Sitting here in my hotel room just a day ahead of the 2019 NRA Annual Meetings and Hornady just announced their new A-Tip Bullets.

Our regular readers may remember this  article back in May of 2018 about PRIME Ammo’s new 6mm Creedmoor offering. Cool, but not huge news. The bigger news is why the new cartridge never made it to market. A lot of us would have just written it off as typical gun industry “vaporware”.  Not the case though: in fact this ammunition actually exists and has been (according to PRIME) paid for and produced en mass. However, it has allegedly never been delivered to PRIME. This is one of the complaints in PRIME Ammo’s lawsuit against RUAG Ammotec. Here is a link to the counter-suit PRIME has filed against RUAG Ammotec ( https://www.primeammo.com/uploads/041519-Answer-to-Amended-Complaint.pdf). It doesn’t take a lawyer to recognize the term ‘counterclaim’. RUAG first filed a claim again Citizens Amunition LLC (PRIME Ammo) in November 2018 ( https://www.primeammo.com/uploads/11_19_18-Served-Amended-RUAG-Ammotec-Complaint-RUAG-vs-Ctiizens.pdf).

When we last left you, the discussion of choosing either subsonic or supersonic ammo for your 300BLK defensive weapon was in a full-on firefight. Some of you stated that you would pick heavier and quieter rounds to preserve situational awareness and communication abilities. Others chose faster and lighter rounds because “it’s a rifle, not a pistol”. And a small percentage of you claimed that using a 300BLK AR15 in a life or death situation was nothing more than a mall ninja’s wet dream. An argument for another day…

Well, that’s what PolyFrang claims in a report published on their website. The test rifles and barrels were made by Armalite. The test was requested by a company called Exelon Nuclear Security and it was conducted during a three month period to determine the amount of barrel wear that could possibly be caused by the use of PolyFrang frangible ammo.

An intent to  sole source solicitation notifying of the potential order of an estimated 2.4 million rounds of polymer-cased .50 calibre ammunition has been posted, advising that MAC, LLC of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi may in the future receive an order for ammunition. The notice follows the USMC’s earlier survey of manufactures to find a suitable provider for the new ammunition. The Marine Corps Systems Command notes that future orders may include both ball and API ammunition.

Sig Sauer has introduced two new offerings in their Elite Hunting Copper Game ammunition line.  The new 80 grain .243 Winchester and 150 grain .30-06 Springfield bullets are made of all copper.  This brings Sig’s Elite Hunting Copper line to seven different calibers, which also include .223 Rem, .300 BLK, 6.5 CM, . 308 Win and .300 Win Mag. Sig Sauer describes their Hunting Copper line below:

I always love hot takes on gun subjects from big, fancy publications whose contributors really don’t know shit about guns, but they take a hard stance on the issue nonetheless because “By God, we are the [ New York Times / Washington Post / USA Today etc. ] and we couldn’t possibly be wrong.” [Inserts picture of an AR-15 with a chainsaw bayonet]

Federal Premium turned a lot of heads in the ammunition industry when they came out with their original Syntech round. Those “lipstick” bullets as people called them caught a lot of eyes, and it was even more impressive once you shot them. You experience significantly less splash back when shooting steel targets, your firearm’s barrel stays cleaner, and it essentially extends your firearm’s barrel life because of the less metal-on-metal friction occurring. Now Federal Premium has taken all of those positive principles and applied it to a NEW Syntech Training Match series.

GECO has announced two new lines of handgun ammunition directed towards personal defense. These 2 NEW lines of ammo are dubbed Red Zone and Action Extreme. With each of them having their own specialty, GECO looks to cover all of a shooter’s needs with just these two new rounds. Let’s take a look at each and you can decide for yourself if this is something you would like to start using as well!

Federal Premium has taken their Syntech bullet and technology and applied its properties to a segmented jacketed hollow-point (SJHP) to create Syntech Defense. The unique property of this defense round, other than the encapsulated bullet that typifies a Syntech round, is that this one will segment off into 3 separate pieces upon impact. A central core bullet will likely penetrate 12″ – 18″ while the 3 segmented petals will travel a shorter distance of roughly 6″ in tissue. This creates 4 total wound channels and should stop nearly anything in its tracks.

As much as I love the quiet bliss of subsonic 300 Blackout in a suppressed carbine, given the choice, I’d still pick a supersonic round for a defensive situation. In short, I’ll sacrifice ultimate sound suppression for nearly twice the muzzle velocity and energy all day and twice on Sundays. However, even most of the supersoninc 300BLK ammo is designed for barrel lengths of 9-12”, personal defense weapons (PDW) like the Sig Rattler, get the short  an end of the stick.

Ok, so there are more than just five items on my list; I couldn’t decide which of the SIG Sauer ammunition should take the top five slots. But since SIG has been nice enough to supply me with ammo for decibel testing for TFB’s Silencer Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to return the favor and outline some of their best rounds (and give you a direct link to buy your own). Yes, my list is heavy on the 9mm and 300BLK flavors of ammunition, but if a different cartridge tickles your fancy, chances are that SIG has you covered with multiple bullet weights and types to choose from.

A favorite bullet that a lot of hunters rely on when reloading is the Barnes TSX ( Triple-Shock X) tip. Its extremely high weight retention even when impacting bone is tremendously appreciated when hunting big game. Also, the ballistic coefficients (B.C.) for a hunting bullet are very high which turns over into repeatable, good accuracy for the shooter. For all of these reasons and more Federal Premium has decided to once again load some of their premium ammunition with the Barnes TSX tip. Some of the other highlights of the Barnes TSX bullet as stated by Federal Premium can be read below:

As the popularity of the 6.5 Creedmoor increases, we’re looking for accurate ammunition which doesn’t cost a fortune to shoot. In Europe the caliber is only starting to grow in popularity, so the volumes are low – prices sky high.

Federal Premium in their endless pursuit to bring shooters and hunters alike the best ammunition possible has teamed up with Berger for some new offerings. They now have available to us premium Berger Hybrid Hunter loads in 10 common and favorite hunting cartridges. These new ammunition selections are supposed to be shipping to retailers as you read this, according to Federal, if you are interested in putting these immediately to use at the range or an upcoming hunt.

Federal Premium has expanded out their line of Hydra Shok Deep to now include .40 S&W and .45 ACP for those who rely on those cartridges for carry and protection. This bolstering of the Hydra Shok Deep line of ammunition occurred recently in the middle of February and firearm retailers are now seeing shipments of the cartridges arrive for sale to shooters.

The Art of Reloading, a hobby larger than the shooting itself for some.

Winchester have issued a recall notice on several lots of their 130 grain Full Metal Jacket .38 Special white box ammunition. This is due to the possibility that they have incorrect powder loadings.

CCI has announced about the release of their new Clean-22 rimfire (.22 LR) ammunition which is specially designed to reduce the lead fouling and build up. While everyone will benefit from this feature, it should be especially important for those of you who shoot suppressed rimfire guns.

USOG, one of the smaller but very interesting YouTube channels, has published a video demonstrating what happens when you accidentally load a 20 gauge shell into a 12 gauge shotgun. Well, nothing will happen until you think there is no round in the chamber or there was a failure to feed and chamber a 12 gauge shell right behind the 20 gauge round that is comfortably “headspaced” on the forcing cone of the 12 gauge chamber as shown in the top image of this article.

The French Police is using the B&T Swiss-made GL06 launcher in 40mm caliber, which they re-named LBD40.

This new cartridge is designed by a Russian company called Techcrim – the co-developer of the .366 TKM and 9.6x53mm Lancaster cartridges. The .345 TK cartridge is based on the 5.45x39mm case that has been shortened to 22mm (.866″) and loaded with rather odd .345 caliber (8.76mm) bullets.

SIG Sauer have announced the introduction of a new 120 grain supersonic .300 Blackout round for their Elite Performance range. SIG Sauer describe the new round as a duty round optimized for SBR s with sub-9 inch barrels. The new round uses an all copper bullet in a black oxide case.

Wild West Guns brought to the SHOT Show 2019 two new cartridges – .30 WWG and .35 WWG. Both of these cartridges are created by necking down their .457 WWG cartridge case to .308 and .358 calibers respectively.

At the SHOT Show 2019, Bishop Ammunition & Firearms has introduced a new AR-10/short action cartridge called .475 Bishop Short Magnum. The company claims that this new cartridge is currently the most powerful chambering for the AR-10 platform.

The US Department of Defense has confirmed the procurement of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing’s MRAD precision rifle chambered in .300 PRC from Hornady.

So far this is The Bible on the Sako TRG A1, with almost 3 000 words of cleaning, shooting, testing and wisdom from Finland.

What a nonsense! What in the world is a non-existent standardized cartridge? OK, let me explain. At the beginning of 2018, a new Nosler cartridge was added to the list of SAAMI standard cartridges – the .24 Nosler. However, as of the moment of writing this article (early January 2019), I couldn’t find any place which had this cartridge available for purchase. That’s why I call it a non-existent standardized cartridge. Now let’s discuss the idea of wildcatting this cartridge and creating the .224-24 Nosler.

Magpul have unveiled their latest drum magazine, building on the success of their D-60 5.56x45mm drum PMAG they have developed a 7.62x51mm variant. The D-50 can hold 50 rounds of 7.62 and weighs in at 1.7 lbs unloaded.

Most readers have probably never heard of Capstone Precision Group, but if they are at all involved in precision shooting and reloading they have most certainly heard of the companies within the group.