Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters muledeer-Any Canadian ammo makers?

Hi John

Are there any ammo makers located in Canada? Years ago I read a story by Jack O'Connor about Dominion and a .270 Win. load of 160 grain bullets. Has Canada lost their ammo manufacturers?

roanmtn

To be honest I dunno. But no doubt Steve Redgwell does!

muledeer

Thanks for the reply. I hope Steve answers back with some info.

I just saw this. After IVI/Imperial Cartridges folded in the 1980s, no large commercial manufacturer has started up. I am not sure why. The easy answer would be to blame the Liberal government, but that may not be the whole truth.

Gee-Dots - General Dynamics is the only large ammunition manufacturer. It is US owned. General Dynamics employs about 1500 people who manufacture all the military ammunition for the CDN Forces. There are three facilities in the province of Quebec. They do not make commercial ammunition.

It is odd that Canada does not have a wholly owned ammunition mfging facility in Canada anymore. We also pay $70 million to Gen'l Dynamics annually (call it an operating fee). This is in addition to the cost of the ammunition itself.

Thanks Steve

I am sad that Canada may not have a commercial manufacturer for the public to buy ammo from. I hate progressive/liberal governments that are actually socialist/Marxist tyrants...IMO.

Thanks for your reply. The US is facing increasing opposition to firearms.

roanmtn

Prairie Score
Challenger
Canadian BDX
Wolf Bullets
WASP Munitions
Western Munitions

First two make 12ga ammo.
Others make remanufactured or manufactured ammo in the more common handgun (9mm, 45ACP, 38spl, maybe 40SW, 357mag, 44mag 10mm) and rifle like 223 and 300blk maybe 308.

You're welcome.

We import all of our hunting ammunition. Mostly from the US, but we bring in a lot of Euro ammunition as well. I am particularly fond of PPU (Prvi Partizan) in a number of calibers.

Steve, I was wondering about the Euorpean imports. I just assumed you guys purchased U.S. Ammo.

Thanks

Glenn

Those are small, limited distribution concerns. Unfortunately, nothing close to what Imperial was.

That wasn't the question. He asked if there are any ammo makers. There are, just very limited in size and scope.

As for Dominion/Imperial/IVI, no great loss considering how they managed to mismanage their way into oblivion even when given the Canadian Forces contract. My experience, is mainly with 303 Sabretips (those who think the Nosler Ballistic Tips were the first plastic tipped bullets in North America, you are mistaken, the Sabretips predate them.) and mostly with 22 ammo. I found the Imperial/IVI 22 ammo very waxy. If you wanted to gum up a 22, especially a Cooey 64, shoot IVI, that'll do it! That being said, I was grateful for ANY 22 ammo and shot whatever i earned or was given or could scrounge.

At 10% of the US population, Canada will never be able to support another full line ammo maker, unless the founder has deep pockets and can export to the US.

But it was a loss. It's unfortunate that you don't see it that way.

When I lived in Canada they had alot of RWS and Norma ammo that is very rare in the US.

Jeepers Steve, why are you being so contrarian today?

Would you use IVI ammo if it was currently available , given all the other choices today, just because it was Canadian? Recalling the quality of the last 22LR I shot, I would not.

I get that losing a national manufacturer was a loss. What I meant to say was that as run by IVi, it was not surprising it failed. Just another Quebec company all too eager to take government assistance, but still manage to fail.

It sounds like Bombardier is next. It also sounds that Bombardier is deserving to fail. NYC would rather run old decrepit subway cars than the new Bombardier they bought. The old are more reliable. How is that possible? I read that they sold off the airplane they designed, that may have saved their bacon, to service debt. They're years behind on delivery of LRT cars, what they deliver is not reliable, they've decimated their aircraft division, their ATVs are over priced. What's left? Yet they continue to ask for more government money. How many times have we given them money only to see the executives paid extravagant bonuses and raises? No more money for Bombardier until it is a public company. That family cannot run it.

With the CF contract, IVI should have been able to make it, even if just as a military ammo supplier. The fact they couldn't make a go of it, is very telling.

Too think that Dominion/CIL/Imperial was very innovative in its day, it's shameful that IVI destroyed it. That IVI is no longer here, is no great loss. That there is currently no national ammo maker, that's a loss.

I remember as a kid in Iowa that my had 12ga. Dominion/Imperial shotshells so they were obviously available here. I expect he got them from our local hardware store at that time.

Bombardier messed up Evinrude too. Now they are no longer selling motors.

Yep, the stores here in Montana generally carried some Dominion ammo when I was a kid, especially in "Canadian" cartridges like the .303 British. Lee-Enfields were quite popular here as hunting rifles, partly because they were inexpensive, but partly because they worked. In fact I have my uncle's "sporterized" Lee-Enfield, which he purchased from a barrel full of them at a local Coast to Coast hardware store.

Saw some of that PPU 303 brit ammo awhile back , local LGS was selling it $17/ box my immediate thought was it was a bargain. Mb

Am I supposed to agree with you because you said it? I was polite. It is unfortunate that you see the demise of the last large ammunition company as no big loss. And IVI still exists. It is part of Gee-Dots.



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PP makes good ammunition. i suppose with all the years that the region was at war, one gets good at it.

Steve, would you buy IVI products just because they are Canadian? They lost their innovation and drove their business into the ground. Given today's ammo availability, and quality of today's ammo, there would be no room for IVI. It was the same, albeit to a lesser extent, as when they faded away 30 years ago.

My experience is mainly with the rimfire. Centerfire was beyond my pay grade. If I got to use any, it was whatever Dad or grandpa had lying around in a shed, truck or tractor. Hard to say what it was like given the conditions the ammo had lived in. I shot a very few birds and no big game with IVI. Target shooting? Too rich for us.

In rural Alberta, IVI was in every hardware store. People bought it because it was generally cheaper than Winchester (the most common American brand), not because it was better. Grandpa also liked the plastic box the 22 came in, it kept the ammo from rolling around his dashboard.

We can pine about their demise as a commercial entity all we want, but that doesn't change the fact that IVI failed and ceased to exist as we knew it in our youth. It's a nice to have, not a need to have, a Canadian ammo manufacturer. IMO, not worth public dollars to keep it afloat, just because it's Canadian.

By the time I had my own money, we had moved to the Calgary area. Access to real gun stores meant that other brands were readily accessible as IVI's position in the market shrank away. Did they market enough? Did they innovate enough to remain commpetitive? I don't recall.

Your dismissal of the small companies is strange. I can buy Challenger at Cabelas. Score is available at many gun shops. BDX can't make ammo fast enough. Western Munitions is often the same. Yes, they may not be "national", but they are what we have today. So to answer the OP's question , yes we have ammo manufacturers.

Your headstamp means General Dynamics bought the right to use the IVI headstamp. I would be more thrilled if it was CIL or IMP or DOM. It's like GM owning the name Pontiac or Buick and badging cars with those names.

It's too bad that ammo under the Imperial / Dominion brand could not be made here and sold to the CDN market. It would have to be the main line sellers (30-06, 303, 308, 223 etc) and be sold in the big box stores to anchor the line.

The population here is under 40 million and a lot of those folks are in cities and thus not shooters making the ammo market fairly small. I was in Canadian Tire here in SJ yesterday and the there was lots of rifle ammo there as long as you wanted 35Whelen, 25-06 and 243. All else was N/A. I live in a city area of over 100k population and cannot buy powder here.