The Western Cartridge Company is an American manufacturer of small arms and ammunition that is based in

East Alton, Illinois East Alton is a village in Madison County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,301 at the 2010 census. History East Alton was incorporated as a village in 1893 (some say 1894). William Cobb, namesake of Cobb Street, was one of the fir ...

. Founded in 1898, it was the forerunner of the

Olin Corporation Olin Corporation is an American manufacturer of ammunition, chlorine, and sodium hydroxide. The company traces its roots to two companies, both founded in 1892: Franklin W. Olin's Equitable Powder Company and the Mathieson Alkali Works. Olin che ...

, formed in 1944, of which Western is still a subsidiary. Western acquired the

Winchester Repeating Arms Company The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...

after Winchester went into receivership in 1931.

History

Franklin W. Olin received an engineering degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1886. After working at

powder mill A powder mill was a mill where gunpowder is made from sulfur, saltpeter and charcoal. Milling steps Crude grinding and mixing operations such as the Frankford Powder-Mill of Philadelphia were a cottage industry until the industrial revolution ...

s in the eastern United States, he was one of several investors establishing the Equitable Powder Company in 1892 at East Alton, Illinois. Production of blasting powder for southern Illinois

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

began in 1893. Olin formed the Western Cartridge Company in 1898 to manufacture sporting rifle powder and

shotgun shell A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub- projectiles called shot, fired thro ...

s for settlers of the

Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, an ...

. The shotgun shells used primers manufactured by larger eastern ammunition firms. When the firms with primer manufacturing facilities raised primer prices in 1900 to reduce competition from independent shotgun shell assembly plants, the Western Cartridge Company formed the Union Cap and Chemical Company (UCC) as a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...

with Austin Cartridge Company of

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. UCC manufactured primers,

blasting cap A detonator, frequently a blasting cap, is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated, the last two being the most common. The commercial use of explosives uses electri ...

s, and .22 and .32 caliber rimfire cartridges at East Alton. Similar manufacturing procedures for these products included fabrication of

sheet metal Sheet metal is metal formed into thin, flat pieces, usually by an industrial process. Sheet metal is one of the fundamental forms used in metalworking, and it can be cut and bent into a variety of shapes. Thicknesses can vary significantly; ex ...

cups and filling portions of those cups with

primary explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...

. Rimfire cartridges bore a UCC

headstamp A headstamp is the markings on the bottom of a cartridge case designed for a firearm. It usually tells who manufactured the case. If it is a civilian case it often also tells the caliber: if it is military, the year of manufacture is often added ...

, and product packaging included a Maltese cross trademark. The purchase of Alliance Cartridge Company in 1907 allowed UCC's merger into the Western Cartridge Company. The early Maltese Cross trademark from the earlier Union Cap & Chemical Company was changed in 1909–1910 to a diamond with the Western name inside. This logo carried on into the 1930s. The well known Super-X branding arrived in the mid-1920s on shotgun shells and in 1930–1931 on .22 rim fire. This branding referenced the "X" ring on a target and was used only on high velocity cartridges.

Expansion

Western Cartridge Corporation advertisement

John Olin, the son of founder Franklin W. Olin, improved shotgun cartridge designs in the 1920s by using harder shot and progressive burning powder. Western produced 3 billion rounds of ammunition in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and the Winchester subsidiary developed the U.S.

M1 carbine The M1 carbine (formally the United States Carbine, Caliber .30, M1) is a lightweight semi-automatic carbine that was a standard firearm for the U.S. military during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The M1 carbine was produced ...

and produced the carbine and the

M1 rifle The M1 Garand or M1 rifleOfficially designated as U.S. rifle, caliber .30, M1, later simply called Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, also called US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1 is a semi-automatic rifle that was the service rifle of the U.S Army during World War ...

during the war. Western ranked 35th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. Cartridges made by Western are stamped WCC. Western Cartridge Company produced the now collectible "Western Xpert" brand of shotgun shells in both 12 and 16 gauge sizes.

Labor relations

The company faced union activity and strikes in 1941 and 1942, at a time when it held $8.5 million in defense contracts. Civil rights activist Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. noted in 1944 that the company did not hire African-American workers. Franklin Roosevelt's

Committee on Fair Employment Practice The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created in 1941 in the United States to implement Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and comp ...

had held hearings and tried to have the company hire black workers in 1943, but the community, owners and white employees refused.

References

External links

Olin

Winchester Ammunition
{{Authority control Firearm manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1898 Companies based in Madison County, Illinois Ammunition manufacturers 1898 establishments in Illinois