Creedmoor Sports has been manufacturing a wide variety of products for the firearms community for more than 35 years, and now they’re also manufacturing ammunition. Their ammo line thus far includes pistol calibers in .38 Special, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .357 [Read More…]
Earlier this year, Winchester Ammunition officially announced the addition of two new calibers to its line of predator hunting ammunition. The Varmint X line will now include the .17 Hornet and .22 Hornet cartridges. Both of these lightweight loads are moving at very [Read More…]
Allegiance Ammunition manufactures ammunition meant specifically to fulfill high-performance needs. They describe a successful high-performance self-defense or hunting round as being able to “achieve adequate penetration to reach vital organs [and] expand or [Read More…]
On the heels of the 7.62x40mm WT, we are now going to take a look at another former wildcat based on the 5.56mm case, the .25-45 Sharps, a round I’ve discussed before. This .25 caliber round existed for years as the .25-223, a niche quarterbore caliber used mostly [Read More…]
Like the .300 AAC Blackout that we discussed earlier, the 7.62×40 Wilson Tactical was intended to be a medium-performance .30 caliber cartridge that would function in standard AR-15 type rifles with minimal modifications, such as a barrel change. Also like the .300 [Read More…]
One of the most ballistically interesting intermediate calibers ever developed is the 6.5 Grendel, developed by Arne Brennan with the assistance of Bill Alexander, and promoted heavily by the latter’s company, Alexander Arms. The 6.5 Grendel is interesting because [Read More…]
I’ve written quite a lot about the ballistics one of the first Western competitors to 5.56mm in the new millenium previously, and you can read that by following the link here. The 6.8x43mm Remington SPC was developed in the early 2000s by MSG Steve Holland and [Read More…]
Perhaps the oldest rival of the 5.56mm round is its older brother in the intermediate cartridge world, the 7.62x39mm round developed by the Soviets in the late 1940s from their earlier 7.62×41 M43 cartridge. The 7.62x39mm, despite its age, has maintained a very [Read More…]
“Nathaniel’s starting another series? Oh brother…” Bear with me. I think that there is a lot of rhetoric thrown around with regards to modern defensive/military calibers that exists apart from the necessary additional data and context of the [Read More…]
Federal Premium Ammunition (aka Federal) announced a new product offering was now shipping. Called the HST Practice & Defend Combo Packs, these boxes contain both HST self defense rounds and American Eagle FMJ loads. HST is the company’s premium brand of self [Read More…]
We have been covering the US Army’s latest M855A1 and M80A1 “Enhanced Performance Rounds” (EPRs) here at TFB for the past few years. We’ve seen how in independent tests both M855A1 and M80A1 fragment early, thanks to their yaw-independent [Read More…]
Winchester Ammunition’s Super X line is one of the most recognized brands in the ammo world, and the company continues to develop and expand the offerings sold in the line. This year the company added two new 28 gauge loads to the line. Both of the new loads are [Read More…]
One of the common questions seen in hunting groups on social media is some variation on asking what caliber is best for X animal. It pops up everywhere and instantly results in dozens of opinions, all backed by the commenter’s claim of extensive knowledge and [Read More…]
Winchester Ammunition expanded its broad line of shotshells with the addition of the Varmint X load. Winchester uses the Varmint X name with a number of centerfire loads, but this year’s introduction is the first shotshell offering. Winchester developed a liquid [Read More…]
It just might be the unsung hero of the ammunition world: frangible rounds. Of course, it also seems to be widely misunderstood, not to mention underused. And while there aren’t a lot of companies out there manufacturing quality frangible rounds, there are a few. [Read More…]
What if there was a caliber that was suitable for everything from coyote to brown bear, kicked less than your whitetail gun, fit in a micro-length (2.25″/58mm) action, and cost a quarter a round to shoot? That would be a pretty awesome caliber, wouldn’t [Read More…]
I mentioned that I am on a quest, right? I’d like to be able to shoot one-hole groups at 100 yards – quietly. Ok, I’ll settle for 0.5 MOA at 50-100 yards. But before I start talking about my equipment and ammunition deficiencies, let me be clear: I [Read More…]
G2 Research announced a new .308 Winchester load in the company’s Trident line. The new load uses a 150 grain solid copper hollow point bullet that the company claims will offer rapid expansion and deep penetration. According to G2 Research, the load will: [Read More…]
Previously, we looked at the incredible damage and penetration caused by the US Army’s new M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR), thanks to a video published by William of the Wound Channel. What happens, though, when that kind of performance is scaled up to .30 [Read More…]
In 1946 a man by the name of John Nosler went on a particularly frustrating moose hunt. Nosler had made an accurate killing shot on a moose using his .300 H&H, then watched as the animal failed to go down. Due to the events of that hunt he decided the gun industry [Read More…]
Earlier this month, I posted an article about new 9mm cases that are being introduced by Shell Shock Technologies. The cases use a number of different approaches to manufacturing with the most obvious being the two piece construction. There were a number of questions [Read More…]
This subject has come up in my comments recently, and I thought I would explore it in a post proper. To adopt the 6.5 Grendel (or, as we’ll see, something like it), the US Army would need to develop and procure new complete upper receivers, magazines, buffers, and [Read More…]
A trend towards ever more powerful and longer-ranged ammunition was cut short by the realities of the First World War: Technologies not previously invented or accounted for, such as the man-reaping machine gun and the portable infantry mortar, made the existing infantry [Read More…]
The paradigm was established by the 1870s: Future infantry combat would focus on a combination of entrenchment, and long-range concentrated fire from well-drilled units to defeat the enemy beyond his own effective range. The arms race for a smaller-caliber, [Read More…]
Almost four decades before the invention of smokeless powder, the advent of the Minié ball bullet made practical the standard infantry rifle, and with it the elongated projectile. This changed the fundamental physics of infantry weapon ammunition design, allowing [Read More…]
On my recent article “Ballistics 101: What Is Ballistic Coefficient?”, commenter Anthony asked for clarification on some points: Thanks for the info, but I don’t feel I know what ballistic coefficient is after reading the article. You state, “A [Read More…]
One thing that seems apparent from the ARDEC presentation on the CTSAS program is the excessive capability and weight of the 6.5mm CT ammunition, as well as its use of lead-cored projectiles as opposed to more modern (and less dense) EPR-type projectiles. Further, the [Read More…]
Recently, I wrote an editorial regarding the LSAT/CTSAS team’s NDIA presentation on their 6.5mm cased telescoped carbine and machine gun concepts. There was a lot to say about the history of Army programs and the pitfalls facing that team, but today I want to get [Read More…]
In years only recently past it was all about caliber. Not to say caliber does not remain important today, because it most certainly does, but simply to say ballistics have come a long way. A round that was once seen as insignificant – at least in some circles [Read More…]
Sig Sauer has been planning a move of their Elite Performance Ammunition plant for quite some time. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission first released the news on May 4th of Sig Sauer‘s intentions. Their current Elite Performance Ammunition plant is [Read More…]
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