Jane’s Intelligence Review, via Burmese (Myanmar) news website Irrawaddy, reports that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) rebels in northern Burma have begun manufacturing AK-47s and ammunition for themselves and to sell to their allies in the region. Burma (From [Read More…]
Winchester announced their second .22 LR “Hyper Velocity” round. The Xpediter round has similar performance to the new non-toxic Winchester SUPER-X .22 Long Rifle. It pushes a 32 grain lead hollow point bullet at 1,640 fps. The original Xpediter I am not [Read More…]
GunPundit stumbled across a photo at Marines.mil with a caption that suggests that some Marines are hunting ducks with 5.56mm NATO rounds and/or 5.56mm blanks. My take on it: They reckoned punt guns are pretty cool for duck hunting but rifle grenades (fired with a blank [Read More…]
It is lead free day here at The Firearm Blog*, this being the second lead-free ammo post! Winchester has announced a new line of lead-free ammunition. CCI currently manufactures lead free .22 Magnum called TNT GREEN but as far as I know Winchester are the first US [Read More…]
Lead free ammunition is becoming popular. Or at least popular with manufactures. Earlier this week Fiocchi announced the addition of .40 S&W to their range of SinterFire non-toxic (lead free) frangible. The product is aimed at the training market, especially law [Read More…]
Next year (2009) Winchester Ammunition will be will be introducing the Winchester Super-X Power Max Bonded and the Winchester Supreme Elite Bonded PDX1. From the Super-X Power Max bonded press release: Super-X® Power Max Bonded™ is specifically designed for the [Read More…]
Ballistics by the inch is an exhaustive ballistics experiment done by Jim Kasper, Jim Downey and Steve Meyer. We decided to test thirteen common pistol calibers, each over a range of barrel lengths from 18″ down to 2″, and each using a variety of ammunition [Read More…]
Fiocchi have announced new Super Match ammunition called Exacta Biathlon Match. What makes it interesting is that it is Standard Velocity (1,120 fps) which is unlike most match grade target .22LR ammunition which are usually Subsonic. No surprises … looks like a [Read More…]
Human Events has an interesting article about the use of Chinese armor-piercing bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan by insurgents. China’s robust arms industry has been able to duplicate U.S.-made, armor-piercing rounds, and the bullets are being found with the enemy [Read More…]
Gamo have released a new .117 pellet called the PBA ARMOR. The PBA stands for “Performance Ballistic Alloy” which is a non-lead alloy. The alloy used in these pellets is harder than the alloy used in the PBA/Raptor pellets, hence the name. New ARMOR [Read More…]
Ruger and Hornady have teamed up to produce the new .416 Ruger cartridge which will be available next year (2009). The round is basically a necked up .375 Ruger and offers performance comparable to the classic .416 Rigby in a standard length cartridge. The Ruger M77 [Read More…]
I saw over at Guns Holsters and Gear that Hornady will be selling a new line of ammunition next year (2009) that is specifically designed for civilian self defense and for use in common carry handguns. The line is called “Critical Defense” and will be [Read More…]
Time to buy gun shares? CNBC says NO, and so do I. While S&W (SWHC) sell a wide range of M&P branded AR-15s, Ruger (RGR) sells the Mini-14 / Mini-30 (and since recently high capacity Mini-14 magazines) and Olin Corp. (OLN, makers of Winchester branded ammo) is [Read More…]
Guns, Holsters and Gear has a table showing a comparison of ammunition prices over the past two years. The price increases are staggering. An extreme example is Wolf .223 55 gr FMJ which has gone from $2.48 in January 2007 to $7.97 this month (November 2008)! My [Read More…]
In May (2008) I blogged that Winchester were going to offer reduced recoil .460 S&W. features a 250-grain jacketed hollow point bullet, a muzzle velocity of 1,450 feet per second (fps) and an impressive 1,517 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. Muzzle energy is a function [Read More…]
6mmbr.com have just released an extensive cartridge guide covering the popular 7mm cartridges 7mm-08 Rem. .284 Winchester, 7mm WSM and 7mm SAUM. If you are thinking about any of these cartridges I highly recommend reading this guide.
Hold on the heels of the Remington .30 RAR announcement, sister company Marlin have announced the .338 Marlin Express. John Snow has the scoop: These bullets will use the same soft-tip technology that the other LeverEvolution cartridges employ and the result will be a [Read More…]
Remington, and sibling Bushmaster, have announced a new cartridge designed for the AR-15. The 30 Remington AR is a .30 caliber cartridge the length of a .223, allowing it to be chambered in AR-15s rather than AR-10 style rifles. John Snow has the details: The big [Read More…]
Scott emailed me with information about his new business called PayWithAmmo.com. It is an online marketplace/auction website for firearms and related products and services. The difference between it and other sites, such as gunbroker.com, is that all transactions are [Read More…]
James Yeager and associate put 1000 rounds, 68 magazines, through a Glock 19 in just under 14 minutes. 4 stoppages, some of which were attributed to bad ammo. The guide rod melted right off but it continued to function. Part 1 Part 2: Thanks to Jay for emailing me this [Read More…]
A while back I posted some photos of a 2 bore cartridge. While browsing the Nitro Express forum I came across this amazing photo of a 2 bore muzzleloader. All I can say is “Wow”. I wonder which end hits harder I read in another thread that this rifle was [Read More…]
The ACU’RZR is an interesting tool. You put a .22 Long Rifle cartridge into the ACU’RZR and give the “forming rod” a whack with a hammer and then take out your .22 cartridge with a newly shaped bullet. The idea behind the tool is threefold. It ensures [Read More…]
MD Arms have just started shipping their new 20 round drum magazines for the Siaga 12 shotgun. They cost $215 (+ $3 handling fee). It look like they have only made enough to satisfy pre-orders and are now taking pre-orders for the second batch. Tromix Custom with Md-20 [Read More…]
SayUncle blogged a video of this ulta-high capacity 150 round AR-15 compatible (STANAG) magazine: the Armatac Industries CL-MAG. The CL-MAG™ offers for the first time a reliable and efficient 150 rd magazine for the .223/5.56mm rifle. Designed to fit NATO standard [Read More…]
Brasscasing spotted .22LR tracers being sold at Cabela’s ($109.99 for 250). I had no idea these were made. I found a video of .22 Tracers being fired at flammable gas filled balloons: Looks like fun. If I had some where to shoot tracers and they came in smaller [Read More…]
We have a bunch of UK scientists to thank for inventing a way of trapping DNA on brass. The tiny tags – just 30 microns in diameter and invisible to the naked eye – are designed to be coated onto gun cartridges. They then attach themselves to the hands or gloves of [Read More…]
Aviation Week reports that last week the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Soldier, Brig. Gen. Mark Brown weighed in on the M4/.223 issue: “I don’t think we need an unhealthy, discordant debate over the current carbine because I don’t think the current [Read More…]
The 6.8x45mm is an alternative to the 6.8 SPC cartridge that has been getting a lot of attentio. Developed by Larry Kramer of Kramer Defense (They have no website that I could find). The parent cartridge is the .223 Remington / 5.56mm NATO. Its advantage over the 6.8 [Read More…]
If you have been following this blog you know the Chinese have been in the news recently. A Chinese ship carrying 3 million rounds of 7.62x39mm and 1500 RPG rounds destined for land locked Zimbabwe tried to offload in the South African port of Durban. Robert [Read More…]
I came across this chart showing over 260 powders form 15 different manufacturers. The chart of relative quickness of powders below is intended as a guideline only. Powders within three lines of one another are similar in relative quickness but cannot be directly [Read More…]
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