Federal Premium Ammunition Anoka Plant, Minnesota

Federal Premium Ammunition is an ammunition manufacturer that has been operating a plant here since 1922. Initially called the Federal Cartridge Corporation, the company (which is not a government entity) won the contract to build and operate the nearby Twin City Ordnance Plant in 1941, one of six wartime government owned, contractor operated small arms munitions plants in the USA (located north of Minneapolis, and now undergoing environmental remediation, and redevelopment). Federal’s Anoka Plant is the company’s primary facility today, and one of the largest non-government supported ammunition plants in the country. It covers more than 700,000 square feet, in four buildings, employing around 1,500 workers to make millions of rounds a year, marketed under a number of brand names, primarily used in recreational shooting activities, as well as for personal defense handguns. The company is owned by Vista Outdoor, the non-government munitions division of ATK, the nation’s primary supplier of bullets to the federal government, which was also based in the Minneapolis region. ATK restructured (and was bought by Northrop Grumman in 2018), and Vista is now an independent company that owns a few other munitions and sporting goods companies, and is now based in Anoka, at the Federal Premium Plant.