We are only a few days out from Thanksgiving meaning we have nearly survived 2021. Once Halloween hits, it seems like all the holidays happen in rapid succession. It’s as if someone is going a feastive mag dump, and then suddenly January hits, and we get into the doldrums. Well, for the majority of the world it’s slow, but for the firearms industry, there is SHOT Show and other trade and consumer shows that tend to happen. If you are in the industry and are in the position to attend these shows, then January, February, and March all tend to be fairly busy months.
This past week I have been fairly busy which has kept me out of the reloading room. I am working on a few things behind the scenes and when I am ready to dive into them, I will make the appropriate announcement. Mainly I continue to pump out 45 ACP loaded with 4.5gn of Bullseye with a 170gr cast bullet. I’ll churn out this load until I run out of brass, bullets, primers, or powder.
As I mentioned last week ago I have been having some issues with the 338 Spectre that I build may go beyond just an ammo issue. I’ll be continuing that project in the near future. I wanted to share a picture of the brass. I have never seen brass crack like that and I suspect a good majority of handloaders have not seen this before either. I posted about the issue in CastBoolits.com several years ago and the consensus seemed to be that it may be due to the hardness of the brass. I suspect there is merit to that conclusion. Starline straight wall brass probably is not annealed at the case mouth like a bottleneck case is. So I am going to anneal the brass. Whether or not it solves the problem, I think at this point it is just best practice. The AMP Annealing machine will make short work of it, and it does a very consistent job of annealing the neck and shoulder.
We will be working through the 338 Spectre build between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hoping to solve each of the problems, and post the process on the site for those who might face similar issues.
I did take some time last week to do a product highlight. This is something that has been out for a little while, but it is a kit that my self and my coworkers helped put together. It is specific to the Redding T7 press. It is a fairly simple product that can really make a noticeable difference in the feel of the press, giving it a more polished and refined feel. You can read up on it here: The T7 Upgrade Kit
Last week we had a major bump in traffic to the website. The tools I have to track the hits to the page, and where they come from are pretty rudimentary. There seemed to be a lot of curiosity about the 5.7x28mm vs 4.6x30mm. The site hit 775 visitors in a 24hr period and 430+ were for that specific article. There is still a notable bump in traffic seven days after the initial. Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out if it was shared somewhere, or if another website linked back to it. I always like to go back to the source and thank them for sharing the piece, whether it is an individual or it is a group. Anyway, if anyone came across the page via a link in a forum, I would appreciate it if you shot me a quick email to jay@theballisticassistant.com.
Anyway, that’s what I have for this week. As always if you are looking to get in touch, the best way is to send me an email at jay@theballisticassistant.com. You may check us out on Parler, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. If you’d like to submit a load to our load database, the instructions are here.
As always, shoot straight and stay safe!
The Ballistic Assistant