Fiocchi Opens New Lead-Free Primer Manufacturing Facility

Good news, reloaders: Fiocchi is going to open a new factory in Arkansas to produce lead-free primers. It's a $42-million investment for the company, and it is the first lead-free primer manufacturing facility in the world.

Many shooters might view that news with indifference, or even skepticism, since lead-free ammunition has been considered by some hunters as a trick by special-interest groups to run the price of hunting ammunition up to unaffordable levels.

However, the reality is that this news is precisely what North American shooters need. At this point seems very unlikely this new factory will be supplying government agencies, and with military and law enforcement contracts eating up a vast chunk of the American ammunition supply, any addition to the market outside of that sector should be welcome.

Further, because the Fiocchi plant does not require lead in its primers, it is also not dependent on the lead supply in the United States. The last U.S. primary lead smelter closed about a decade back; the Doe Run Company's smelter, which produced lead from ore, closed in 2013 over EPA regulations. Since then, the U.S. has relied on so-called secondary smelters (which recover lead from recycled batteries, etc.), or import its supply. If you wonder why ammo prices have risen sharply in the past decade, it's not just COVIDnomics. Lead prices aren't the highest they've been historically (2007 was the biggest high in recent years, when adjusted for inflation), but they've been climbing steadily since the last price crash in 2015.

Of course, there's always the spectre of more ammunition restriction around the corner as well, with shotgun shells reportedly threatened by a ban on single-use plastics and non-toxic shot already required for waterfowl since the 1980s. Rifle hunters in the U.S. are increasingly seeing similar requirements, forcing them to use copper bullets or other non-lead projectiles. Making a lead-free primer is not a bad idea as far as future-proofing your business.

Fiocchi says it will use its primers in its own ammunition manufacturing, including its zero-pollution EnviroShield products. It also plans to sell to other companies in the industry, and we'd presume retail reloaders as well.

The new Fiocchi plant will employ around 120 people. It will cover a 281-acre site in the Port of Little Rock.