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Horn stayed on as president, and that same year the company purchased American Eagle. Olin decided to purchase majority stock in the company. The efforts worked, and by 1925 Federal was so successful that Franklin W. To combat this, Horn wrote letters and traveled across the country to barbershops, general stores and to dentist and doctor offices encouraging the owners to sell Federal shotshells in their business. Olin, had secured all trade channels and made it impossible for Horn to sell his product. Larger brands like Western Cartridge Company, owned by Franklin W. With shotshell production under way, Federal began to turn a profit, but there was one great hurdle the company would have to overcome if it were to be successful: finding a place to sell its ammo. Haller proved to be a major asset, not only overseeing production but also designing and fixing broken machines (some of which were broken by Horn himself who, with no experience but an eagerness to help, worked in the factory until his employees kindly but sternly asked him to stop before he destroyed every machine in the facility). The brand name was changed to Federal Cartridge Company, and Horn began renovating the business and hiring more employees to begin shotshell production, initially offering three shotshell loads that included its Dixie blackpowder load and Standard and Ranger “long brass” smokeless powder shotshells. Horn’s first step toward rebuilding Federal was to hire the former plant manager, John Haller, who was the last employee remaining at Federal Cartridge and Machine. Horn believed with proper management Federal could turn a profit, so instead of buying BB tubes he chose to purchase the entire company from T.W. Heralded in the Anoka Union newspaper as a “massive factory” where “all kinds of cartridges will be made” when it opened in 1916, the shuddered Federal factory hadn’t produced a fraction of the 175,000 shotshells a week that they were scheduled to manufacture.
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Horn arrived to find Federal in disarray. He came upon the Federal Cartridge and Machine Company in nearby Anoka, which had opened in 1916, and thought with the brand’s background in paper shotshell production it might be able to produce the tubes he needed. Horn worked at the American Ball Company at the time, and he wanted to begin selling air rifle shot but hadn’t found a company that could produce the tubes that he designed. In 1922, a Minneapolis businessman named Charles Horn was searching for a company to produce paper containers to hold BB shot.
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