The recent decision by China to halt the export of two critical components —nitrocellulose and antimony— has raised alarms within the U.S. ammunition manufacturing industry and among defense experts. These materials are indispensable in the production of propellant powder and primers, and their restriction threatens to create significant supply chain disruptions. As geopolitical tensions rise and global conflicts, like the war in Ukraine, drive up demand for ammunition, the U.S. faces an uncertain future in maintaining adequate ammunition supplies for both military and civilian markets.
This article explores the implications of China’s export restrictions and the broader context of critical material dependencies, with recommendations offered by AmmoLand News contributor John Farnam, a veteran of the ammunition industry, on how Americans can prepare for the coming shortages.
China’s Stranglehold on Critical Materials
China’s dominance in the production of antimony and nitrocellulose cannot be overstated. As the world’s largest producer of antimony, China accounts for nearly half of global production and supplies 63% of U.S. antimony imports. Antimony plays a vital role in the defense industry, from armor-piercing ammunition to night vision goggles and precision optics. Nitrocellulose, or “guncotton,” is essential for making propellant powder used in ammunition.
Without these core materials, the U.S. ammunition supply chain is left extremley vulnerable.
In August 2024, China announced that it would discontinue the export of these materials to the United States. This decision follows a series of similar moves by China in June of 2024 to restrict the global flow of critical minerals and materials in the name of national security. For example, China imposed export controls on graphite and rare earth materials in 2023, impacting industries from semiconductors to electric vehicles. Now, the defense and ammunition sectors are bracing for the impact of these new restrictions.
Antimony’s Critical Role
Antimony is a crucial material for the U.S. defense sector, particularly for hardening lead bullets and creating other munitions. The closure of domestic antimony mines in the early 2000s has left the U.S. entirely dependent on foreign sources, with China being the most significant supplier. Recent efforts, such as the proposed reopening of the Stibnite Gold Mine in Idaho, are intended to reduce reliance on Chinese imports. However, these projects will take years to come online, meaning the U.S. remains vulnerable to supply chain disruptions in the short term.
Nitrocellulose and Ammunition Production
Nitrocellulose, another critical component in ammunition manufacturing, has also become a point of geopolitical tension. Nitrocellulose is used in propellant powder and is necessary for both firearms and artillery. Europe, too, has felt the pinch, as European countries rely on China for the bulk of their nitrocellulose imports to supply Ukraine with ammunition during its ongoing conflict with Russia.
In May 2024, a major nitrocellulose plant in Hubei province, China, exploded, further tightening the supply chain. Although nitrocellulose is relatively simple to produce, its hazardous nature means that only a few companies are qualified to handle its production. With China now restricting its exports of nitrocellulose, European and U.S. ammunition manufacturers are scrambling to find alternative sources.
Impact on U.S. Ammunition Supply
As China’s export restrictions take effect, U.S. ammunition manufacturers are already struggling to keep up with demand. Many companies report that their supply of components, especially propellant powder, has dwindled throughout the year, with much of the global supply being diverted to military efforts in Ukraine and domestic military stockpiles. As a result, civilian ammunition consumers are likely to experience increased shortages and higher prices.
John Farnam, an industry expert, warns that these supply chain issues will only get worse. Farnam shared insights from his connections in the ammunition business:
“Right now, most components are reasonably available, but that will begin to change soon! Two weeks ago, the CCP precipitously announced that it was discontinuing the export to the USA of nitrocellulose and antimony. These two products are indispensable in the production of propellant powder and primers. There are other, lesser sources, but the CCP has always been the main supplier. I predict significant commercial ammunition shortages, starting shortly!”
Farnam’s warning is clear—without access to these critical components, U.S. ammunition manufacturers will be unable to maintain production, exacerbating the existing shortage and driving up prices.
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Small Rifle Primers - #6-1/2 Small Rifle Primers 1,000/Box | Brownells.com | $ 86.99 |
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CCI BR4 Small Rifle Primers - 100 Count - Small Rifle | Sportsman's Warehouse | $ 14.99 |
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CCI 0013 Standard Rifle No. 400 Small Rifle Primer 100 Per Box 10 Boxes Per Case Total 1000 | BattleHawk Armory | $ 349.50 $ 71.44 |
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Peterson 6mm Creedmoor - small rifle primer Bulk Box of 500 PCC6MMCSRP500 | EuroOptic.com | $ 468.50 |
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The Broader Geopolitical Context
China’s move to restrict the export of these materials comes at a time when global conflicts and military expenditures are rising. The U.S. increased military sales to foreign governments by 16% in 2023, and the war in Ukraine has placed further strain on the supply of defense materials. The United States is not alone in its reliance on Chinese imports; Europe, too, has felt the pressure. As Farnam highlighted, this situation poses a significant threat to ammunition availability, not just in the U.S. but worldwide.
China’s decision to block exports is part of its broader strategy to exert influence over global supply chains. With 32% of the world’s antimony reserves, China, along with Russia, controls over half of the global supply of this critical material. Other nations with reserves, such as Bolivia and Australia, have not developed the necessary refining and production infrastructure to fill the gap. While the U.S. has invested in finding alternative sources, including partnerships with Tajikistan, these efforts are not enough to offset the immediate loss of Chinese exports.
Recommendations: What Should Consumers Do?
As the supply of ammunition becomes more constrained, Farnam offers clear advice to both ammunition manufacturers and consumers:
“Stock-up now! Have ‘adequate’ supplies on-hand. Ammunition companies are under a lot of pressure, as we see, and it’s going to get worse!”
Farnam recommends that consumers secure their ammunition, powder, and primer needs now while supplies are still somewhat available. Although some lesser-known sources of materials exist, they cannot fully replace China’s dominant role in the supply chain. Additionally, the current global geopolitical climate suggests that supply chain disruptions could last well into the foreseeable future.
For ammunition manufacturers, diversifying supply chains is a critical next step. The United States must explore alternatives from countries like Tajikistan and Australia while investing in domestic production and recycling technologies. Initiatives like the reopening of the Stibnite Gold Mine in Idaho and increased investment in recycling antimony from lead-acid batteries are steps in the right direction, but these efforts will take years to yield results.
Conclusion
China’s export restrictions on nitrocellulose and antimony present a major challenge to the U.S. ammunition supply chain. As global conflicts continue to escalate and demand for defense materials rises, the U.S. finds itself increasingly vulnerable to supply chain disruptions. While efforts to secure alternative sources of these critical materials are underway, they will not be sufficient to meet immediate demand.
John Farnam’s recommendation that consumers stock up on ammunition now is timely and practical. With shortages on the horizon, securing adequate supplies is crucial to avoid future scarcity and price increases. The road ahead may be challenging, but with strategic planning and resource diversification, the U.S. can mitigate the worst effects of these disruptions.
Above all else, stay heavily armed, well regulated, and very dangerous.
Well, it’s our own damn fault for putting go much in China’s hands especially anything that we would use in our military from powder, primers and computer chips and more.
Vote Trump 2024, he will bring that production back home including anything else that would effect Americas security including the drugs that we need to survive.
Dumb asses voted for NAFTA
F clinton, Obummer, Obiden and Kamalatoe.
Alliant announced no more powder sales to the public two months ago; only to Vista Group members. They also cited nitrocellulose and China and Russia as the reason (two largest producers). They got theirs from EU countries who were not providing them with enough as they are using it for small arms ammo for Ukraine. Here’s the deal, nitrocellulose is most easily obtained from cotton. Seems to me that US cotton farmers need an incentive to produce more, why are we relying on foreign nations for products needed for our national defense? Also, having worked for a company that supports… Read more »
So, what’s the big “Duh!!” here? How long has the People’s Republic of China (PRC) moved aggressively to conquer the South China Sea? What about the PRC’s aggression against US allies in Asia and South Pacific? Or the very aggressive theft of defense secrets, industrial secrets, and acquisition of key industries, and critical resources? Under Xi the PRC has created monopoly ownership of essential materials for military equipment, ammunition, and ordinance, medical supplies, commerce, and the critical materials upon which our economy is based. The blame includes most elites in major US industry, leaders in our Federal government and most… Read more »
that is why the demoncrats went and took over the french loosing position in Indochina to get Chinese to talk to them so they could destroy the usa fdr was trying to make a deal with Hitler (socialist so was fdr) if japan had not attacked russia would be upper doitchland
See my comments above. Why are we depending upon an enemy for insulin, strategic metals and other critical materials? Answer is above.
I’ve been caching since the 80s 9mm, .223/5.56 .308, 30-30, .22 and 12 and 20 gauge. My Ol’Man always said you only need 2 things to survive when SHTF. Beans and bullets. Beans to eat and bullets to protect them and get more.
Yup. As much ammo as you plan to use target shooting for a year and at least 200 rounds of self defense ammo per caliber or gun you own. I have three mtm divided cases, one for pistols, rifles and shotguns.
Plus, as soon as Alliant announced no more private powder sales until further notice, I stocked up and started reloading two more calibers with different brand. One more set of dies and I can make all my own ammo except 22 WMR and 12 ga. Have about 7 yrs powder supply now.
Need more primers though
I stopped keeping track after the first 10,000. I would guess its somewhere around 3x that now. I unloaded some during the ammo shortage to close friends and team members.
Be sure your serious SHTF guns are in government calibers. Those fancy-schmansy caliber guns are gonna become fancy-schmansy clubs very quickly. Couple hundred rounds ain’t even a good half-ass howdy-doo meet up..
I have some boxes from the dcm, 3003 and 38 sw 3006 and .45 acp ,old as dirt shoots great, but clean the gun when you are done for the day
In evil, communist states like commiefornia, Wasgington-stan, Oregon -stan, Illinois, NY, NJ, Massachusetts, Delaware, where the far leftist politicians banned semi auto rifles,
a good second choice is rifles like the BLR in 358 Win.,
Henry magazine lever action,
the Savage model 99.
and Winchester model 95.
Another advantage of manual repeaters: they don’t choke on black powder. I would suggest having at least one lever gun chambered in a pre-smokeless era cartridge in your collection. We don’t really know how long this mess will last, or how bad it will get.
Yeah, I always thought if we ended up with only home made black powder ( during a shtf senerio ) to shoot rifles, think of black powder rifle cartridges like 38-55, 38-56, 40-65, 45-70, 45 long Colt, 50-110 Win. and others.
Like the massive 50-140 3 1/4 Sharps, firing a 750 grain bullet at 1500 fps!
Try using black powder in a AR-15, 223 Rem. It will be a single shot.
Too Bad they haven’t made most of those in decades apart from the New Henry Company guns. In todays new market there is the Henry, The Rossi, and the Ruger Lever actions Smith an Wesson has recently introduced thier new lever action as well but I would rely on the other 3 for decades of good service history.
I might add the 32-20 to the group that can use black powder. A good little cartridge one can go out and shoot and plink all day with. Don’t know why Winchester, Marlin and Henry can’t bring out a ” classic cartridge” for a one year run. Shooters and collectors would grab these up in a hurry. Winchester made several runs of the Model 95 in 30-06 and 270 Win., but the one that sold the best was the 405 Winchester. So there is a market out there. The model 95 was also chambered in American cartridges: 30-40 Krag 35… Read more »
Well, when SHTF, you’ll also need three more B’s……Bwater and Bshelter……and, of course, Bguns….in government calibers…. to shoot the bullets..
Everybody should exercise strict ammo discipline. Because like last time, expect available ammo to go the bluebacks again.
here we go again
Just another gift from Cadaver Joe and Hunter to Xi…
Maybe Tim Walz should make his 31 st trip to China to help???
what else is he going to give them the codes to disable our nukes
Likely already has them…
gift from bidumb or traitor milley
Clinton sold them away 23 years ago.
would not surprise me that he traded them for little boys
Didn’t they do that in the poor remake of “Red Dawn” from 2012?
The original ” Red Dawn” 1984 was the best. Always thought that the producers would make a sequel.
I read the movie companies copied “Red Dawn” in Australia and called it “Tomorrow when the war began”. Haven’t seen the movie yet but did read reviews on it.
did not see the remake
Dont waste your time. Its pretty awful
The laughing hyena and tampon Timmy sounds like a two bit comedy act in some dive bar!!
It is, starring 2 half-wits. Hopefully we’re not going to live it. If they get in office, by any means, the dive bar will be the whole country.
Lock and load, fun times coming to your neighborhood soon.
Yeah and and on this trip to China , tampon Timmy will bring his collection of tampons to show off to leaders in china
My father, a WWII veteran, always preached self-reliance in all things. It’s stupid to make oneself vulnerable. But our government and businesses do it anyway.
everyone that lived through the great depression believed in self reliance, ,not all of them taught this to their children, and their children and grandchildren are the giveme group they dont see the legacy of the greatest generation as protection against bad times, they just want to live for today
Unfortunately these generations have gotten use to having anything they want to be given to them. We now have generations of sheeple, they don’t know self reliance
Yeah, the kids today only seem to care about playing video games, going on social media and smoking pot.
Highlights the idiocy of the dims gifting the Taliban and Ukraine mega-stores of ammunition etc.
I doubt it was a gift, or incompetence. The first question that occurred to me during the Afghanistan pull-out was, how much were the Bidens paid for those weapons, and who paid them?
it is likely the truth, there was a lot of stuff shipped after the pullout was planed
Exactly!
If You believe that it was just idiocy but I do Not . They knew exactly what they were doing. You gotta remeber who has been really running things the last 4 yrs. There is a reason I always call him O’Biden
I recently learned that hemp produces more oxygen per acre than an equivalent in trees. Hemp matures at a tremendous rate compared to trees. Hemp being a cellulose plant would be a viable source of cellulose fiber. The problem, the scarcity nitrocellulose manufacturing plants. White River Energetics in Arkansas is a new primer manufacturing plant that is making a quality product equal to their competition which happens to be Federal/CCI/Remington and Winchester. Who knows what Vista Outdoors is going to do with their 2/3 monopoly of the US industry. I understand there is some resistance in Congress to selling this… Read more »
the progressives want to destroy what was built by conservatives.
Essentially what is obvious in retrospect is that the experiment with globalism was an abject failure. Sharing with Canada or the UK is one thing. Sharing with the DPRK is quite another. IOW, in the crunch, needing something critical that is controlled by your most bitter enemy sucks.
Exactly what trump has said and tried to get rolling when he had the office
time to start a company the collects wornout and discarded c100% cotton cloth and turns it into nitrocellulose, how many millions of tons do you think gets thrown out in the us every year
IMOA, any items used to make ammunition, or munitions are national security issues and never should be outsourced.
Globalists of the uniparty are responsible for the deconstruction of our domestic industrial base. Layer upon layer of self-imposed regulations along with corporate collusion with the Chinese Communist Party have brought us to nearly complete dependency upon a totalitarian enemy for critical industrial and medical components and materials. All of this was justified under the debunked theory that trade and resulting affluence in the People’s Republic of China would ‘liberalize’ a totalitarian regime. Can you imagine anyone saying the same about Hitler in 1939? Well, the MBA class along with the boneheads in our State Department fell hook, line and… Read more »
Many corporations closed factories in America, laying off thousands of employees during the kkklintons administration, and opening up in China and sending the same products back to America, making even more millions of dollars in profit for their ceo and board of directors .
Now China is opening up factories and office buildings in Central America and the Biden Harris administration could care less. China is bringing in troops for training in central American countries.
Doe’s anyone know of a store I could buy 8 lb of Retumbo? If we are going to have powder shortages and primer shortages again, it makes sense to me that if you can get the job done with a 5.56 it would be smarter to use that rather than a higher caliber that burns up more powder.
Bring back President Trump, he wants to bring production of everything especially critical components to protecting our county back to America because he is America First.
Trump 2024
Try Powder Valley, MidwayUSA, Mid South Shooters supply, Natchez Shooters Supply, or even American Reloading for an equivalent. That is a good short list
Thank you. The list you gave is the stores I normally shop from. I have tried the powders one above and below Retumbo but they just don’t act the same. Scheels has it but they will not ship it and not all stores have it. I even checked Sportsman’s Sportsman’s Warehouse, Cabela’s, Bass pro, Mid West, Christensen’s, mom and pop shops in Nampa and Boise Idaho and Oregon and more.
Thanks for your help.
This move by China is part of their plan to “retake” Tiawan. They know we are blowing through military stockpiles at record rates and that it will take us at least two years to start producing our own. Chinese plan is for us to deplete military supplies as well as private stockpiles. Then when (not if) they invade Tiawan, we will be powerless to oppose them – plenty of ships, subs and aircraft but no ammo to shoot at them, short of nukes. China correctly surmises that we won’t risk nuclear war over Tiawan – making their victory all but… Read more »
What a farce! This has happened because the powers-that-shouldn’t-be wanted it to happen. The U.S. has adequate reserves of antimony in Idaho, and unknown reserves in Alaska. And, when, exactly, did we stop growing cotton? We were once the world’s largest producer. This is all due to deliberate over-regulation. Dan Bongino is right; while the Republicans are probably not the solution, the Democrats are definitely the source of our problems.
Amazing how China supplies vital materials to the US and yet we constantly hear about WW3 with China. Makes no sense does it? Makes perfect sense when you understand our government and China are the same entity. Inconceivable? Think on it.
The cartels in Mexico purchase chemicals from China to make illegal drugs with
The cartels also purchase various military equipment from China like: AK-47’S, RPG’s, hand grenades, handguns, rocket launchers and land mines
China is opening up factories in Mexico now. There are thousands of Chinese government people in Mexico including soldiers.
Biden and Harris could care less.
The left has long been in bed with China. There is a reason they have spent 9 yrs trying to destroy Trump he is not and wants to empower American production and self sufficency
its an evil plan by the communists in government service!
Generally I want politics to leave businesses and citizens alone however, nitrocellulose and antimony are clearly critical for our national defense. We must use government power to encourage private entrepreneurs to reopen businesses to produce and obtain the materials we need.
The government can ease the permitting process and give tax breaks.
We opened up to China in the 70s to undermine their relationship with the Soviets but the pendulum has swung way too far. We must bring mining and manufacturing back to the United States to remain self sufficient.