Wonder how long it will really take to get this up and running? Has a Q1 2026 target date.

Firearms News    - press release

D&M Holding Company, Inc. (D&M), an ammunition and energetics engineering company, is investing $70 million to expand its current White River Energetics (WRE) ammunition primer and energetics facility in Des Arc, Arkansas, and build a single-base, smokeless propellant factory.

"Currently, there is a worldwide shortage of smokeless propellant that is affecting munitions availability globally," said Dan Powers, President and CEO of D&M Holding Company, Inc. "This will be the first single-base propellant factory to be built in the United States in over 50 years."

White River Energetics currently has 125 employees at the Des Arc facility, with 73 new employees added in the past year. The expansion will create 100 new jobs and increase the Des Arc campus from 14,000 square feet to over 100,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Construction on the expansion is underway and expected to be completed in Q1 2026.

Link

If it pans out, that is probably the best news I have heard for both factory ammunition and reloading powder in at least 5 years.

That’s great news!

Sounds like good news, but... What happened to the "nitrocellulose that only comes from China" shortage?

Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe that’s just an excuse for the powder companies to double and triple their prices on reloaders.

When I read that statement, it was immediately clear to me they were talking about PRICE.

There is nothing climatic or genetic that is unique to the cotton grown in China.  It could also be produced here.  It SHOULD be produced here, as a matter of National security.  

The price escalation just provides commercial impetus to do so.

It’s fantastic news. Hodgon needs another competitor.

I bought 5k of WRE factory seconds SP primers from AR a month ago.
So far all are going bang in various 9mm loads.
So more options produced in USA may be good.

I would think a lot of the special permit stuff has been done with primer facility up and running so they are not fight too much red tape.

Excellent news.  The situation for powder and primers in the USA is disgraceful from a national stockpile point of view.

I think that's the least of the worries. From what I understand, making extruded powders involves some very nasty processes. They are both immediately dangerous to the workers without special precautions, and also very hazardous to the environment. Like anything, both can be overcome, but it obviously isn't insignificant since the USA hasn't had it's own single base extruded powder plant in decades because of these problems. I am willing to bet there is a LOT of red tape in their future.

Ties to PSA?

Surely. But they figured out primers and seem to be doing very well with significant volume. I reached out to them a little over a year ago to open a dealer account with an order of 100-200k primers and whatever their minimum was, I was well below it.