This State Leads the Midwest in Firearm Manufacturing

Guns and Hunting

Aerial view of the Illinois State Capitol dome and Springfield skyline under a dramatic sunset. Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County

Published: October 4, 2024 10:36 am

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The United States is the largest consumer market for firearms in the world, and to meet demand, there are thousands of federally licensed gunmakers across the 50 states.
Due to the presence of a handful of companies, more firearms are manufactured in Illinois than in most other states.
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Home to less than 5% of the global population and more than 45% of the world’s civilian owned firearms, the U.S. has a gun culture like nowhere else on Earth. The United States is also the only country where guns outnumber people — and demand from American consumers is fueling a multi-billion dollar industry. (Here is a look at the best-selling firearms in the United States.)

As of 2023, the arms and ammunition industry generated more than $90 billion in economic output, according to the industry trade association National Shooting Sports Foundation. Foundational to America’s arms and ammunition industry are the more than 3,700 active gunmakers that were operating in the U.S. in 2022, the most recent year of available data. Records from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives show that these manufacturers produced nearly 13.4 million firearms that same year.

While there are gunmakers operating in each of the 50 states, Illinois stands out as a hub for small-arms manufacturing. A reported 607,716 firearms were made in Illinois in 2022, the eighth most among the 50 states, and equal to about 4.5% of all domestic firearm production that year.

Rifles accounted for the largest share of firearm production in Illinois at about 51.6%. Meanwhile, approximately 42.8% of firearms manufactured in the state were pistols, and less than 1% were shotguns and revolvers. Miscellaneous firearms, an ATF category that includes any other unclassified firearm or firearm component, including frames and receivers, accounted for 5.6% of Illinois’s total output in 2022.

While there were 39 federally licensed gunmakers operating in Illinois in 2022, the state’s firearm industry is dominated by just a small handful of companies. Only nine manufacturing facilities in the state produced at least 200 firearms in 2022. Largest among them by total output is a plant in Geneseo, IL, operated by Springfield. Springfield manufactured a reported 562,466 firearms in this plant alone in 2022, or about 92.6% of all firearms produced in the state that year. (Here is a look at the largest firearm company in every state.)

Illinois’s firearm industry has a meaningful economic impact. Both directly and indirectly, arms and ammunition generated $4.2 billion in output and supported an estimated 15,212 jobs in 2023, according to the NSSF. Additionally, through property, sales, and income taxes, the state and federal government collected a combined $531.1 million in revenue from Illinois’s arms and ammunition industry.

These are the leading firearm manufacturers in Illinois. It is important to note that this list is a ranking of federally licensed production facilities, and as a result, a company can appear more than once. Similarly, some brands on this list may be manufacturing firearms within the same facility as another, but are listed separately. Gunmakers who are federally licensed under their first and last name, rather than a company or brand name, were excluded from this list.

Why It Matters

The United States is the world’s largest consumer market for firearms, and partially as a result, there are thousands of federally licensed gunmakers across the 50 states. Due to the presence of a small handful of companies, most notably Springfield, more guns are manufactured in Illinois than nearly anywhere else in the country.