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A Good Gene In The White House
Cowboy Mounted Shooting’s premier ammo maker earns a great living shooting blanks.
ENE WHITE GOT into mounted shooting in 1998, and immediately identified a problem: “At that time, there wasn’t a match where the ammo didn’t decide who won.”
So Gene—who’d been a leathermaker—decided to take on that challenge. White House Ammo was the result. And today, it’s one of the premier ammo suppliers for mounted shooting.
But it took a lot of time and effort to get there.
In ’99 and early 2000, Gene and his family went through a bunch of trial and error, using different powder granulations and configurations, looking for something that would consistently fire no matter the conditions. Hot or cold (Gene being from Nebraska knows about cold), wet or dry, the ammo had to fire.
Gene and company came up with the formula just about 10 years ago (and no, he’s not sharing his recipe). They continued to make improvements, moving from wadding to crimping of the cartridge. Then he and son Ty, who came on full time in 2002, took a flyer: mass production of the blanks, hoping that folks would then buy his product.
They did.
“The first year I loaded 40,000 rounds,” he remembers. “Halfway through that year, I knew it was going to work. The second year we did 100,000 and I knew we were doing it right.”
In 2009, White House loaded several hundred thousand pistol rounds. And the demand continues to increase.
Initially, Gene made pistol loads only. But within a couple of years, the business had expanded to meet the new demand—the Rifle Class (see White House Particulars for the specific products).
Meeting the need is a challenge. Suppliers provide White House with brass, primers and powder. Then White House uses a combination of machine and hand to put them all together. It’s time consuming, labor intensive, and requires a lot of patience. Throughout the process, manual inspections ensure that everything is being done right.
Gene says quality control is essential—especially in a time when one misfire could cost a rider a championship check and buckle. “As we’re loading, we’ll grab some rounds and go out and test fire them and check them out. It takes a tractor loader to pick up all the used brass from our testing.”
Ask Gene White about the hallmark of his business, and he’ll tell you it comes down to one thing: “The company is based on service, plain and simple. If there is ever a problem, we do whatever it takes to make things right.”
Even when his blanks aren’t the ones causing the problem. “In Douglas, Wyoming one year, the primers were bad. I didn’t make them. But we had to do something—so we gave away 35,000 to make sure the shoot went on.”
White House Ammo is a family business. Gene’s three kids help out in various ways. When you call to make an order, you’ll probably speak to his wife Shirley or son Ty. They make sure the order goes out within one day (“But don’t ask us to overnight them—federal laws keep explosives from being shipped by plane.”).
White House Ammo is entering its second decade of business. Gene says the challenges remain pretty much the same as they were in 2000: make a better and more consistent blank while keeping costs as low as possible. “We’re always looking for ways to keep the price down, so people can shoot more,” he says.
ONE TOUGH HOMBRE!
A couple of years ago, Gene’s left leg was amputated.
Then last year, the right leg was the problem. Gene had already gone through hip and knee replacement on the limb. He then proceeded to break the femur (the thigh bone) not once but twice within a couple of weeks.
Doctors had to go in and install a metal plate from his knee to his hip. As of this writing, Gene is undergoing therapy so he can get back to walking. His active mounted shooting career is on hold. But once he’s up and about, Gene plans to start traveling to shoots, and seeing old friends.
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