Original subtitles

I went to the University of Wyoming, and I've never been anywhere where I got

made fun of for going to Wyoming by everybody in Nebraska, and everybody in

Wyoming made fun of me for being from Nebraska.

You know, just because we're out here in the Midwest doesn't make us dumb.

I'll tell you what, I'd put our work ethic against any company in the world.

Our employees, they're independent, they work hard. You know, we don't deal with

the entitled crap, you know.

Out here, we do for ourselves.

You don't rely on the government or anybody else.

There was a guy one time, he said, where are you from? I said, I'm from

Nebraska. Never been there.

Never want to go. And I looked at him, I said, that's great, because we don't

want you.

And I might have had an expletive in there.

And he's like, huh?

We don't want Californians moving into Nebraska. We don't, we like it.

I had a boss one time, he said, if I hit the lottery, I'm going to buy Nebraska,

put a fence around it.

So what makes a good bullet or a bad bullet completely depends on the job of

bullet. Generally, you want consistency, though, because you're going to

continue to shoot and you want the same thing to happen every single time.

Hopefully that's the right thing. It's successful in its performance with the

job that you're trying to do, but it really depends on the job that you're

trying to do.

I'm loading up some test rounds.

Doing a dispersion test with three -weight Winchesters, so testing a couple

different propellants.

Like on the factory floor, we can load up each batch individually with each

powder that we're looking for and we don't have to switch the machine over or

anything like that. So right now I'm setting the cartridge overall length or

far the bullet is seated down into the cartridge case.

I start it out longer than I want it to be and then slowly work my way down

until I get to the desired length.

The research and development staff, if you want to call it that, is more so a

group of...

the entire cross -section of the company.

You have guys that work in production all day that are contributing to those

efforts. You know, that's not their main focus, but the fact that their main

focus plays into the aspects of research and development mean that they have

valuable input that you probably wouldn't get from those more regimented

gatherings that you have at a lot of the companies that are out there.

Who needs a great bullet? I would say everybody, depending on their

It may be, let's say you're doing plinking or volume target recreational

shooting. Greatness may come in the form of value.

Maybe you're stretching the extreme limits on ballistic performance and

shooting a target that you can barely see with the naked eye.

In that case, you need different levels of greatness. You need consistency and

efficiency and things like that. So I think everybody needs greatness. It's

defined differently based on what they're doing.

So over here is the 300 -meter range that we have. We do a lot of dispersion

testing and a little bit of short -range radar testing here.

Jayden was loading up some .308 ammo for us to do.

I've got my personal rifle here I use in TAC -class PRS matches just to get a

better idea of, you know, what stuff works for everybody and not just, you

what works out of one gun or one situation.

Right here we've got our Doppler radar.

So what this does, we use it to measure the drag of the bullet as it travels

through the air.

It does that by sending off a radio frequency, and what you end up getting

you get a line of that bullet from when it leaves the muzzle all the way until

it gets to the target.

What we do mostly here is dispersion testing. We'll shoot a bunch of

rifles. Whenever we make new bullets or new cartridges, all of those pretty much

get shot down at this range. So we try to do as much testing as possible before

it gets into the hands of the customers.

Right now we're doing a propellant test. So we're testing a certain bullet and

cartridge with a couple different propellants and seeing what the effect

is. And so we'll use information like that to maybe modify a bullet design or

maybe that will impact a factory ammo load that comes out, something along

lines.

Back in the day when I first started here, of course I had all kinds of

motorcycles. I worked for the cycle shop at part -time.

So I'd come in here and I'd go through the car parking lot, try to do

around through the parking lot, ride clear out into the dirt.

When I started having children, my wife and I couldn't really pack them on the

motorcycle anymore, so I pulled the motorcycles off.

And then years later when the kids started graduating from high school, Got

motorcycle, and I started working on it, and I brought the gas tank in here to

clean it up and do some work on it.

And that was back when I was in my 40s.

Now I'm in my 60s and still riding.

Spent a lot of time on the bike when I was younger, so it's just a comfortable

place for me to be. Free, it just gets my adventure mode revved

up. Makes me feel free.

I don't know, comfortable.

I just feel comfortable on a motorcycle, I guess.

It's good to be in America.

Free means that I can make my own decisions on what I do and how I do it

where I do it.

Well, as far as philosophy and life, I think your character is better

built by what you do and how you treat people.

Welcome to Hornaday West. This is where the magic happens out here.

At Hornaday West, we do all the assembly, packaging, inspection, and

our products.

As you can see here, we're in the receiving area right now.

These are all cartridge cases and components.

They're getting ready to be fed into the assembly process for production.

That's kind of the start of it. We have multiple trucks coming in daily to feed

both our pierce and priming operation as well as our ammo loading operation.

And that's pretty much a constant flow in and out of here.

I live the American dream every day by getting up knowing that in

my position, I help people.

A lot of my job isn't just making sure that all of the ammo that goes out the

door is 100 % perfect.

A lot of it is coming in and listening to your people.

This is one style of machine that we load ammo on, but we're running some

ammo right here.

The way the machine works, you see the cartridge cases feeding up through the

elevator into the hopper.

We've got multiple detects throughout this machine.

First thing we're doing is checking for the height of the case to make sure that

our head space is accurate.

And then throughout the process, we've got our powder feeding mechanism.

And then when the ammo is a finished product of ammo, we feed it into the

inspection and packaging process.

My favorite part of my day is interacting with the people.

That's kind of why you get into a leadership role is we really try to take

of our people here and give them the keys to success.

So we're constantly trying to interact and figure out how we can make things

better. And we get most of our good ideas and feedback from those people.

Okay. So as you can see on a lot of these, a lot of them are just dense.

And, yes, they're dense. They're not going to do anything, but they're not

level of quality that we want our consumers to get.

So anything like this is going to be pulled out and put to the side so our

customers do not receive that.

A lot of it is coming in and listening to your people and making sure that you

understand their needs.

They're not just a number. They are a part of your family.

I'm here with them as much as I'm at home.

So if I'm helping them be successful, not just in their work life and their

personal life, it gives me a lot of value in what I do.

I grew up in Grand Island, born here in 49, same year the company started.

Had a great lifestyle, I thought.

I remember how easy it was for my mother to dress us in the summertime because

it was a white t -shirt and blue jeans and that was it, you know. I think

growing up in Nebraska was a really wonderful time.

I think I had a pretty nice childhood, frankly.

If I had to describe my father in one word, smart.

You want some more words?

Oh, it drives me nuts he's so smart.

There's times when we're sitting in meetings and you look at him and go, how

you come up with that? How do you know?

I love it.

I've always loved it.

I've loved it since.

I was a little boy and I come in here. I don't have any operational

responsibility for what goes on here at all.

But I do think I see how our company can proceed and the

things that we can do to make it better. That's been my thing.

We can do this better.

to improve our lives here, make our company stronger, make our products

make our customers happier, make our employees more productive, make

get along better and be prosperous.

And I love it.

They're all doing the same job and they've been doing it all along.

They were all manufactured in the...

in the 30s before the war and during the war.

So is there some special emotional attachment?

No. It's a machine.

Not like your first straw.

Or when you conceive your first child.

It's not just that.

What do you want for your children?

What I want for my children is to be happy with life. I don't care what they

as long as they're having a good life and enjoying it and they're doing what

they want to do. What more could you ask for your children? I don't see this as

some sort of legacy, as something that has to exist into perpetuity.

We're a very small family.

My grandson is the last of the Hornady name, and I don't know whether...

He'll come here or my granddaughter will come here. Maybe they will, maybe they

won't. But again, what I want for them is to be happy.

They'll have a good life. Go find what you want to do and enjoy it.

If you're doing something that you love, it's never work.

What more could you ask for?

When my son was giving me a bad time today, he said, don't you ever have fun?

No, I don't, never.

But that's not true. But I find it hard to get out of here.

I don't like to leave.

What's the most important part of Hornady? It's the people.

I mean, I love these people.

I love working here. I love my job.

And I would just as soon hang out with them as I would anybody in the world.

There's not a box of bullets worth an employee missing a baseball game.

You know, we work to live, not live to work.

And we try to make it as fun as possible.

Why go to a job and be miserable?

Let's make this as fun as we possibly can.

But then they took a picture of me and put me on a dummy up on the front roof

right out here, like Santa riding a sleigh.

And, you know, there's plenty of times it was one of those dumb rednecks doing

out in Nebraska. I love being that guy. You know, we're dumb. We're in Nebraska.

But I also like being the guy who's the dumb redneck kind of kicking other

people's ass.

hey guys

do

whatever you want appreciate it

so that's my friend john b who is their fantastic customer their

local gun shop they carry lots of our stuff even though begrudgingly they

have some off -brand

crap. We try to listen as much as we can. And when you get answers or a lot

times it's aha moments. If John says something about, hey, this packaging

stinks, then we're going to go change it. And we're not going to change it for

next year.

We're going to try and change it for next week. And if it's not next week,

going to be next month.

That's something that's really hard for a lot of companies to do.

Because they have so many people in between whoever's collecting the

and whoever's making the decision, and they're worried about budget, and

worried about issues or somebody telling them no. Well, my dad might tell me no,

but I'm still probably going to go do it anyway.

I guarantee he goes and does stuff without talking to me. But, you know,

a dynamic that we have that other people don't.

It's part of the fun of being a family business.

John's in a family business. I'm pretty sure he does anything he wants around

here and doesn't ask very many people.

So, maybe.

How do you,

Jason, want to be, like, remembered?

He was fun to have in hunting camp.

Everybody's got their own hunting camp. It might be camping. It might be, you

know, Sturgis is going on. It might be the motorcycle rally. It might be

whatever it is, you know.

See, I don't know why that got to me.

But never really had anybody ask me.

Told my kids, we're not having a funeral when I die.

We're having a party.

I'd rather have people remember me as fun, hardworking, smart, cool, fun to

in a hunting camp.

It doesn't have anything to do with who shot the biggest deer or any of that.

The memories are from the campfire.

Started at Hornaday in 1983, about 40 years in.

Never really would have thought that I would have stayed in one place for 40

years, but my previous employer was a large corporation.

I mean, it was a very corporate, strict, rigid, shut up and do your job type

place. You know, worked there four years, got laid off, you know.

You know, they had a workforce of 1 ,100 people at the time.

And by the time they got done laying people off, they had a workforce of 650.

They didn't care who you were, how good you were at your job.

They don't care. If your hire date was between this window and this window,

you're out.

That's the way it was back in 1982.

In 1983, come to Hornady Manufacturing, and it's been great since.

Having that job, being able to save money.

Because you're actually making something you're not worried about whether or not

you're getting laid off.

And, you know, getting married, starting your family, having your kids, having

your kids grow up, having your kids go to college, move away, that kind of

thing. That's the American dream.

Having a chance of being successful.

But, you know, it's not going to be handed to you.

You've got to work for it.

I think I've done that.

It's just like anything else. If you give a half -hearted effort, you're

to have half -hearted results.

I remember telling Steve this when he was interviewing me.

I go, I want to get good at something, and then you won't want to lay me off.

And he hasn't yet. He's threatened to fire me a few times. We always joke

that.

But I think I've held up my end of that bargain. I've tried to get good at what

I'm doing.

Never have quit on it. You know, whatever gets thrown at me, okay, we're

to get this figured out.

And so far we have.

America, as most of us know it, is a place where you can walk down the street

without thinking twice about your safety.

You can travel across the country to somewhere you've never been and not

worry about your safety.

And in most parts of the world and through history, that's not quite the

and it's very easy to become complacent.

Hornady gets to have or the impact that they have is the continuation of

the Second Amendment in the United States.

It's true meaning and what it has done for freedom and

opportunity and things like that. I don't think it can be denied that if you

look historically, that's the bar on the door.

and the fact that Hornady does a lot to support the Second Amendment and the

company involved with the Second Amendment activities, I think that's the

biggest overall contribution.

Because if that goes away, history tells us a very, very bad story.

We have such a good thing in America.

It's the best economy. It's the most diverse. We have so much.

opportunity that really we should all shut up pinch ourselves and remind

ourselves how lucky we are there's no question america is the greatest

nation on earth we are the nation of the world that is the only one

on the planet the only one that will ever be the only one that could ever be

that's what america is i'm proud to be here