  We summarize recent efforts to develop an angular-momentum-conserving variant
of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group method into a practical truncation
strategy for large-scale shell model calculations of atomic nuclei. Following a
brief description of the key elements of the method, we report the results of
test calculations for $^{48}$Cr and $^{56}$Ni. In both cases we consider
nucleons limited to the 2p-1f shell and interacting via the KB3 interaction.
Both calculations produce a high level of agreement with the exact shell-model
results. Furthermore, and most importantly, the fraction of the complete space
required to achieve this high level of agreement goes down rapidly as the size
of the full space grows.
