As American shooters experience supply shortages and inflated prices on ammunition, many are questioning exactly what manufacturers are doing to alleviate the problem. Jason Vanderbrink, president of Federal Premium Ammunition, took a few minutes to share some updates on the company's increased manufacturing capacity. Vanderbrink is also president of the Remington ammunition factory in Lonoke, Ark., and he provides an updated outlook in the video above on the facility's renewed capabilities since the acquisition by Vista Outdoor.
"It's important to point out that, since the surge started, we have made about 40 percent more in ammunition at Federal, CCI and Speer," Vanderbrink said. "That's a lot of ammunition that's come new into this market. When you add Remington into that, it's substantially more ammunition."
Additionally, Vanderbrink highlighted the growth in staffing at Vista's ammunition plants. Since the surge in demand began, the company has added about 1,500 new employees inside of 18 months. Some of the production highlights from Federal Premium include a 40-percent increase in handgun ammunition production, a 15-percent increase in shotshell production and "hundreds of millions" more primers for sale on the commercial market. All this increase happened in the midst of material shortages, a point Vanderbrink dovetailed into his answer to people asking whether or not Federal Premium can build new factories.
"As every other business in America and around the world is facing, we're facing supply chain shortages," Vanderbrink said. "We're no different. Brass, powder, resin. All of this affects our factories and all of this affects output. It wouldn't be financially feasible to built a new factory if you don't have enough raw materials to keep the four factories we have going today."
Vanderbrink also touched on government ammunition sales, as well as support for law enforcement and the Second Amendment. To listen to his full statement, watch the video above.
