This, he added, eliminates flying fragments. Remington is also active in promoting firearms education and safety, Scarlata continued. Scarlata also pointed out additional economic facts. Except for specialty items, such as brass, propellant and lead, the company gets most of its support locally. Otis Boggs, centerfire unit manager , chosen as guide for photographs of the manufacturing operation, discouraged a complete tour of the plant.
All projectiles have one thing in common, lead, and that is where the process begins.
Ingots of lead are melted in a smelter, then poured into molds to form large cylinders, called pigs. The pigs are loaded, one at a time, into an extrusion machine that uses a huge hydraulic ram to force the lead through a hole the same way putty can be forced between the fingers. The lead wire, the thickness of which depends on which projectile is being made, is then fed through a variety of machines to be cut, formed, trimmed, and pressed into copper jackets, or, in the case of slugs and buckshot, smoothed, beveled and coated with graphite. Some of the machines can trim a blank to within a half grain of a desired weight, Boggs explained. Producing the brass cartridges is a complicated, process, Boggs continued.