help_outline Skip to main content

News / Articles

Federal Ammunition: 100 Years Strong

NRA | Published on 1/20/2022
The Federal Ammunition factory in Anoka, MN, is a 700,000-sq.-ft., state-of-the-art facility in which 1,400 employees produce millions of rounds of centerfire, rimfire and shotshell ammunition each day. The plant runs around the clock, seven days a week in an operation founder Charles L. Horn would never recognize. He was, after all, only shopping for machines to make paper tubes in 1922 when he stumbled across a closed company too promising to ignore.

Harry and Lewis Sherman brought a wealth of knowledge and experience when they moved to Minnesota to open the Federal Cartridge and Machine Company on Sept. 15, 1916. By the time construction on the 31-acre plot in Anoka was complete, however, World War I was winding down and military orders for shotshells were scarce.