If you’ve been around firearms very long, you know that Nosler is a world class ammunition manufacturer. John A. Nosler actually founded the company because he wanted more reliable hunting bullets. Tim Kennedy recently partnered with Nosler’s Project 48, and dropped by their Bend, Oregon production facility to see how they do things.
Perfection In All Things
Kennedy says he wants “perfection in all things, but when it comes to ammunition, you absolutely have to have perfection.” He illustrates that point by asking the viewer to consider that “you’ve been working, trying to find an animal for two, three days. You lay down. You finally see it…put your crosshairs on it…breath control…set your sight alignment, and…click. Can you imagine?”
“In all the things that I do,” Kennedy says, whether it’s hunting, tactical, military, every occupational use that I have a need for ammunition, it has to be perfect.” Kennedy notes that bad ammo can cost lives, whether it be from failures to feed, failures to eject, bad primers, or whatever. “I have to have perfection,” he repeats.
So, that’s why Kennedy is partnering with Nosler’s Project 48. He says he’s “pumped” to be working with one of the market’s best ammo manufacturers.
Nosler Project 48
Nosler introduced Project 48 in 2021. The program’s mission is designed to “welcome, engage, and educate the record number of new hunters, shooters, and gun owners recruited in 2020.” Nosler has attracted partners like Tim Kennedy to help “shift the narrative around gun ownership and lay the infrastructure for the most critical issues facing our industry—new hunter recruitment and new shooter education.”
Tim Kennedy Goes to Nosler
Kennedy arrives, glad to see the American Flag out front. “I’m not sure I’d want to buy ammo from a place that doesn’t have a flag flying,” he says. He also offers some insight as he enters the building: It’s a “very little known fact [that] every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. But every time that a bullet is made, an extra bit of freedom is spread out into the world. Think about that.” Who knew that Tim Kennedy was also a philosopher?
Nosler Factory Tour
Tim gets the tour, works some of the machines, and pretends to heist some product. Looks like he does pretty well, too. They tell him he’s probably good enough to work a weekend shift.
It also looks like a lot of fun. I mean, seriously, being surrounded by top-notch ammo isn’t a bad way to spend your day. Kennedy even attempts a Scrooge McDuck impression with a box of brass.
The tour’s most popular stop is the Nosler underground test ranges. Tim visits the two 100-yard test tunnels, but there are also 50-yard and zero-yard rooms as well. The range technicians routinely pull sample rounds from each finishing press. Those rounds are then test-fired from a stabilized mechanical rifle barrel. They strive for a half-inch group at 100 yards. Not meeting the standard means the press probably needs adjustment or maintenance. Sounds like an effective diagnostic system.
Why can’t I find ammo?
After the tour, Kennedy speaks with John Nosler, asking the same question we all have: “Why can’t I find ammo?” Nosler acknowledges that it’s a fair question. He answers that there are millions of new gun owners and hunters. That customer growth coincided with the COVID lockdowns, creating high demands on a slowed supply chain.
It’s nothing we didn’t know, but the best answers are simple. Those factors created a huge strain on manufacturers, especially since it takes a long time to ramp up production. You have to have more equipment and people to run that equipment. You also need reliable raw materials sources. Those sources face the same challenge as the manufacturers.
Nosler says they work 24 hours a day, as do many other manufacturers. But he notes that his company will not sacrifice quality or “who we are” just to make numbers. He says they try to allocate supply as equitably as possible, from Mom-and-Pop gun shops to the big box stores. “No one in the ammo industry is trying to hurt anyone.”
Nosler admits that change will only come slowly. Things have improved somewhat, but we all know there’s a long way to go. Here’s hoping Nosler’s Project 48 and other such programs can keep our numbers up, all while cranking out the ammo we want and need.
