Month: September 2020

Well this past week has been a crazy one but with some good developments.

First off, I know most hunting seasons have either started or are starting. So I wish everyone a safe and bountiful hunt. I know many people who’ve been using this social distancing and isolation as an excuse to develop new hunting loads. I look forward to hearing how they performed in the field.

Secondly, the big firearms news of the week is Remington companies being sold off as part of the bankruptcy. When it comes to ammunition, the most interesting news is Remington Ammunition being acquired by Vista Outdoors, and Barnes Bullets being acquired by Sierra Bullets. Since I’ve been somewhat close to the fire on both organizations, I am curious to see how this affects both companies long term.

Barnes Bullets is most well known for their TSX and TTSX line of copper solid bullets. To my knowledge Sierra Bullets never came out with a copper solid, further more Sierra does not manufacture it’s own ammunition. Barnes Bullets does both. While Barnes used Sierra bullets in a few of it’s loads, it more often used the Match Burner bullets. It will be interesting to see if Sierra allows the Match Burner to continue as it directly competes with Sierra Match King line of bullets. I’m not saying they’ll kill the brand any time soon, but I’ve seen it happen before.

One of the bummer things to come out of this for Barnes is that it looks like they had bid to be their own company. Basically purchasing themselves from Remington, I’m not sure if it was to be an employee owned, but I do know that many Barnes employees had wanted to be employee owned business.

The purchase of Remington Ammunition by ATK can only be a good thing for the company. I’ve been to the Lonoke Arkansas facility a few times. Much of the equipment has been rebuilt many times over, and the plant is in need of an manufacturing update. Remington had attempted to do this, but had only updated their 9mm manufacturing line, and it was not without it’s own issues.

The last bit of news is the progress I’ve made on the garage. Ever bit closer, honestly I feel bad not devoting more time to the website, but in a way getting that taken care of will allow me to produce the content that I’ve been wanting to all along. So bare with me a bit longer and we’ll get things sorted.

Of course there is the impending Supreme Court battle, but I’ll stay out of that…

If you’d like to submit a load to the database, download the form here. Regardless of what I am doing when I receive the email, I will review the entry and will add it to the database right away. No new loads this week, but there will be some soon.

As always you can reach me at jayandrew338@gmail.com. I enjoy the emails and feedback I receive and will always respond as best I can. Alternatively you can follow us on Facebook, or Instagram to see what we are up to.

Stay Safe Out There!

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Evening!

I have been working diligently to get my garage converted over to a handloading and bullet making workspace. This involves a lot of unpacking, organizing, and sorting through boxes of tools, components, and miscellaneous junk. I have posted pictures of the progress on the websites Instagram page.

Much of the time I would normally spend on the website, or it’s associated projects, has been spent trying to get things set up. Admittedly I am somewhat slow as I can be particular about how my tools are organized. For this reason I have not made much progress on some of the CAD work I was working on earlier. We’ll come back around to that soon enough.

In the meantime I’ve been working on a workbench for the new space. I’ve contemplated purchasing one ready made, but I also enjoy building these types of things even if I’m not much of a wood worker. I’ve been working through the design on Solid Works.

It really doesn’t take much of a bench to reload on. Actually you don’t need a bench at all. I’ve mounted my Lee Classic press on the top of a 4×4 post with a makeshift base. I’ve also repurposed some inexpensive desks. For the most part the forces required for loading are low, and while you can certainty break apart a flimsy desk I found its usually sufficient for reloading.

Swaging is another story. The large +70lb press needs a sturdy workbench to support it. While most of the forces of swaging are contained within the press, you have a longer lever and can stress a bench more then a standard reloading press, especially when drawing down jackets. Still, the bench as designed, is likely overkill. I’m still working through it, and given that I plan it to be a free standing bench, I.E not attached to the wall I’m reluctant to put a backing on it.

For those who are interested in the drone project, there has not been much of an update on that for sometime. However I got my hands on an Aeromao Talon. This was purchased by the company I am working for to conduct aerial surveying and mapping. There has been some issues, and it uses the Mission Planner software. I do plan on doing a write up detailing my impressions of this more budget fix wing mapping solution. The package we bought was still $15k, but it is not the $25k the Ebee mapping solution was.

That is pretty much all I have for this week. As I work to get the garage set up for reloading I’ll continue to post updates on the Instagram page. If you’d like to join the discussion you can check out our Facebook page. Of course if you have comments, questions, or suggestions please feel free to email me at jayandrew338@gmail.com.

We do not have any updates to the load database this week, if you have an entry you’d like to submit please fill out the submission form located here.

As always, Stay Safe and Have Fun!

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Evening,

I’ll start off by saying there was no updates over the past two weeks. I’ve been quite busy unpacking, organizing tool boxes, cleaning up the work space in an effort to settle into the new place. Last week was Labor Day and we spent much of the holiday in South Eastern Utah admiring the landscape there. As such I did not send out an update letter.

Of course the world moves along despite me taking a vacation. Industry news of note, Remington is reportedly selling some of it’s companies including Barnes Bullets, which is located in Mona, Utah. Barnes Bullets is most well know for introducing the TSX and TTSX copper monolithic bullets which expand and nearly always retain 100% of it’s weight. Barnes was the crown jewel of Remington’s Ammunition business. When Barnes was acquired by Remington, it was largely left alone, which is likely the primary reason quality never suffered. Unfortunately this was not true of other companies that Remington acquired.

Western Powders announced a recall which I have included below.

Recalls are expensive, when I was working in the industry, a recall announcement cost the company on average of $1 Million dollars. So if Western is announcing a recall there is probably a good reason for it. Check you lot numbers if you use this power. I will likely be working on a catalog of reloading component recalls in the near future. This recall and many others will be posted there.

One last interesting piece of news I ran across today. The military apparently shot down a cruise missile with at 155mm Howitzer. Of course pictures of a salty old Sergeant calling out Kentucky windage immediately comes to mind, but that is quickly overshadowed by the many variables and complexity of the math required to pull off such a shot with any sort of repeatability.

The reported velocity of the round was Mach 5 or roughly 5,750fps. the rounds are hyper velocity projectiles which are light weight and are guided, I.E capable of making course corrections mid flight. Of course I want more details, like chamber pressure, and barrel life. Those are not forth coming.

The maximum theoretical velocity of a bullet is ~6,000fps. So 5,750fps is approaching what can be realistically achieved with the current generation chemical propellants. It is something of a remarkable feat in marksmanship, even if it’s a computer doing the work.

That is it for the updates this week. I do not have any updates to the Load Database this week. If you do some testing and want to share the results, download the submission form and email them to me at jayandrew338@gmail.com. If you’d like to see my progress on unpacking my garage and setting up my workspace, go to our Instagram page. If you want to join the conversation, you can always check us out on Facebook.

Thanks a bunch for Subscribing and Stay Safe Out there!

The Ballistic Assistant