GOEX Returns | Q&A with Estes Energetics CEO Karl Kulling

As previously reported, on September 8, 2023, the first shipment of newly produced GOEX Blackpowder since Estes Energetics purchased the brand is available to muzzleloading enthusiasts. Around 1,800 lbs of 2F, 3F, and 4F “regular” GOEX made its way to the NMLRA National Championships in Friendship Indiana.

In conjunction with the delivery, GOEX representatives were in attendance at the NMLRA National Championships from September 9-11 to answer questions, meet with muzzleloading enthusiasts, and learn more about the growing community of blackpowder shooters.

I was able to sit down with the GOEX representatives on Saturday, September 9 to ask some of the questions of the muzzleloading community.

What changes have been made with GOEX under Estes Energetics?

“We worked for a long time before purchasing GOEX, weeks in advance to make sure everything was aligned before the deal was closed”, Kulling said. “The day after the deal closed, we started work in Louisiana.” Karl and the Estes team brought back principal GOEX staff and began working to assess problems after the June 2021 explosion and what it would take to bring the plant online as fast as possible. Much of this rebuild was detailed in a Wall Street Journal Article published in spring 2023.

Estes Energetics CEO Karl Kulling mentioned three pillars to the mission of GOEX under Estes Energetics; Safety, Quality, and Efficiency. In regards to safety, Karl mentioned the state-of-the-art fire suppression system that has been added to the Louisiana facility. It’s no secret that the GOEX brand has had it’s share of issues with fires in its 100+ year history. “The new suppression system uses infrared and optical sensors to detect fire”, Karl said, “And drops an incredible amount of water in a very targeted area to supress any fire or explosion.” But safety is more than fire suppression, according to Kulling, safety starts with the staff. With nearly double the staff than were previously employed with GOEX, Estes dedicated much of their pre-production time to safety instruction and education.

A new position was added to the roster under Estes, one of the first new hires was a dedicated Quality Manager, focused on the quality of the product from start to finish.

A quality manager is responsible for the conditions of a company’s services and products. This role has a wide reach in any business because it ensures that standards are met throughout all processes of the company, from customer relations to manufacturing processes and everything in between. Typically, a quality manager is expected to provide instruction regarding company policies, standards, processes and practices. A quality manager ensures that all employees follow company guidelines in their various roles. Source

Have there been any changes to the formula for GOEX Blackpowder?

“Our goal from the start was to make the same powder.”, Kulling shared, “New production GOEX is about as chemically similar to old production GOEX as you can get. It’s even made with the same elements on the same machines.” He went on to note that some of the parts of the machines had been repaired or replaced, but the GOEX team was proud of how similar the new powder was to the brand’s old powder. It’s worth noting that during the NMLRA National Championships 2023, several champion shooters were already trying the new production powder and reported no difference in it’s performance compared to older GOEX.

Some shooters have said “ It was fast, consistent, and clean. Absolutely no complaints here. It shoots as clean as Old Eyensford and performance is close to the same.” Another said the 3F granules looked a little smaller than the old GOEX 3F.

There are concerns about involvement with the Government from much of the community, could you speak to their involvement in GOEX?

According to representatives from GOEX and Estes Energetics, much of the US Government's involvement with the GOEX blackpowder plant comes by way of the “Defense Production Act”, specifically “Title 3” of the Defense Production Act. In short, Title 1 outlines that a manufacturer must meet a production timeline, and Title 3 allocates funds to invest in critical domestic production.

The DPA Title III Program for the Department of Defense is dedicated to ensuring the timely availability of essential domestic industrial resources to support national defense and homeland security requirements now and in the future. The program works in partnership with the uniformed services, other government agencies, and industry to identify areas where critical industrial capacity is lagging or non-existent. Once a need is identified, the program engages with U.S. and Canadian companies to mitigate these risks using grants, purchase commitments, loans, or loan guarantees. By executing its mission, the DPA Title III Program reduces the nation’s reliance on foreign supply chains, ensures the integrity of materials supplied to the American Warfighter, and helps create a resilient, robust, and secure defense industrial base.

Title 3 was explained to me as funding with the goal of making production viable. In the case of the GOEX Blackpowder Plant, the taxpayer money invested was not invested to babysit the GOEX Plant, but to speed up the repair process. “Title 3 is a “cost share”, the DOD retains partial ownership of select pieces of equipment, but the plant is not federally owned.”

As our discussion related to Government involvemnt continued, Karl and I were able to get into some of the reasons why the DoD is so interested in the GOEX Plant. Production and manufacturing in the defense space was at an all time high during the Cold War. As the Cold War ended, we retained large stores of military materials and componenets to make those materials. With those stores, production began to slow. With several ongoing contemporary conflicts, there is a great interest in increasing DoD related production and creating it in an ultra-domestic supply chain, “All the way back to the mines”, said Kulling.

Aligning with this way of thinking, Estes Energetics recently passed a “lab scale” test and will be moving forward with their own Potassium Nitrate manufacturing facility right here in the United States. All the raw materials to produce Potassium Nitrate for GOEX blackpowder will be US sourced, all the way to the mines themselves. We all saw the complications with the global supply chain from 2019-2022 and some of the effects are still being felt today. I find it very interesting that even though Estes Energetics is a fairly new company, they are quick to take lessons from the past and work to prevent similar issues from happening to their production.

Karl went on to say that the desire for a domestic supply chain for these materials would spread to other parts of the business but couldn’t elaborate further until some more items solidified. He did note however, that he has given several presentations on the topic of domestic supply chains that can be found online.

“Everyone wants blackpowder, but no one wants blackpowder production in their back yard.” said Kulling. He went on to mention that the Minden plant was already the perfect location for production, everything was in it’s place, it just needed repaird and brought online. Both the State Government of Lousiana and the Federal Government had a vested interest in getting the plant online, there aren’t many production facilities like the GOEX Minden plant around the country, and building one from scratch would be incredibly expensive. Kulling didn’t detail how much money Estes Energetics had invested in the plant on it’s own, but said it was “A lot of money.”

How do government blackpowder orders affect the ability to produce for the sporting market?

Kulling mentioned that the military orders are obviously a big part of the business, but with the GOEX production capacity, they aren’t difficult to fullfill. Kulling could not speak to the details of military orders, but did share two key pieces of information for us. The first being that military orders are “Quick to produce”, according to Kulling the military orders involve a smaller range of granulations of powder than the consumer market, which typically needs 5-6 granulations to satisfy shooters. The second key piece of information was that there is a plethora of publically available information available related to the military orders. “Just this week 2 large orders of 155mm Artiliery rounds were approved and publically announced.” For those interested, browsing news related to military spending in the US and EU can give you detailed information on these production trends.

Does GOEX have the production capacity to supply military demand AND the consumer market?

Seemingly since the beginning of muzzleloading, the rumor has been that the military can and will buy ALL the blackpowder production to satisfy it’s needs. I wanted to get Karl’s opinion on this matter and see how he sees the two customer bases working under Estes Energetics.

“Military production is obviously very important to us”, he said, “When the military submits an order, they don’t dictate what priority that order takes in our production, but they do set a deadline. We have to hit that delivery date, but we choose where the production fits in with our facility”

When will GOEX Old Eynsford Return?

“The Olde Eynsford question came up a lot at NMLRA. Realistically, we’re looking at first quarter of next year.:

You’ve worked a lot over the last year with the NMLRA, does GOEX plan supporting more parts of the community?

“Absolutely. Our #1 priority right now is filling orders and shipping powder, but we have plans in the very near future to be more active in the community.” Karl and Anita went on to describe some ideas that aren’t solidified just yet, but mentioned they would be launching a “Sponsorship Application” for organizers, clubs, and shooters in the very near future. I pressed a little on the timeline for this and GOEX shared they’d like to launch in 2024, but it was dependent on several things lining up.

Correction: An earlier version of the article noted the most recent explosion was in June 2020, but the explosion happened in 2021. The article has been updated to reflect this.