Industry

Who Actually Makes Your Powder

The dozen facilities behind every label on the shelf — and where each stands in 2026

August 27, 2026

Start with the fact that reorganizes everything else: most of the powder brands you know are not manufacturers.

Hodgdon, IMR, Winchester, Accurate, Ramshot, Alliant, Norma, Shooters World — these are canister brands. They specify, test, blend to a tolerance, package, publish load data, and sell. The actual nitration and extrusion happens at a much smaller set of industrial plants scattered across Florida, Quebec, Virginia, Australia, Finland, France, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.

There are perhaps a dozen facilities on earth that matter for sporting propellant. Everything on the shelf comes out of them. Here is who they are, how they got here, and what shape they're in — and if you want the forces that built this arrangement, the companion piece is The Great Unbundling.

Part One — The plants

Owner: General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems

St. Marks Powder — Crawfordville, Florida

If one facility deserves to be called the center of the American powder industry, it's this one. St. Marks makes spherical — “ball” — propellant, and it makes an enormous amount of it. Published figures put annual output around 6,000 tons, which would make it the largest propellant plant in the world.

Its lineage runs back to Olin, the company that invented the ball powder process in the first place. Fred Olsen developed the method at Western Cartridge Company by 1933, and Olin built the industrial expression of it in Florida in 1969. Olin spun its ordnance business into Primex Technologies in 1996; General Dynamics acquired Primex in 2001, and St. Marks came with it. Traces of that history survive in the product codes — the SMP-prefixed propellants still referenced in load data are Primex-era designations.

Where it stands: St. Marks supplies nearly all U.S. military small-arms propellant, every Winchester-branded canister powder, and Hodgdon's spherical grades — H335, CFE 223, the StaBALL line, W231, and others. In January 2026 GD-OTS announced a roughly 20 percent expansion of ball powder capacity — the single most handloader-relevant capacity project anywhere, since this plant makes most of what fills American pistol and shotshell cases. When people say American powder supply is concentrated, this is what they mean: one plant, in one county, in one state.

Owner: General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems

Valleyfield — Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec

The extruded counterpart to St. Marks, and the other half of GD's propellant footprint. Valleyfield produces stick powders — most of the IMR line, plus a growing share of Accurate's extruded grades.

Where it stands: Strategically more important than its profile suggests. When Maj. Gen. John Reim listed where the U.S. Army imports military-grade nitrocellulose from, Valleyfield was on the list alongside France, the Czech Republic, and Korea. A Canadian plant is currently helping backstop American artillery production.

Owner: U.S. Army. Operator: BAE Systems

Radford Army Ammunition Plant — Radford, Virginia

The most important propellant facility in the United States, and the one civilians never buy from directly.

Construction began in the fall of 1940 under Hercules Powder Company, and the plant was formally established in April 1941 as one of the first single-base smokeless powder plants authorized under the National Defense Program. It became the template for the others. Radford has supplied propellant for every major American conflict since.

The operator has changed twice — the same plant, three corporate eras of American powder. Hercules ran it from construction until 1995, when Alliant Techsystems acquired the business and consolidated its Kenvil, New Jersey operations into Radford after Kenvil closed in December 1996. BAE Systems took over as operating contractor on 1 July 2012, over an unsuccessful ATK protest, and began a $240 million modernization. BAE won a further contract in 2022 valued at up to $1.3 billion.

Where it stands: Radford is the only U.S. producer of military-grade nitrocellulose, and it makes 29 distinct propellant types. That single sentence explains most of the current supply squeeze — and even Radford cannot make every grade the Army needs, which is why the imports exist. It is also an aging facility with a long environmental record: the $145 million contained-burn incinerator meant to replace open burning has slipped again, to a projected September 2027.

Owner: Thales Australia / Australian Munitions

Mulwala — New South Wales, Australia

Established in 1942 and deliberately sited far enough inland to be beyond naval bombardment and Japanese air range. It has been making propellant ever since.

For American handloaders, Mulwala matters more than almost any domestic plant. Hodgdon began working with ADI in 1989, after its previous supplier in Scotland shut down. The relationship produced Clays in 1991 — Hodgdon went looking worldwide for a clean-burning 12-gauge target powder and found it in something ADI was developing — and then the entire Extreme series.

Where it stands: Varget, H4350, H4895, H1000, Retumbo, IMR 8208 XBR and most other Hodgdon and IMR extruded grades are Australian. They carry Mulwala lot codes, and the temperature stability those powders are famous for is an ADI formulation characteristic. The partnership passed thirty years in 2019, and Hodgdon's own leadership has called it the best supplier relationship in the company's history.

Owner: Nammo

Nammo Vihtavuori — Laukaa, Finland

Founded in 1922, in a newly independent Finland that needed its own propellant supply. The site was chosen for strategic remoteness, clean water, and a rail connection. Gustaf Hackzell was the first managing director; powder production began in 1926, nitroglycerin and shotshell manufacture followed in 1931, and capacity was expanded hard in 1938 as war approached.

The company became part of the Nammo group in 2014, after which the civilian N-series expanded with N555, N565, and N568.

Where it stands: Vihtavuori occupies a position almost nobody else does — it makes its own nitrocellulose, from cotton, on site. In a market where the binding constraint is NC supply, in-house nitration is a structural advantage rather than a legacy quirk. The N-series is imported to the U.S. by Capstone Precision Group. Nammo is also building a primer factory at the Vihtavuori site — the first new Western primer capacity in decades, aimed at the other component chokepoint.

Owner: French state

Eurenco — Bergerac, France (and Karlskoga, Sweden)

Eurenco was created in 2004 from the merger of SNPE's Explosifs & Propulseurs division with Sweden's NEXPLO, inheriting sites across Europe. Then France did something it came to regret: it halted domestic propellant manufacture in 2007.

The reversal has been dramatic. In April 2023 Eurenco relocated its gunpowder plant from Sweden back to France. In May 2023 it restarted nitrocellulose production at Bergerac, and the new powder line was inaugurated in April 2024 under a program worth roughly €500 million. Under the EU's ASAP program it is multiplying powder output roughly tenfold. It opened a U.S. joint venture in Texas in late 2023, and by 2024 was forecasting €1 billion in sales by 2030 against roughly €300 million in 2023.

Where it stands: Eurenco has become the design authority for much of the European propellant supply chain. It formalized a joint venture with Poland's MESKO at Pionki in June 2026 — about €250 million of Eurenco investment in Polish powder capacity — and established a €300 million joint venture with Slovakia's ZVS in March 2026 to build a plant for modular artillery charges, producing from 2028. It is doubling capacity at PB Clermont in Belgium, and in June 2026 signed with Helsing to develop a European warhead for the HX-2 strike drone. For shooters: Eurenco Bofors in Karlskoga makes most Alliant Reloder extruded grades and Norma's powders.

Owner: Rheinmetall, with RUAG

Nitrochemie — Wimmis, Switzerland and Aschau, Germany

A Swiss-German joint venture that has quietly become one of the two or three most consequential propellant operations in Europe. Nitrochemie makes the Swiss members of the Alliant Reloder family — Re17 and Re33 among them — the ones that don't come from Bofors.

Where it stands: Aschau added a third nitration line, and in July 2026 Rheinmetall laid the foundation stone on a €350 million expansion that takes the site from roughly 1,700 to 4,200 tonnes of powder a year by 2028 — one of the largest powder plants in Europe when finished. Rheinmetall also holds nitrocellulose production at Murcia in Spain and Wellington in South Africa, and in April 2025 bought Hagedorn-NC, a German producer of industrial-grade nitrocellulose for varnishes and printing inks with about 90 employees, whose output Rheinmetall intends to convert to military grade. That acquisition is the single clearest signal of where the industry's thinking has gone: even lacquer-grade NC is now a strategic asset.

Owner: The Czech state — for now

Explosia — Pardubice, Czech Republic

The Czech propellant house, best known to Americans through Shooters World, which sells Lovex powders under U.S. designations. A long-established plant with deep expertise — and, unusually for this list, still wholly state-owned, held through the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Where it stands: On the block. As of mid-2026 the Czech government is weighing a sale, with a valuation reported around CZK 15–17 billion and a golden share retained; half a dozen parties have shown interest, including a reported Colt CZ–Eurenco pairing. Whoever wins will own the plant behind every Shooters World canister on an American shelf — a live story worth watching.

Owner: Eurenco

PB Clermont — Belgium

Small, specialized, and responsible for more American shelf space than its size suggests: Ramshot's spherical powders come from Clermont, as have Accurate ball grades over the years — though most Accurate powders today come out of GD's St. Marks and Valleyfield plants. Eurenco is doubling Clermont's capacity, which tells you how the parent rates it.

Owner: Voyager Technologies (via Estes Energetics)

Goex — Minden, Louisiana

The oldest lineage in American powder and the most precarious business.

Goex traces to 1802, when E.I. du Pont broke ground on the Brandywine. DuPont's Belin plant in Pennsylvania became part of Goex in the early 1970s, and operations moved to Minden, Louisiana in 1997. Hodgdon acquired it in January 2009 and closed it in 2021. Estes Energetics — a 2021 spin-out from the model rocket company — bought the assets in early 2022 and, working with the Pentagon's industrial-base office under Defense Production Act authority, rebuilt the plant and restarted production on 1 June 2023, shipping again that August. An $8 million Army contract followed in 2024 to modernize the facility — black powder is still a military item, used in igniters and time fuzes — along with a new components plant at Camp Minden. An explosion at the plant in October 2024 caused no injuries and was contained.

In November 2025, Voyager Technologies — a NYSE-listed space and defense firm — acquired Estes Energetics outright.

Where it stands: the only black powder manufacturer in the United States. Every acquisition announcement has emphasized rockets, missile defense, and tactical munitions; sporting-grade powder for muzzleloaders and re-enactors has never been the headline. Supply to that community has been intermittent for years and remains uncertain. Imported Swiss and German (Wano) black powder fills the gap — which leaves an entire shooting discipline dependent on export policy.

Part Two — The brands

Hodgdon Powder Company — Shawnee, Kansas

The great American powder story, and the great American powder paradox.

Bruce Hodgdon came home from the Navy with an idea: buy surplus military powder in bulk, repackage it small, and sell it to handloaders. In 1947 he bought 25 tons of surplus 4895 for $2,000 — four cents a pound — bought two boxcars to store it in, and sold it at 75 cents a pound. The family packaged it in their basement. In 1949 he began acquiring salvaged .303 British powder, marketing it as BL type C — the “C” for cooler-burning than the IMR powders of the day — spherical powder pulled from 20mm Oerlikon and .303 cartridges. B.E. Hodgdon, Inc. was formally organized in 1952.

Then Hodgdon built an empire by acquiring brands rather than plants: the ADI relationship from 1989, IMR in 2003, a license to the Winchester powder brand in March 2006, Goex in 2009 (closed 2021, sold on in 2022), and Accurate, Ramshot, and Blackhorn 209 from Western Powders in October 2020. In May 2024 it bought RCBS from Revelyst.

Where it stands: Hodgdon markets Hodgdon, IMR, Ramshot, Accurate, Pyrodex, Triple Seven, and Blackhorn 209, plus licensed Winchester — the dominant share of U.S. canister brands. It manufactures essentially none of it. The powder comes from Mulwala, St. Marks, Valleyfield, and Clermont.

The founding generation has passed. Bob Hodgdon died in January 2023; J.B. Hodgdon stepped back to Chairman Emeritus in January 2025 — his granddaughter Amy Hodgdon-Meyer taking a board seat, a fourth generation — and died that June at 88. In September 2025 the company named Mike Stock, two decades at Winchester Ammunition, as only its fifth leader in 78 years, succeeding Steve Kehrwald, who moves to chairman.

Alliant Powder

The Hercules name, several corporate owners removed. Hercules itself was a product of the 1912 antitrust breakup of DuPont's powder trust. It ran Radford for 55 years before Alliant Techsystems acquired the business in 1995. ATK became Orbital ATK and Vista Outdoor; Vista split; and the ammunition side — Federal, CCI, Remington, Speer, Blazer, and Alliant Powder — became The Kinetic Group, acquired by Czechoslovak Group in November 2024.

Where it stands: An American heritage brand under Czech ownership, its extruded powders made in Sweden and Switzerland — and, for handloaders, effectively absent. Canister shipments of Reloder, Unique, and Bullseye have been suspended since May 2024 and had not resumed as of this writing. The classic American pistol powders, some in continuous production since the 1890s, are off the market not because the plants are gone but because the owner's order book is full of other things. No single fact on this page says more about where the leverage sits.

Winchester / Olin

Winchester invented ball powder and no longer manufactures it. Olin's ordnance business went to Primex in 1996 and General Dynamics in 2001. The canister brand was licensed to Hodgdon in 2006.

Where it stands: Olin's Winchester division is now a propellant buyer, and an exposed one. Q4 2025 segment earnings fell to $0.6 million from $42.0 million a year earlier, with propellant and metals costs named directly. Full-year 2025 operating income dropped 71.5% to $67.7 million. Q2 2026 recovered to $28.1 million on better commercial pricing — but 2026 also brought a month-long strike at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, which Winchester operates, taking the largest small-caliber plant in the country offline from early April to early May. A company that size absorbing that kind of margin compression tells you propellant cost is not a rounding error.

Norma, Shooters World, Capstone

The importer tier. Norma (Beretta Holding) sells Eurenco Bofors powder. Shooters World sells Explosia's Lovex line. Capstone imports Vihtavuori. None of them make anything; all of them are exposed to tariffs and to European plants whose military order books now outrank sporting customers.

The map, condensed

Brand	Actually made by	Where
Hodgdon Extreme (Varget, H4350, H4895, H1000)	Thales Australia / ADI	Mulwala, Australia
Hodgdon spherical (H335, CFE 223, StaBALL)	GD-OTS St. Marks	Florida
Winchester canister	GD-OTS St. Marks	Florida
IMR extruded	GD-OTS Valleyfield	Quebec
Accurate	GD-OTS St. Marks / Valleyfield, some PB Clermont	Florida / Quebec / Belgium
Ramshot (spherical)	PB Clermont	Belgium
Alliant Reloder (most)	Eurenco Bofors	Karlskoga, Sweden
Alliant Re17, Re33	Nitrochemie	Wimmis, Switzerland
Vihtavuori N-series	Nammo Vihtavuori	Laukaa, Finland
Norma	Eurenco Bofors	Karlskoga, Sweden
Shooters World	Explosia (Lovex)	Pardubice, Czechia
Goex black powder	Goex Industries	Minden, Louisiana
U.S. military propellant	Radford (BAE) + St. Marks	Virginia / Florida

Assignments reflect long-established sourcing and published lot markings; manufacturers do shift, and specific lots can vary.

What the map tells you

Three of the four largest suppliers of American canister powder are foreign plants. Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland collectively account for more of what sits on a U.S. reloading bench than domestic production does. Tariff policy is therefore powder policy.

American propellant manufacturing is two facilities. St. Marks for spherical, Valleyfield for extruded — and Valleyfield is Canadian. Radford serves the military and makes the only U.S. military-grade nitrocellulose.

The brands have no plants and the plants have no brands. Hodgdon can't increase output by deciding to. It can only ask Mulwala and St. Marks for more, and those plants answer to defense ministries first. Alliant's suspended canister line is what that looks like in practice.

Black powder is one facility with an uncertain commitment to sporting customers. For muzzleloaders that's a fragile position, softened only by imports.

For why the map came to look this way, read The Great Unbundling. For what it currently costs you, the market report and the live price desk.

Sources

Elsewhere on the Desk

Shape Is the Product — How smokeless powder is actually made, and why every grain looks the way it does
The Propellant Squeeze — Gunpowder costs, supply, and industry direction — August 2026
The Great Unbundling — How the powder industry took itself apart — and why it is putting itself back together
The powder directory — 228 powders, verified against the makers' own documentation
Prices & availability — what a pound costs in hand, sampled from retailers that permit it
The merged burn-rate chart

Verify the charge, not just the recipe

A published load tells you what you meant to put in the case. It cannot tell you what went in on stroke 340 — a bridged measure, a double charge, a squib. Only measuring every round tells you that, and that measurement is what an RCM Laser Powder Check produces.