#Federal

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We shoot Federal 9mm 135gr Hydrashok Deep ammunition from a Glock Model 22 with a 4.5″ LWD 9mm conversion barrel into Clearballistics ballistic gel to measure velocity, penetration, expansion/fragmentation, and retained weight.

Federal Premium is always looking for new categories, calibers or cartridges to provide shooters with more ammunition. Not every new introduction has to be a reinvention of the wheel though. Sometimes just keeping up with what’s hot can be a difficult enough task by itself. What’s hot right now is absolutely 6.5 Creedmoor, the darling caliber for long-range shooters; .224 Valkyrie, which has screamed onto the scene as fast as the cartridge itself; and .223 Remington which may never fall out of favor because of the popularity of modern sporting rifles. All of these calibers are given some love through the American Eagle line-up of ammo with some new grain weight offerings.

When Federal Premium announced their 3rd Degree turkey loads it put much of the ammunition industry on alert. The idea of putting 3 different shot sizes into one shell sounded like a garbage idea, literally.

Federal Premium recently went back to the drawing board to see if they could improve upon a time-tested standard for handgun defense loads. After extensive testing and some minor, meaningful changes they have developed the Hydra-Shok Deep defense load; an improved variant of the staple Hydra-Shok round.

In today’s episode, we follow Miles to Shot Show 2018 Media Day at the Range and visit the Lewis Machine and Tool (LMT) booth.

Not only do these look like rounds that Early Cuyler would be “prouder ‘n hell” to shoot with, they will leave one’s firearm and range unsullied by lead fouling.  CCI’s 22 Long Rifle Patriot Pack is a 300-round box of coated .22lr’s with red, white and blue coating.  CCI continues to build on their polymer coated .22lr line.  Relatively new,  TFB’s own Hryachya H has previously reported on these rounds’ introduction as a Christmas-themed pack. I have shot many polymer coated bullets, and while there is sometimes a few flakes of polymer here or there left in the firearm, there is a marked decrease in lead fouling.  This author has personally previously only seen these bullets in centerfire rounds.  Being that .22lr’s are often subjected to very high volumes of fire and can incur nasty lead fouling as a result, this author is excited to see these new rounds and will be sure to give them a try.  It will be interesting to see how clean these really do run.

What did we see at Range Day? Valkyries, Valkyries everywhere. Federal’s pint-sized long distance runner has already outstripped the market purchase of its direct competitors in the high performance AR-15 market, testified to by the sheer number of .224 Valkyrie rifles peppered across the booths and stalls of Range Day ’18.

The original Hydrashok was impressive for its time, but falls a little short compared to modern JHP. Federal has released an updated version called Hydrashok Deep.

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Federal Premium has tweaked the secret sauce on their recipe for Syntech ammunition to better suit competition shooters. They have paired up with the USPSA to design Syntech Action Pistol. This flavor of ammunition employs a Total Synthetic Jacket (TSJ) bullet in more reliable grain weights for knocking down steel targets. It also has a flat point to the TSJ as opposed to the traditional conical or round tip found on standard Full-Metal Jacket (FMJ) rounds.

Those eagerly awaiting the market for the new .224 Valkyrie round have something to celebrate. Gunmaker JP Enterprises recently announced that they are now offering three different barrels for the new cartridge, in 20″ light, 20″ medium, and 22″ medium contours. All three barrels use the somewhat unusual “extra long” gas system, which is two inches longer than the standard “rifle length” gas system normally used with 20″ barrels. The longer gas system coupled with large diameter port settings reportedly increase dwell time while reducing the port pressure. More details on the barrels are available via a review from Recoil.

Ammunition maker Federal Premium recently released its full bundle of press info on their new .224 Valkyrie round, coming on the heels of teasers released at Big 3 East. The .224 Valkyrie is a high performance .22 caliber round for the AR-15, which uses heavy, low drag bullets to dramatically improve the long range performance of the platform versus the .223 Remington and other rounds. This is the same principle that has been used in rounds like the .260 Remington and 6.5 Grendel for years, now finally applied to a factory .22 caliber round.

I must admit that like many other Americans, I am preferential to heavy-grain, hard hitting cartridges. I also am enamored to lever-actions for hunting tough, thick skinned animals at ranges inside 200 yards and bear defense while hiking (and yes, James, I do reach for the bear spray first).  I have previously shot .500 S&W magnum through revolvers, but I’ve always felt that the cartridge does not achieve its full potential in a practical length revolver barrel.  Big Horn Armory of Cody, Wyoming has the solution to that issue with their Model 89 Spikedriver.  Built from the ground up with a custom action based on the Winchester 1892 but upsized to between the 1892 and 1886, the Model 89 SpikeDriver is made from 100% CNC machined parts, using mostly 17-4 (SAE type 630) stainless steel.  I’ve had an interest in trying out the Spikedriver Series of rifles from Big Horn Armory for some time.  Thanks to our editor Phil for reaching out to the good people at Big Horn Armory, I got the opportunity to not only test out a Model 89 Carbine, but a new, rarely seen model of theirs:  The Model 89 Spikedriver “Scout” Carbine with skeletonized stock and forend.