Union Metallic Cartridge Company – History

A Brief History

In 1854 Jacob Schuyler, Marcellus Hartley and Malcolm Graham began a partnership importing sporting goods from Europe and selling them in the U.S.A. By 1860 the partners had become the largest firearm dealers in America. When the civil war began in the U.S. in 1861 Hartley was appointed by the U.S. Government to purchase weapons for them in Europe. In 1865 Hartley returned to find his firm had prospered greatly over the war years and using this prosperity they expanded their business.

The American civil war had shown the effectiveness of breech-loading rifles and Hartley could see the possibilities in a metallic cartridge to use in them. Several companies had already tried unsuccessfully to develop, build and sell metallic cartridges but ultimately failed. Schuyler, Hartley, and Graham purchased patents relating to metallic cartridges and the businesses of Crittenden and Tibbals Manufacturing Company of South Coventry, and of C.D. Lett of Springfield. They moved these businesses to Bridgeport, Connecticut and in 1866 the Union Metallic Cartridge Company (UMC) was born.

At first, UMC made rimfire cartridges and shotguns before dropping their gun manufacturing to concentrate solely on ammunition. Much of their early success was due to the hiring of Alfred Hobbs, a mechanical genius. He invented much of the machinery used at the Bridgeport factory to mass produce reliable cartridges. The invention of practical primers for centerfire cartridges was developed in the late 1860s. UMC began selling centrefire cartridges in 1866 using Col. Hiriam Berdan’s patented primers. These proved quite popular overseas, particularly in the European countries. Their own Alfred Hobbs was awarded a centerfire primer patent in 1869 which he continued to improve upon for the next decade. His focus was on making primers that could be placed in the cartridge by machinery rather than hand-made as most were.

By the 1870s UMC was the largest U.S. ammunition producer followed by Winchester Repeating Arms who produced both firearms and ammunition. UMC would work with firearm producers by supplying experimental cartridges and then produce cartridges optimized for their weapons. This led to UMC always keeping ahead of the competition in ammunition design and manufacture.

The 1870s saw a rise in the use of shotguns and therefore a need for better ammunition for them. The original UMC shotshells were made only of brass but in 1873 the company bought from C.D. Wells of Springfield his equipment for hand-making paper shells. This equipment was redesigned to automate the process of making paper shotshells and they offered these in conjunction with the brass shotshells. Originally these shotshells were sold unloaded but in the 1880s, some lines were offered factory loaded.

In 1888, Hartley and Graham (Schuyler retired in 1876) in partnership with Winchester Repeating Arms bought at auction E. Remington and Sons for $200,000. They rebranded as the Remington Arms Company and they continued to produce firearms at the Ilion plant to complement UMC’s ammunition production at Bridgeport. UMC and Remington worked closely together, it made sense for a firearm manufacturer to work with the ammunition producers. One reason for the continued success of the Winchester company was that it offered its own ammunition for its firearms and profited from both.

With the death of Marcellus Hartley in 1902, Graham had passed in 1899, his grandson Marcellus Hartley Dodge became the owner of both Remington and UMC. He began to combine the two companies under the name Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Company, with the trademark ‘Remington UMC’. Catalogs and advertising slowly started to show both companies together. 1912 saw the formal public merger of both companies and advertising was released to inform the public of the merger. A booklet on the history of both companies released in 1912:
‘A new chapter in an old story: being an interesting account of the strange steps by which a great modern business has grown out of ancient conditions, together with a look into the future’.
The new company was incorporated in 1916 with Remington Arms being the owner of the old UMC shell company.

Mr. Orcutt the 2nd Vice-President of UMC in a speech to the UMC board in 1911, spoke of the size of the UMC plant at Bridgeport at that time. It consisted of 428 acres, 168 buildings with a floor space of 15 acres and all of it was overlooked by the 190ft shot tower built in 1909-10 for the production of lead pellets. On average nearly 5 million rounds were produced daily and 120 tons of lead converted into shot pellets.

Remington-UMC built ammunition plants in Windsor, Canada and Hoboken, New Jersey and Brimsdown, England in 1913. These plants were sent empty shells and cartridges from the main Remington-UMC plant at Bridgeport, loaded on-site and sold locally. In 1916 another ammunition plant was built in Swantin, New Jersey.

When war broke out in 1914 it was to Remington-UMC that many European countries turned to for firearms and ammunition. 1915 saw $168 million of orders come in, including a huge Russian order, and major extensions to the UMC plant and workforce. 2,200 men and women were employed at UMC’s Bridgeport plant in 1915 and by the war’s end, it would reach 11,000. A new Remington Arms rifle plant had been built next door to the UMC plant and by 1918 employed 9,000 workers. With the end of the war in 1918, two-thirds of the UMC Bridgeport plants workers were laid off. The Remington Arms Bridgeport rifle plant was sold off after WW1.

In the post-war years, Remington-UMC went back to producing ammunition for many different types of firearms. In 1933, during the great depression, DuPont purchased 60% of the Remington Arms company which included control of UMC. The major shareholders of UMC lodged an application for the termination of the UMC company in 1934. By 1937 UMC had ceased to exist, however, REM-UMC headstamps continue to be used by Remington to this day.

You can find examples of UMC shotshell headstamps here or Remington-UMC shotshell headstamps here.

Bibliography

A new chapter in an old story; New York, Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Co., 1912.

The American Small Arms Industry: 1870 To 1890, SMITH, W.P., Northwestern University 1966.

Minutes from the 1911 board meeting of UMC and other documents, http://cartridgecollectors.org/content/catalogs/U.M.C/0a-U.M.C.%20History.pdf accessed 31/03/19