Federal obligations in small arms ammunition manufacturing (NAICS 332992)

A manufacturing code, not a firearms retail NAICS

NAICS 332992 sits in fabricated metal product manufacturing. It covers plants that make ammunition for small arms. It does not, by itself, cover small-arms manufacturing (a neighboring 33299x line), sporting-goods retail, or ammunition wholesale. Searchers who collapse “guns and ammo” into one federal-spend number are mixing codes the Census keeps apart.

The $5,224,923,799.23 figure follows the NAICS on the contract action. A logistics award that ships ammunition under a wholesale or warehousing code will not sit in this row. A research-and-development contract tagged 5417 will not sit here either. SpendingVault reports the USAspending tag, not a reconstructed “munitions sector.”

2,151 awards and a concentrated obligation total

Two thousand one hundred fifty-one awards produced $5,224,923,799.23 in obligations. That is a modest action count next to medical-supply or wholesale codes that run to tens of thousands of lines. Ammunition production contracts can be large, multi-year vehicles; the packet does not name vehicle type. The table shows the tagged dollars and the award count, not a typical unit price.

Obligations change when agencies issue new awards, exercise options, or post modifications, including downward adjustments. Outlays are payments against those commitments and are not this $5,224,923,799.23 rollup. Treating the industry page as money already spent confuses a legal commitment with a Treasury disbursement.

USAspending NAICS versus other public files

Contract actions in USAspending.gov carry a NAICS chosen at award. Grants and other assistance frequently have no NAICS field, so a training or surplus program that involves ammunition may be invisible here. Parent IDIQs and orders can disagree on codes across modifications. This page is the contract-side 332992 rollup only.

The label is a Census industry code. It is not an FEC employer string such as “defense contractor,” not an ATF license roster, and not a SAM primary-NAICS directory of every ammunition plant. Campaign-finance pages that group donors by self-typed employer live on a different dataset. Cite USAspending.gov via SpendingVault for $5,224,923,799.23.

Reading the 332992 table without overclaiming

The industry hub lists recipients and awards that share this NAICS tag. A large obligation is a disclosed commitment. It is not a finding that a plant overproduced, that a round failed inspection, or that a small business was excluded. SpendingVault does not score safety or performance from the dollar total.

UEI changes, novations, and name collisions are ordinary. Use award identifiers on the table, not the $5,224,923,799.23 headline, to separate two companies. Subcontractors who load, pack, or test ammunition may be missing if the prime coded a different industry on the action.

Neighboring codes and the assistance gap

Small-arms manufacturing, ammunition wholesale, and explosives manufacturing (325920) are separate NAICS rows with their own obligation totals. Adding them to $5,224,923,799.23 would be a recode you must document; it is not this page’s figure. Open those industry pages from the all-industries index rather than treating 332992 as “all munitions.”

Because assistance awards may not carry NAICS, a grant that funds range construction or surplus disposal will not appear in the 2,151-award count. For mixed activity, open the recipient record and read contract and assistance views. This guide stays on contract NAICS 332992 from USAspending.gov. The $5,224,923,799.23 total does not include those uncoded assistance lines.

Modifications and how the $5.22 billion can move

USAspending contract files include modifications. An option exercise can raise obligations on an existing ammunition vehicle without creating a new award ID that a casual reader would count as a separate factory. A deobligation can cut the running $5,224,923,799.23 total when quantities drop or a line is cancelled. The 2,151-award count is a count of tagged actions in the aggregate, not a count of plants.

SpendingVault’s industry page is the NAICS rollup for 332992. It is not a production-volume table in rounds, not an ATF licensing census, and not an FEC donor cluster. Keep the dollar figure attached to USAspending.gov contract obligations. If you need agency-level buyers, open the industry hub and read awarding-agency rows rather than inventing a service share the packet does not publish. The 2,151-award count remains an action count, not a plant census. Keep $5,224,923,799.23 attached to USAspending.gov contract obligations tagged 332992. Neighboring munitions codes stay on their own pages.

Questions

How much has the federal government obligated under NAICS 332992?

USAspending.gov contract aggregates on SpendingVault show $5,224,923,799.23 in obligations across 2,151 awards tagged small arms ammunition manufacturing. The number is obligations, not outlays. Assistance awards without NAICS are omitted. It is not an FEC employer total and not a combined “guns and ammo” sector figure.

Does this include small-arms manufacturing or gun stores?

Census keeps small-arms manufacturing and retail on other NAICS lines. NAICS 332992 is ammunition manufacturing. A logistics or retail-coded award will not add to the $5,224,923,799.23 total even if ammunition is in the description. The 2,151 awards are the 332992 contract tag only, from USAspending.gov via SpendingVault.

Are these figures cash outlays?

No. They are obligations: legally binding commitments on contract actions. Outlays are payments and are not this $5,224,923,799.23 rollup. Modifications can change obligations without a same-day payment. SpendingVault cites USAspending.gov contract NAICS, not a Treasury outlay extract, for the 2,151 awards.

Why would an ammunition-related grant be missing?

Assistance awards often lack a NAICS code. A grant or cooperative agreement will not add to the 2,151 contract awards or the $5,224,923,799.23 total. Open recipient pages for mixed contract and assistance activity. This industry page reports only contract actions tagged 332992 in USAspending.gov.