Some soil fungus or bacteria should handle it fine.


No I wouldn’t eat the gun powder, but I wouldn’t eat wood or deer crap either.

The ones I was reading about were additives that would essentially eliminate powder and copper fouling and as I said contained "rare earth" compounds. Those will persist in some form in the environment. They don't burn up. IIRC it was on benchrestcentral.com