Winchester Opens New Ammo Plant in Oxford, MS

Gov. Haley Barbour and executives from ammunition-maker Winchester held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting this week  for a new plant in Oxford, MS that will add 1,000 workers, the Commercial Appeal reports.

 Winchester, a subsidiary of Clayton, MO-based Olin Corp., already has more than 300 employees working at its Oxford operation, where it produces rifle and pistol ammunition as well as operating a military-ammunition packaging operation. The new $100 million plant should increase total Winchester jobs in Oxford to about 1,300 by 2016, company officials and Barbour said.

Barbour said Olin executives were so pleased with how things were working out in Oxford that they decided to move the centerfire operations from East Alton, IL to Oxford. “Guns and ammunition. Now that’s my kind of business,” Barbour told a gathering inside the new plant, according to the report in the Appeal.

Winchester sealed the deal after it was approved by union workers, including members of the International Association of Machinists in at East Alton.

Winchester is one of two business segments of Olin Corp. The company’s other division is Chlor Alkali Products, which makes chlorine and caustic soda, sodium hydrosulfide and hydrochloric acid, among other products.