Radford Army Ammunition Plant Is the Sole U.S. Source of Nitrocellulose

The Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia is the only facility in the United States that produces military-grade nitrocellulose, the base material for all smokeless powder and solid rocket propellant. Built in 1941, this single plant underpins every bullet, artillery charge, missile motor, and tank round manufactured in the country. All U.S. 155mm artillery charges are manufactured using propellant from General Dynamics' Valleyfield facility near Montreal, Canada, which itself depends on nitrocellulose feedstock. The consequence of this concentration is absolute: if Radford goes offline for any reason, whether accident, natural disaster, or adversary action, the entire U.S. ammunition production chain stops. There is no backup, no second source, and no allied facility that could absorb the shortfall at scale. This is not a hypothetical concern; Radford has experienced environmental compliance issues, aging infrastructure problems, and capacity limitations that already constrain production rates. The civilian ammunition market feels this bottleneck directly. In 2024, Alliant Powders suspended commercial smokeless powder shipments because nitrocellulose production was fully allocated to military contracts. Reloaders and commercial ammunition manufacturers were cut off, driving price spikes and shortages in the consumer market. The military and civilian supply chains share the same upstream chokepoint, so any increase in military demand immediately starves the commercial market. This single-source dependency persists because nitrocellulose manufacturing is capital-intensive, heavily regulated, and environmentally sensitive. The chemicals involved are hazardous, the process generates toxic waste, and the facilities require specialized safety infrastructure. No private company will build a second plant without guaranteed long-term government contracts, and the government has historically been unwilling to pay the premium required to maintain redundant capacity. The Ammunition Supply Chain Act (S.4163) introduced in the 118th Congress attempted to address this, but structural funding commitments remain insufficient.