The U.S. Army is moving ahead with the construction of its first new small arms ammunition factory in decades, and it will be dedicated to making ammo for the Next Generation Squad Weapons.
The new 450,000-square-foot facility, built on the campus of the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri, had its groundbreaking on Feb. 5. Operated by Olin-Winchester as a contractor, it will feature modern manufacturing systems capable of producing "all components" of 6.8x51 Common Cartridge ammunition as part of the NGSW program.
The Army specified this includes "cartridge case and projectile manufacturing, energetic operations for loading and charging ammunition, product packaging, process quality controls, testing laboratories, maintenance operations, and administrative areas."
The round, developed by SIG Sauer, uses a hybrid bi-metallic steel/brass case to allow the pressure to go from the traditional ~68,000 psi of an all-brass case to the region of 120,000 psi without any failure, while still using conventional primers and powder. This translates to a 350-feet-per-second boost in velocity. Alternatively, this also allows for 16-inch-barrel-level velocities from an 8-inch barrel or a 24-inch-barrel-level velocity from a 14-inch barrel.
The cartridges will be used by the new SIG-made XM7 and the XM250, which are replacing the M4/M4A1 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, respectively, in front-line service with the Army.
The service is currently fielding the XM7 and XM250 with the 101st Airborne Division, the first active duty component to receive the guns, as well as the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team of the North Carolina Army National Guard.
With SIG as the current sole maker of the cartridge, the Army is anxious to expand production. In Feb. 2023, the service contracted with Olin-Winchester, who operates Army-owned Lake City on a 10-year contract, to kick off 6.8 production in Missouri.
Once operational, the Army said the facility will have an "annual production capacity of 385 million cases, 490 million projectiles, and 385 million load-assemble-pack operations for 6.8 mm ammunition."
While that sounds like a lot of ammunition, it is a highly consumable commodity in modern warfare. For example, the Biden Administration sent over 500 million rounds of small arms ammo, most from Pentagon stockpiles, to Ukraine as military aid-- and the U.S. was far from the only country sending munitions to support Kyiv.
In 2005 alone, with the U.S. Army heavily involved in combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lake City produced 1.34 billion rounds of ammo to keep up with demands, while the military also issued contracts for another 300 million rounds from General Dynamics and bought a further 215 million rounds in "urgent buys" from Winchester, IMI in Israel, and companies in the UK.
"It is not lost on me that victory on the battlefield begins in our production facilities," said Maj. Gen. John T. Reim, Joint Program Executive Officer for Armaments and Ammunition. "Lake City has been central to our nation’s ammunition production since 1941, and this new facility builds on that proud and historic legacy."
The new manufacturing facility at Lake City is expected to be completed in 2026 and fully operational in 2028.
Banner image: The U.S. Army’s Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition, along with the Joint Munitions Command, officially broke ground on a new 6.8mm ammunition production facility in support of the Next Generation Squad Weapon Program at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant on Wednesday, Feb. 5. The 6.8mm family of ammunition, set to be produced at the new facility, will play a vital role in advancing the Army’s modernization priorities. (Photo: Olin Corporation via U.S. Army)
