Following the announcement of the company’s plans to construct a second facility in Liberty, South Carolina, FN America, LLC, U.S. subsidiary of FN Herstal, S.A., a global firearms manufacturer, is pleased to share that an $18 million expansion of its Columbia, South Carolina facility will occur later this year with an expected completion in the first half of 2024.

This plan will add more than 40,000-square-feet of manufacturing capacity and office space as well as create a Design Center of Excellence geared toward enhancing the company’s research and development for new products. The expansion will add 102 new positions to the company’s existing workforce and will allow the company to meet the ever-increasing demand for FN products.

“The record growth that our company has had these last several years has enabled us to invest in our South Carolina manufacturing footprint with our soon-to-be new facility in Liberty and now the expansion of our Columbia facility,” said Mark Cherpes, President and CEO for FN America, LLC. “We were established in Richland County more than 40 years ago to manufacture small arms for the U.S. Army, and we are proud to expand our capacity to support that sector of our business.”

For more than 40 years, FN’s production facility has been located in Richland County, South Carolina and has produced more than 1 million small arms under contract to the U.S. Department of Defense. The company was originally established in the United States in 1979 and opened its doors in 1981 to produce the M240 medium machine gun, a variant of the FN MAG-58, under contract to the U.S. Army.

Currently, FN America employs more than 600 individuals to produce firearms, accessories and other adjacent products for the U.S. military, law enforcement agencies as well as authorized retailers. The company has produced the M4A1, M16A4, M249 light machine gun, M240 medium machine gun and FN SCAR under contract for the U.S. military as well as the FN 509 striker-fired pistol line used by U.S. law enforcement agencies like the Los Angeles Police Department and individual officers nationwide.

To view or apply to any open positions, please visit FN America’s careers site at https://careers.fnamerica.com/.