Sierra began in 1947 in a California Quonset hut. The Second World War had just ended, shooting was growing at an unprecedented rate and quality ammunition was scarce: shooters were discovering reloading as the answer. Frank Snow, Jim Spivey and Loren Harbor founded the company to fill that gap. Martin Hull, a competition shooter, soon joined and ran the ballistic laboratory for almost twenty years.

In 1990 the factory moved from Santa Fe Springs, California, to Sedalia, Missouri. There it built what remains its signature: a 300-metre underground firing tunnel, described by the company as the world’s longest privately owned underground test range. It is used daily: rifle bullets are evaluated at 200 yards and handgun bullets at 50, and an entire lot is rejected if it does not produce the expected group.

The rest of the process is equally measured. Jackets use gilding metal —95% copper and 5% zinc—, with nineteen strip widths and an alloy Olin Brass makes exclusively for Sierra. Weight tolerance is ±0.3 grains; jacket concentricity runs from 0.0000″ to 0.0003″ on competition bullets and to 0.0006″ on hunting bullets. Final visual inspection covers 100%.

What Sierra does not make says as much as what it does: no loaded ammunition, powder or cases. “Hunting and competition bullets for rifles and handguns are all we manufacture”, the company writes. Everything arriving here is therefore a reloading component, without exception.