Forget MP Materials. One of These Mining Stocks Is Up 274% and Has $354 Million in Pentagon Contracts. The Other Controls the Largest Rare Earth Deposit Outside China

MP Materials (NYSE:MP) keeps stealing the rare earth spotlight on the back of its Pentagon equity stake and Apple offtake hype, and that is exactly the problem.

The MP trade is crowded, late, and priced for a perfect execution that does not yet exist on its income statement. By the time a name lands in every brokerage push notification, the supply chain reshoring premium has already been baked into the multiple. The retirement investor who wants real asymmetric exposure to the same Western critical minerals tailwind has two better options sitting one tier below in market cap, with sharper revenue acceleration and an equally direct line to U.S. defense dollars.

UAMY: Triple-Digit Revenue Growth With Pentagon Contracts in Hand

United States Antimony (NYSE:UAMY) carries a market cap of roughly $1.72 billion and operates the only integrated antimony mining-to-smelting chain outside China and Russia. Three points make the case.

First, the revenue trajectory dwarfs the rare earth incumbents. Fiscal 2025 revenue came in at $39,257,708, up 163% year over year, with Q4 revenue of $13,030,629 nearly tripling the prior year quarter. CEO Gary Evans is guiding to $125 million in 2026 gross revenue, a step function MP Materials cannot replicate at its size.

Second, the contracts are signed and funded. UAMY locked in a five-year sole-source IDIQ contract with the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency valued up to $245 million, a $107 million commercial supply agreement with a U.S. industrial fabric manufacturer, and another $27 million in Defense Production Act funding for Montana refining and Alaskan mining expansion. That is roughly $354 million in new antimony contracts backstopping a company guiding to nine figures of revenue.

Third, the Street is still catching up. B. Riley analyst Nick Giles raised his target to $13 in April on increased feedstock procurement, and HC Wainwright moved to $11.50. Consensus sits at $12.67 with four buy ratings and zero sells. Shares are up 274.14% over the past year, yet institutional ownership is only 55.25%, leaving room for the slower money to arrive.

CRML: Optionality on the Largest Heavy Rare Earth Deposit Outside China

Critical Metals (NASDAQ:CRML) is the asymmetric option play in the same theme. The company now controls 92.5% of the Tanbreez project in southern Greenland, described as one of the world’s largest undeveloped heavy rare earth deposits, after Greenland’s government approved the ownership transfer on April 17, 2026. Independent metallurgical testing returned rare earth recovery rates above 85% at an ore grade of 2.96% Total Rare Earth Oxides, and the U.S. EXIM Bank issued a letter of intent for $120 million in development support.

CRML is pre-revenue, the auditors flagged going concern, and management is in transition. The market already knows. Shares still ran 690.68% over the past year because the asset is genuine and Washington is forcing capital into Western rare earth supply at almost any cost. The mid-2026 pilot plant launch and the June 2026 exploitation and closure plan acceptance are the next dated catalysts on the calendar, and the recently announced $835 million all-stock acquisition of European Lithium consolidates 100% of Tanbreez once it closes.

For investors looking past the MP Materials hype cycle, UAMY and CRML offer the next tier of Western critical minerals exposure worth researching.