Today, March 8th, 2021 is an exciting excuse to go over one of the most popular and widely used cartridges in North America. The .308 Winchester cartridge designed all the way back in 1952. This admirable 30 caliber cartridge is a regular choice whether it is used for medium- to big-game hunting or even a cartridge variation found in a NATO group’s backstock of ammunition. Regardless of how you may feel about the established .308 Winchester today, we at The Firearm Blog thought it would be an excellent reason to shed some light on the history and some facts about the good old .308 Winchester cartridge. Happy 308 Day, everyone! Let’s dive right in!

Thirty-five years after it was invented, the 5.7x28mm caliber is now standardized by NATO. The new standardization comes after the 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm calibers, which were both designed by FN Herstal, and standardized by NATO in 1957 and 1981 respectively. Two other NATO calibers are the 9x19mm NATO and the 12.7x99mm NATO. The main use for the 5.7x28mm is for handguns and Personal Defense Weapons (PDW) like the FN P90.

Over the past couple of months, the Ukrainian  MAYAK arms plant has been quite active on their social media pages publishing information on a variety of new and prototype firearms. Last week we talked about their KalashNash rifle, an AK variant that has a barrel change feature. Today, we’ll take a look at another new firearm designed by this company – a single-shot bolt-action anti-materiel rifle called Horizon’s Lord (Володар Обрію, volodar obriyu). The cartridge this rifle is chambered in is also new. It is a .50 caliber cartridge called 12.7x114HL (HL presumably stands for Horizon’s Lord) created by necking down the  14.5x114mm case. Let’s take a closer look.

Hot on the heels of 32-grain CuRx bullets  release, Cutting Edge has announced the addition of heavier 42 and 50-grain projectiles to this line of machined solid copper .22LR bullets. These bullets are designed primarily for rimfire competition shooters to allow them to squeeze the maximum performance from the humble .22LR. The .22LR cartridge uses heeled bullets that have a stepped-down tail to fit the case, that’s why standard .224 caliber bullets can’t be used in this cartridge. Let’s take a closer look at the new CuRx bullets.

Winchester has released two new loads in the 6.5 PRC cartridge that continues to gain popularity in both the hunting and precision shooting disciplines. The cartridge has become so popular that companies like Ruger, Springfield Armory, and Mossberg have created rifles specific to that caliber – mostly for hunters it seems. However, Winchester is offering their best to more than just hunters with these two new loads with the addition of a 142 grain AccuBond projectile for hunters as well as a 140 Match grade BTHP projectile for the budding competitor who shoots 6.5 PRC.

A week or so ago SIG Sauer dropped their 2021 catalog, with a few new gems including new Elite series pistols a new entry to the TREAD line of rifles and SIG’s 277 Fury ammunition. Let’s take a look!

Today, February 23rd, 2021 is an exciting excuse to go over one of the most popular and even disputed cartridges in North America. The .223 Remington cartridge designed all the way back in 1957. This lovable 22 caliber cartridge is a regular mainstay whether it is used for varmint hunting like coyotes to prairie dogs or even a valuable asset in a prepper’s back stock of ammunition. Regardless of how you may feel about the distinguished .223 Remington today, we at The Firearm Blog thought it would be an excellent reason to shed some light on the history and some facts about the good old .223 Remington. Happy 223 Day, everyone! Let’s dive right in!

Spotted on Page 87 of SIG Sauer’s recently released 2021 product catalog is the new 300 HAM’R cartridge. The 300 HAM’R only recently was accepted by SAAMI back in February of last year (2020) and has been considered to have better terminal performance than 300 Blackouts by many hunters. Based on the lone image in the catalog, it seems that we will soon be getting two different 300 HAM’R soft point loads.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of  The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is a celebration and exploration of everything rimfire firearm related. We are all probably feeling the squeeze when it comes to the ammunition shortage. Even as rimfire shooters our ammunition has not only become scarce but has also skyrocketed in price leaving many plinkers looking for alternative ammunition that they otherwise wouldn’t pay any attention to. I recently came across a video on YouTube by Buffalo’s Outdoors that explores a relatively obscure .22LR ammunition for the American market – Vostok .22 Long Rifle Standard. Today we’ll go over what I’ve found out about this ammunition as well as what Buffalo Outdoors had to say about it.

During my recent evaluations of various thermal front attachments, I shot some .300 Winchester Magnum from various bolt-action rifles. If you have a rifle chambered in this caliber, or thinking about getting one, there are now three new choices from Lapua. There are two new hunting cartridges and one focused for  long range accuracy. For instance, the Lapua soft-point Mega bullet weighs 12,0 gram / 185 grain,  which makes it very suitable for big game hunters. The Naturalis is a lead-free option, as it’s made out of copper.

Nammo Vihtavuori Oy – a company most reloaders know about but almost no one can pronounce. They have now launched their new rifle powder called N568, with an aim to attract long-range shooters and hunters. The Vihtavuori N568 is said to be insensitive to humidity changes and exceptionally consistent regardless of the temperature, important features for any reloader.

SBR’s and PSB stabilized AR Pistols are handy for sure.  Their shorter OAL makes them a great candidate for a lightweight and compact defensive firearm, especially as a suppressor host.  Short barrels chambered in 5.56 have one major…shortcoming. The velocity and resultant lethality loss due to the reduction of barrel length.  Hornady has some relatively new ammunition to remedy this shortcoming, however:  Hornady Black HD SBR 75gr.

Federal has landed a new contract with the Department of Justice (DOJ) – Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The contract will run for 5 years and is described as a multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity for Federal’s 5.56mm NATO Service and Training, Reduced-Lead Ammunition. I just wish I could afford similar contracts for my training.

I know a lot of competitors who reload and use the 73 grain .223 Rem Berger Bullets for windy conditions when they really want to be sure to hit distant targets with Alpha hits, or a hit at all. Now there are few more options from Berger with their new .223 Remington 73 Grain Boat Tail Target and the 77 Grain OTM Tactical cartridges.

Remember our backpack magazine dispenser post from a while back? Well here’s another magazine for your magazines, this time around it’s from the folks over at Mag Storage Solutions. They have a cool giant wall-mounted Pez dispenser for AR-15 magazines that they are debuting at SHOT Show 2021 On Demand.

For 2021, Browning Ammunition has a new personal defense handgun ammunition line dubbed X-Point Defense. This ammo is offered in the most popular pistol calibers – .380 Auto, 9mm, .40 S&W, .45 Auto and 10mm Auto. Let’s take a closer look.

Winchester is expanding their Silvertip defensive ammunition line, which used to be only a handgun ammunition brand, to also include centerfire rifle and rimfire categories. The company has released three Silvertip rifle cartridges (.223 Remington, .300 Blackout and .308 Winchester) and one Silvertip .22 LR load. Let’s take a look at the features and specs of new Winchester Silvertip cartridges.

Winchester has expanded their Defender line of ammunition by introducing a new 5.56x45mm load, 20 and 12 gauge buckshot loads and by adding the .350 Legend cartridge to this defensive ammo family. Let’s take a quick look at each of the new Winchester Defender ammunition offerings.

Winchester Ammunition has announced the release of a new defensive handgun ammunition line called  USA Ready Defense. Compared to the USA Ready training and practice ammunition that uses flat nose FMJ bullets, the USA Ready Defense ammo is loaded with jacketed hollow-point projectiles that have a design similar to the bullets used in Winchester Ranger One LE ammunition.

It was roughly one month ago that TFB broke the news that several companies were working on getting new cartridges approved by SAAMI – the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc. Two of those cartridges the general public was already aware of in the .277 SIG Fury (from SIG Sauer) and the 6.5 Weatherby Rebated Precision Magnum (6.5 RPM – from Weatherby). The final one was something new to everyone: 6.8 Western? What is that?

Federal Premium has been introducing plenty of hunting ammunition, but what about defensive loads? Coming from opposite ends of the power spectrum, the Federal Punch line adds two calibers to its catalog of personal defense ammunition. Introducing Federal Punch .22LR and 10mm Auto.

Federal Premium is no stranger to hunting ammunition. Countless four-legged creatures have become meals thanks to ever-improving ammunition technology. The Federal Swift A-Frame line is one of those improvements. Now, both .327 Federal and 10mm Auto have been added to the expanding list of cartridge options for handgun hunters.

Expanding upon their popular Syntech Range line of ammunition, Federal Premium has added three calibers for your shooting pleasure. The Syntech Range line now includes .38 SPL, 10mm Auto, and .380 ACP. If you’ve been hiding in the woods and are unfamiliar with Syntech, TFB has written numerous articles to bring you up to speed. In short, Federal Syntech is designed (with the use of their Catalyst primers) to lessen lead exposure, which is one of the biggest health risks involved with shooting. All three calibers use the TSJ polymer jacket to keep metal fouling to a minimum. To further the cause of safe range ammo, the bullets themselves are designed to minimize splashback from steel targets.

True Velocity have confirmed delivery of their final shipment of over 625,000 rounds of their 6.8mm hybrid ammunition for the U.S. Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon program. True Velocity shared a photo of the shipment on pallets about to leave the factory with some of the production team posing next to it.

The .224 Valkyrie cartridge has been around for a few years now to give distance shooters a smaller cartridge offering in the MSR (modern sporting rifle) platform to compete with all of the larger cartridge AR-10 shooters. To feed that niche of long-range shooting, Federal Premium has debuted NEW Gold Medal Sierra Tipped Matchking ammunition in 224 Valkyrie for all of the shooters launching that relatively new, hot-rod cartridge. All of the specifications for the NEW Gold Medal Sierra Tipped Matchking ammunition can be read below as presented by Federal Premium:

Ammunition is not only hard to come by these days but it is also extremely overpriced due to the numerous surrounding factors of this whirlwind of a year. While deals can be found here and there, it seems that for the time being, we are stuck with some grossly overinflated prices when it comes to feeding our firearms. The other day a fellow staff member here at TFB came across what seemed to be a great online deal for some ammunition but upon further investigation, it turned out to look like a complete scam. So the writers here at TFB decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to put out a PSA to help everyone in the gun community avoid scams when purchasing ammunition online.

Federal Premium keeps opening the flood gates on new products for 2021 and they continue that trend with additional offerings through their Hydra-Shok Deep line of ammunition with a 380 Auto Hydra-Shok Deep 99 Grain and 38 Special +P Hydra-Shok Deep 130 Grain. This will give concealed carry advocates of tiny handguns – snubby revolvers and pocket 380s – another ammo offering to tantalize over when they are selecting their carry ammunition. All of the specifications for these new offerings can be read below as presented by Federal Premium:

When it comes to long-range target shooting, and long-distance hunting as well, two of the most popular cartridges on the block are from the Creedmoor family in 6.5 Creedmoor and 6mm Creedmoor. Keeping in step with those trends, Federal Premium has expanded their Gold Medal Berger lineup of ammunition to include more 6.5 Creedmoor and 6mm Creedmoor offerings. All of the specifications for those NEW ammunition selections can be read below as presented by Federal Premium:

At the beginning of the past year, we reported about the prototype machined copper .22LR bullets that were being developed by Cutting Edge Bullets. Fast forward a year and the company has just released the first product in their new line of machined .22LR bullets dubbed CuRx. Let’s take a closer look.

There are a lot of people who have joined the miniature 6.5 PRC (Precision Rifle Cartridge) revolution when it comes to long-distance big-game hunting as well as long-range target shooting. To cater to those precision rifle cartridge loyalists, Federal Premium has tailored a NEW Fusion 6.5 PRC load. It boasts the same Fusion bullet that we have all come to know and enjoy, but is simply crafted for the unique design of the 6.5 PRC round. All of the specifications for this Fusion 6.5 PRC cartridge can be read below as presented by Federal Premium: