According to local development officials, DSE plans to show off its new facility during an open house planned for next month.

Bob Gall, manager of DSE’s Gaffney facility, said in August the company had begun interviewing potential employees and hoped to begin hiring up to 25 workers by mid to late September. That number could double by early 2010 and increase to 75 within a year. Nearly all the employees will work on the production line, Gall said.

Pending federal government approval, that production line could be operational this month, Gall had said.

The Florida-based manufacturer is spending $25 million to convert the former National Textiles plant on Hwy. 329 into an ammunition manufacturing facility for the U.S. military.

The company bought the property in 2007.

The plant will produce small grenades slightly larger than a shotgun shell.

Soldiers fire the ammunition from grenade launchers mounted atop vehicles or in machine gun versions carried by infantry soldiers.

The ammunition manufactured in Gaffney will initially be used by the military as training rounds, company officials have said.