Month: January 2020

Good Monday Morning!

Lots of exciting news coming out of SHOT Show this week. I am working on a write up going over some of the highlights, that pertain to ammunition manufacturing, and industry developments.

Last week posted a write up that I had been wanting to do since the launch of the website. Ways to Measure Pressure, presented is a general overview of how pressure is measured in the industry, including the equipment used, a some of the pros and cons to each method.

Ways to Measure Pressure

Being able to accurately measure pressure and velocity in a controlled manner really sets a company apart. With that said it can be a large investment depending on how the testing is done. It can seem a rather complex task to a new comer, hopefully this breaks it down to something that be easily understood.

For the most part I have slowed down posting to try and get at least one article posted per week. This gives me more time to work on projects, and then to do the write ups on those projects. If you have questions, suggestions or comments please shoot me an email at jayandrew338@gmail.com. You can also check us out on Facebook.

Thanks!

The Ballistic Assistant.

Good Monday Morning!

This week is the kick off for 2020 SHOT Show. This is a yearly industry Show held by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). It is closed to public, you have to have a media pass, or be a company that is involved in firearm industry to be able to attend. Having been to SHOT, I can tell you it is huge, and it is very busy.

Many companies wait until SHOT show to announce new products. We are of course excited to see what new cartridges, bullets and powder are announced. We’ll be paying attention this week and hope to give information to you on these new products. If you want to learn more about SHOT Show click here.

This past week has been busy working on various projects. We did take some time to put together a write up on a Basic IFAK kit. This was done at a request of a reader, wanting to know what to carry that goes beyond just a basic First Aid Kit. As a EMT, I offered my thoughts on what I think should be included in a IFAK to treat incidents that may happen at the range.

Individual First Aid Kits (IFAK)

Measuring pressure, and velocity are two of the core metrics that ballisticians use to determine the viability of a cartridge. The equipment to do this is fairly expensive. Someday I hope to make that investment. Over the Christmas break I brainstormed ways to do present the concepts of pressure and velocity on my shoe string budget. The solution I came up with brought me back to my roots and what got me started in this field. Potato Cannons.

What Started It All: Spud Guns

I debated about kicking that project off with everything else I got going on, but when I looked at my project planning, I realized most of my time is spent ordering parts and getting the money together to get these projects in motion. This is a small project that is budget friendly that I can work on while I’m waiting to move the other projects forward. I realize people may discount the idea of using a Spud Gun as a firearm analog, but when you get into the details, all of the basics are there. The pressures and velocities are lower, but the mechanics are near identical.

That is all for the update this week. We’ll have a few new articles drop this week, so stay tuned. If you have questions, suggestions or comments email me at jayandrew338@gmail.com, or check us out on Facebook.

Have a Good Week!

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Morning! This past week has been quite busy catching up from the long break. As such there I was only able to finish and publish one write up to the site.

I hope this write up serves as a good introduction to the ins and outs of the modern metallic cartridge case.

The Modern Cartridge Case

Next week is 2020 SHOT Show! I’m excited to read the press releases and see what’s new in the industry, specifically new reloading equipment, and reloading powders! Any new powders announce will be added to the Burn Rate Chart. So expect to see an updated chart in the coming weeks. If there is any powders that you would like information on, or need to be added to the Burn Rate Chart please reach out to me. I’ll do the research and get them added in the appropriate spot.

Thanks for subscribing, and as always, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to email me at jayandrew338@gmail.com or check us out on Facebook.

Have an Awesome Week!

The Ballistic Assistant.

Happy New Year! This is the first update of 2020!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break. I certainly did. I took the time to work on some planning for the website, project planning, and visiting with family. Hopefully there will be some new and exciting content for this upcoming year.

2020 SHOT Show is right around the corner and there has already been some interesting new developments with new cartridges being rumored. As details emerge we will be sure to take a closer look.

In the meantime we did do a few site updates prior to leaving for the break. Most of the work has been centered on the Photogrammetry Drone. We worked through the initial CAD modeling of the Drone and then started using some basic Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), offered by Solidworks to begin to see how the drone will glide through the air. You can read the write up on this at the link below.

Photogrammetry Drone: CAD Modeling

We also go the official go ahead to do an initial parts order for the drone. So here is the parts we’re going with and an explanation as to why I decided to go with these parts. The write up can be found at the link below.

Photogrammetry Drone: Initial Parts Ordering

In the next few weeks we will have several write ups on more fundamentals of cartridges, their design and their manufacture. With Sig Sauers announcement of the 277 Sig Fury, it will be important to understand the strengths and weakness of existing cartridge technology before we can appreciate what Sig is trying to accomplish here. Hopefully it will be adopted by SAAMI soon so we can have an industry standard spec, if not we may need to go to CIP.

As always if you have questions, concerns or general feedback you are more then welcome to reach out to me directly at jayandrew338@gmail.com or to check out our Facebook page, The Ballistic Assistant.

Thanks for being a subscriber!

The Ballistic Assistant