Meet Steve Hornady

By Joe Arterburn

Steve Hornady dismisses the notion he has been a pioneer in the ammunition-manufacturing industry, even though decades of innovations indicate otherwise.

“I don’t feel I’m something special,” Hornady said. “I think I have done things that are the right things to do, and if that ends up being a benefit to shooters and hunters, great.”

Hornady points to his father, company founder Joyce Hornady, and other post-World War II ammunition manufacturers as the true pioneers in ammunition reloading and manufacturing.

Asked if his father was a pioneer, Hornady said, “At the time, I would have told you no, but today I would tell you yes. He had this vision and if you had put [that vision] in front of the Harvard Business School and asked, ‘Here’s an idea for a business, what do you think of it? I’m going to start a business building bullets for people who want to handload ammunition because they are coming home from the war, and they are going to want to shoot.’ I don’t think anyone would have thought that business would go over, but it was the right thing at the right time.”