RCBS is back—and it’s better than ever! I recently spoke with Joel Hodgdon about RCBS returning under ownership of Hodgdon Powder Company.

Today, Steve Koch gives me a tour of RCBS in Oroville, California! 

Disclaimer

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Full Facilities Tour

The RCBS factory is split into four zones.

The office area and front lobby compose zone one. Zone two is shipping. Milling happens in zone three while zone four contains all die manufacturing and Swiss machines.

Zone one is the original 1960 building and is open to the public.

Anyone can buy from the small retail store and Steve explained that customers walk in everyday with warranty issues. (RCBS stands behind all of their products and is well known for their warranty!)

A hall adorned with historic RCBS photos leads to a larger area including a call center and workspace for warranty claims. 

All products, both direct-to-consumer and to distributors, pass through zone two, shipping. 

Zone three was built in the late 1970s and has several uses.

Most products are assembled and packaged in zone three.

Cast iron pieces like the RCBS Rock Chucker bodies are milled and painted here. RCBS does all of their powder coating and black oxide internally!

Part of the building serves as storage.

There are also some mills and robotic machines for Weaver and RCBS parts manufacturing. 

Component parts, shell holders, press parts, die parts, dies and more are made in zone four.

Raw materials are transformed via a number of machines including lathes, grinders, and a robot.

All tools, including drills and die tooling,  are cataloged and stored in the tool crib until employees check out what they need. RCBS makes a number of these tools in house, including all die tooling.

The computer system also keeps track of items that are low in inventory and automatically puts in a new purchase order as needed.  Making their own tooling allows RCBS to control the outcome of a product start to finish.

They can develop new die tooling over a few days for new product on the shelves in just a few weeks! This is a significant advantage and capability. Die production itself has its own area within zone four with five machines. 

To further encourage innovation, RCBS has a machine modeling shop for prototyping, making custom fixtures, and more. This shop houses primarily manual machines as well as a mill. Zone four continues with 11 Swiss machines for component parts and a heat treat furnace. 

Conclusion

It was wonderful to tour RCBS and see where everything is made. Stay tuned for more coming from RCBS!

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Thanks,
Gavin Gear