Ramping Up
Actually, demand for their ammunition soon out-paced the production capacity of the arm-weary crew. Law enforcement (LE) loads, then big game and target cartridges, joined the general-purpose .223 and pistol ammo. BHA brought factory-fresh brass and mechanized loading machines, then invested in a new plant. On my next visit, Jeff drove me across town to a stately building behind a strip of lawn and tall trees. The empty structure commanded a plot surprisingly big and open, given its urban address. Eerily, it reminded me of milking cows for my room and board at Michigan State U.
“Well, it is a creamery,” Jeff grinned. “But not for long.” He led through tentacles of new, empty annexes, into rooms stripped of milk tanks and plumbing. “We’ll fill these spaces.” We walked onto thick concrete loading docks, then climbed to a conference center Jeff told me would remain for meetings and visitors. “Kristi and I have offices on the main floor close to production.” He spread blueprints. Every one of the plant’s 60,000 square feet was spoken for!
LE and armed forces contracts hurried BHA through its re-purposing of the creamery. Visiting BHA in 2013, I found the grass and trees and truck-parking arena encompassed by high wire. A series of electronic precautions later, I met Jeff and Kristi in their offices, big windows opening to ranks of staff desks. This could have been an IRS center, or the command post of a shipping company. Jeff introduced me to people I’d known from the early days on the single-stage presses. Loyalty runs high at BHA. The faithful clearly like their work, the Hoffmans’ unapologetic patriotism and the growth-oriented, can-do ethic of the company. BHA’s payroll has grown to about 75 people.
Jeff ushered me onto the creamery floor. Now a fully automated ammunition plant, it throbbed to the rhythm of loading machines chugging out pallets of cartridges every hour. “Still, our quality control inspectors outnumber production people,” Jeff said. Annexes were full, and as spotless as if processing milk. “Even after the post-2008-election panic buying subsided, we kept running at capacity, sometimes blessed with the need to work overtime.”
The rush by the shooting public to stock up on handloading components during the Obama years challenged BHA and other manufacturers. “For a while it seemed as if we’d never get more brass, powder, primers and bullets than we needed to fill immediate orders,” said Mike Wright when I telephoned for an update recently. “We’re in better shape now.” Mike, who’s worked a decade at BHA, said nearly all current production is new ammunition. “We have huge supplies of .223 and .40 S&W once-fired brass, so still load them for practice ammo. We dropped remanufactured 9mm and .45 ACP loads four years ago.”
