February 20, 2025 • 37 mins
The folks at Federal developed a proprietary cartridge over the last six years that just launched. It propels a 170gr 7mm bullet at 3,000 feet per second from a 20” barrel. I sat down with Eric Miller from Federal to talk about this ammo. We are going to see more and more of these high pressure cartridges in the future. The physics and engineering behind it are fascinating. Enjoy
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert
advice from folks with callousedhands.
I'm James Nash and this is theSix Ranch Podcast.
Mr Eric Miller, we're talkingabout some interesting
(00:31):
developments that are happeningin ammunition.
I'm here at the Western HuntExpo in Salt Lake City, utah.
Eric, tell me what's going on.
So we launched a new cartridge.
Who's we?
Federal Ammunition, federalAmmunition Yep, I think folks
have probably heard of you, yep.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yep I think folks have probably heard of you Yep,
Yep, and we launched a newcartridge beginning of January
January 7th to be exact was theactual launch date and what we
launched was called 7Backcountry Yep.
And so it is.
A new cartridge Was justapproved by SAMI right before
SHOT Show in January.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What's SAMI?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
SAMI is our regulatory body that we adhere
to and they set the essentiallythey set the regulations for
cartridges.
So if you always hear aboutSAMI approved cartridges, it
kind of sets the parameter forwhat a cartridge should operate,
the specs, the drawings,everything that goes along with
(01:24):
that cartridge.
It sets the standards so thatFederal can load it, remington
can load it, winchester can loadit, hornady can load it.
The firearms manufacturers puttheir chamber to that
specification, gotcha.
So then that we're all on thesame, so that you pick up a 308
from X manufacturer and you pickone up from Y, the spec is the
(01:48):
same for the chamber.
So then that the ammo that weshoot across that and there's
obviously more ammo brands thanI mentioned we all adhere to
that specification.
So you think of overall length?
That's set by Sammy Pressure.
So we're going to talk aboutpressure with seven back country
.
So that's all set and what welook at, and it's really a
(02:11):
safety mechanism that theindustry uses.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I love it, huge fan.
I know it's always a pushbecause there's oftentimes a
brand who's trying to introducea new cartridge at SHOT Show.
So I imagine there's a hugeeffort on behalf of both
engineers and the folks at SAMIleading up to that where they're
(02:34):
trying to get this stuff done.
But I think about it in termsof like boots.
Right, I wear a size 12 boot,but if I go to Danner my size 12
might actually be an 11 and ahalf, or whatever.
Because there is no Sammy forboots, but because of the
(02:55):
requirement for tolerances andthings that explode, then we
need to have that stuffregulated and I think Sammy's
awesome.
Yep, yep, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So you got Sammy approval, so we got SAMI
approval.
That's badass.
Good job.
We put our drawings back inSeptember.
Yep, they were approved inJanuary.
We put a placeholder in beforethat.
So, we've been working on thenew cartridge which is
7-backcountry.
We've probably been working onit for about two years Okay,
longer for the process of thecase.
The peak alloys what we'reloading with 7-Back Country, but
(03:30):
that technology has probablybeen six or seven years in the
process and started from,essentially, some solicitations
from the military.
That's how we went down thispath and 7-Back Country is the
commercial outcome of thatresearch or development.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
When the military started doing this solicitation.
I was aware of that and I wasworking on it with another
company and I was very excitedabout this challenge right of
trying to take a, you know, a6.8 or 7 millimeter cartridge,
move it really quickly out of ashort barrel Right, and I've
(04:14):
been a silencer guy for a longtime.
I think that muzzle brakesshould be illegal.
They are uncivilized and thatrecoil reduction is a huge
portion of accuracy right.
So I understand why people do itas a guide.
If I see somebody show up witha muzzle break, I'm just
(04:35):
crestfallen, right, because Ican't be close to them when
they're shooting without hearingprotection, which is cumbersome
in a hunting scenario, and thenit's it's hard to communicate
quietly if you're wearinghearing protection of any kind,
and then if you're not wearingit, you're really exposing
yourself to significant harm.
So the the solution is asilencer, right, if you're not
(04:59):
hunting with a silencer, you'redragging your knuckles
everywhere you go.
You need to get with the times.
You need to get with the.
You need to get with silencers.
I'm going to talk about thatuntil you're sick of it and then
I'm going to keep talking aboutit after that.
But if you hang an eight inchor nine inch or 10 inch silencer
off the end of a rifle that hasa 26 inch barrel, it's very
(05:19):
cumbersome, correct, and barrellength used to be a requirement
to achieve adequate velocity,but the way around that was to
increase the pressure of thecartridge.
But there was material limitsto that, right.
So these are some of theproblems that you guys are
trying to solve, not just forthe military but also for the
(05:41):
hunting community, correct.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, and what happens when you?
You know we're talking aboutbrass.
Brass has limitations and asyou look at the firearm, the
action is not what's failing,the brass is what fails.
When it gets to that pressure,when it increases pressure, the
brass is what fails.
And so when we started downthis path with 7-back country,
(06:06):
we did that same thing that youjust talked about.
We're looking at 26-inchbarrels, 24-inch barrels.
A lot of customers, shooters,were taking these great calibers
cartridges, 7prc, 6.5,creedmoor, you could name a
whole bunch of them and they'recutting the barrel lengths down
because of that suppressor use.
(06:26):
What happens then?
As I cut barrel length down, Ilose all the great performance
of that great cartridge right, Ijust lost all the performance
that I had because I cut thebarrel length down.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Because in physics and elsewhere there's no
replacement for displacement.
So you have a certain amount ofvolume inside that barrel and
that is the time where, as thatconflagration of powder turns
into gas or plasma and expands,like until that bullet comes out
, it can continue expanding andpushing on it and accelerating
(06:59):
that projectile as soon as ituncorks out the end of the
rifling dial.
As soon as it uncorks out theend of the rifling, then that
propellant can't push on itanymore.
Right, right.
So we have a finite limit tohow fast we can get this bullet
going.
It's the same thing witharchery and draw length.
Right, I was just at WinterStrong.
Sean Mellon was there, formerNFL linebacker.
(07:19):
The dude has a 31 and a halfinch draw length.
I hate him passionately.
Big, tall, fit, beautiful man.
He can draw 60 pounds with hisdraw length and he can shoot an
arrow faster than I can if I'mdrawing 90 pounds with a 28 inch
draw length, because the arrowhas more time on the string.
Same thing with a bullettraveling down a barrel, yep,
(07:42):
okay.
So how do we fight it?
How do we beat it?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So we beat it by taking this technology, peak
alloy, and it is a steel alloy.
We took a standard long action.
We started.
We tried with a short action tostart.
We started with a sevenmillimeter odd eight, but we
could not get enough powder.
In that case we could beatcertain calibers.
(08:07):
We just couldn't get to theperformance that we wanted.
We just didn't have enoughcapacity in that short action.
So we started there.
We went to long action.
Um, and when we're talkingseven back country, it is
standard long action.
Um, standard overall length isa two, 70.
This doesn't have a parentcartridge.
If it did, it would be a 280ackley.
(08:28):
Okay, 280 ackley has a 40degree shoulder.
Okay, um, seven back country is30 degree.
But when you look at thecartridge you're going to think
280 ackley, 270, 30.6.
And we went to.
When we went to the riflemanufacturers and showed them
the cartridge, there's nothing.
The secret sauce is not in thecartridge itself, in any of the
(08:51):
shoulders or overall length,anything like that it's in the
case.
And when you think of aWinchester short mag, some of
the others, they had feedingproblems.
To be honest, when we produceshort mag it's a relatively hard
piece of brass to produce.
Because of that, shoulder yepand we crush shoulders and fold
(09:11):
necks and do all sorts of things.
Still make great brass, butthere are some challenges with
that.
This is very similar to what wedo day in day out in making
brass, just a completelydifferent material.
And peak alloy is a steel alloy, essentially the same alloy
that could be used in the wallof a nuclear reactor, very
(09:34):
different makeup.
We didn't make it specificallyfor ammunition, it was out there
.
It wasn't developed for us.
We took technology.
It was out there, but the timeinvolved on the research and
development and by the team ofengineers was to get the
hardness correct and everythingcorrect so that we could shoot
it in a firearm, not damage anextractor.
(09:55):
There were limitations that wewanted to hit and that's what we
did with peak alloy and withthat on a traditional legacy
cartridge.
Doesn't matter the cartridge,the caliber, somewhere between
60 and 65,000 pounds of pressure, 300 wind mags, 7 PRC, 7 mag
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I don't want to gloss over that, because people
oftentimes do, but let's talkabout what that really means.
Think about it for a second.
You've got 60,000 pounds ofpressure per square inch.
That is gargantuan, right?
Think of it on your foot.
(10:34):
We're going to take 60,000.
What would that be?
What's something that weighs60,000 pounds?
I don't even know Semi-truckwithout a trailer, something
extremely heavy.
And then you're going tocondense that down to one square
inch and set it on top of yourfoot, right?
That's a lot of pressure.
That's a lot of pressure, andit's occurring very quickly,
(10:57):
right?
So it's an impulse of pressureas well, and it's in a very.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
when you look at your firearm chamber it it doesn't
matter if it's a Magnum or astandard long action, but it's
in a very small containercompartment and with peak alloy.
So we're 60 to 65.
Traditional Peak alloy7-backcountry is 80,000 pounds,
(11:25):
and again I'm going to go backto standard long action.
But we're at 80,000.
And what that allows us to doin the failure point of brass
when we are at 60,000, I canonly put so much powder in that
case to get to 60 or 65,000.
And then I have to stop.
That's the regular.
That's where it's at.
A proof load for brass is about80,000.
(11:46):
And what is proofing?
So proofing is a.
You are going to load that caseto a pressure that the firearm
will survive.
Okay, right.
And so it is a safety mechanismfor us, for the firearms
manufacturers, and somemanufacturers will proof every
gun before it goes out.
Some manufacturers will proofjust the action and do quality
(12:10):
assurances throughout theprocess to make sure that
there's no failure in the metalper se.
And again, it's not the actionthat's going to fail, it's the
brass that's going to fail.
The actions that these firearmsmanufacturers make doesn't
matter who it is can withstandfar more than what we're
shooting at.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
But it's the brass that fails.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
If you wander over to your gun cabinet right now and
you pull out your granddad'sshotgun that's sitting in there
and you look down at the portionof the barrel that connects
with the action, you're going tosee a little stamp.
You might even see a couple ofthem, and those are proof stamps
, right yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
By a proof house Yep, yep, yep.
And so they're tested.
And every firearms manufacturerhas a different process?
Yep, but they are testing, theyare safe and we make sure that
we don't want to put that intoquestion with the ammo.
So we are going to make sure,we are going to do our due
diligence, we are going to doall our research.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
We are going to do all of our testing to make sure
that we put this out there andit's safe, all right.
So we're at 80,000 PSI Now.
We're more than half of anAbrams M1A1 main battle tank per
square inch of pressure.
Like that is still almostimpossible to conceive of.
Like condensing something withthat much mass down into such a
small space, something with thatmuch mass down into such a
(13:35):
small space, since we'veachieved that, and done so with
this nuclear reactor alloy thatis in the brass, that is very.
I guarantee you an engineerdidn't have anything to do with
calling it peak alloy.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Right, that was the marketing side of it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That feels marketing to me, engineers would call it
like M3, alpha, bravo, 279er.
Yeah, point one.
So yeah, now that we've doneall this, we're ready to send
this projectile out a shorterbarrel I've got to talk about
short barrels a little bit,because it's not just a matter
(14:09):
of convenience and being able toget it around in and out of
vehicles, um, in the brush, ifyou're putting the rifle inside
your pack, things like that.
Obviously this is going to bemore, more important to have it
have it short.
But there's something thatoccurs when a projectile goes
down the barrel, um calledharmonics, and the barrel
(14:31):
wiggles around.
So if you were holding on to agarden hose and there was, you
know, 30 inches of garden hoseout past the end of your hand
and you turn the water on, thathose would whip around, right.
Something very similar happenswith a rifle barrel.
Now you have magnitude andfrequency.
So if I have six feet of gardenhose out there, it's going to
(14:51):
whip much more, but much moreslowly.
If I have six feet of gardenhose out there, it's going to
whip much more, but much moreslowly.
If I have 12 inches of gardenhose, it's going to whip faster
but with less magnitude Everytime you cut a rifle barrel down
it's going to get stiffer, sothe magnitude is going to
decrease.
And every time I've cut a riflebarrel down, the gun is shot
(15:12):
more accurately than it didbefore, every single time, not
most of the time, not some ofthe time, every time.
But the drawback was I'm givingup on velocity, and velocity is
a cheat code in hunting.
It really, truly is, becauseit's going to decrease your
margin of vertical error on ashot, truly is, because it's
(15:33):
going to decrease your margin ofvertical error on a shot.
And if you accidentally, youknow, hit a piece of brush in
front of or behind your targetwith your laser range finder,
that velocity is going toprovide you a margin of error.
That's really important, as wellas lethality with that
projectile, right, if I tossed160 grain bullet at you right
now, it would do nothing.
But if it was moving now itwould do nothing, but if it was
moving very quickly it would doa lot.
(15:54):
Right, velocity does matter, itabsolutely matters.
And I think as laser rangefinders became more and more
available and they started tohave ballistic compute systems
in it and stuff like that, a lotof people kind of let go of
velocity and they thought, well,all I really care about is
accuracy, because I'm just goingto be dialing for everything
anyways, and what we saw comefrom that was the disaster,
(16:21):
which is the 6.5 Creedmoor.
And this is a really fun rifleto shoot on the range at close
range.
It's good for deer, it it is,in my opinion, as, as an elk
guide for the last 25 years,it's.
It's inadequate for elk, it'stoo small.
But, um, people, people forgotabout velocity, right?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
yeah, so now we're getting it back.
We're getting it back.
Uh, we're getting back in ashorter barrel and the other
part to a little bit of atangent, for what on suppressor
use?
There is a part of it.
When you put a suppressor onthe end, I would argue that you
are going to shoot betterbecause of recoil for one, and
also, when you talked about itearlier, the noise portion of it
(17:01):
.
Yeah, I don't have to thinkabout the concussion from yeah,
the noise, yeah and also therecoil.
So in a bit I'm inherently goingto shoot a little bit better
with the suppressor.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Everybody does.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Everybody does, and I wish I would have shot one
years and years before.
And now that I do shoot onelove it.
Wouldn't shoot without one Same.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
That's the biggest problem about them.
As soon as you shoot with one,you're like well, why didn't I
do this before?
I'm not shooting without onenow, right, why didn't I do this
?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
before.
I'm not shooting without onenow, right, yeah.
And so when we talked about andwe're looking at this, we went
to the gun manufacturers, showedthem the cartridge and we said
20-inch barrels.
And that was our kind of ourdirection as we went through and
the engineers had developed,the team worked on this, looked
at this, then went to themarketing team and said this is
(17:52):
how this is what it does, thisis what we're going to talk
about, this is how you're goingto position it for the marketing
folks.
And they did a great job onthat side.
And the engineers did afantastic job on their side,
proving out and showing this iswhat I can do at 20 inches.
This is what it does at 26inches or 18.
And we went to the firearmsmanufacturers with the idea of
(18:16):
20 inch barrels.
It quickly went to 16s and 18sand again the whole point was
I'm cutting the barrel down, I'mputting a suppressor on.
Now I have a very manageablefirearm.
Think of getting in and out ofa side-by-side, getting in and
out of the truck, putting it ina case.
Don't have to take thesuppressor off.
All of that some of getting inand out of a side-by-side,
getting in and out of the truck,putting it in a case uh, don't
have to express her off.
All of that.
Some of that we didn't evenreally think through per se as
(18:38):
we started, but obviouslyquickly became evident as we got
to these shorter barrels.
And what we didn't give up wasthe performance.
So we're we're 20 inch barrel170 class bullet.
We offer more, but we're goingto talk about the 170 grain
bullet.
Okay, and it's 3000 feet 3000feet per second Out of a 20 inch
(18:59):
barrel.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So we are beating 7 PRC.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We beat 7 mag.
We beat 280 Ackley.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And depending on the ammo and the rifle, we're going
to beat 7 PRC by 250, 300 feetper second.
When you're comparing apples toapples On the shelf, when you
look at 7 backcountry, we showthe ballistics for 24-inch.
Because if I pick up a 7 magbox and I pick up a 7
(19:25):
backcountry box, I want to lookat them and I'm going to go 3150
for backcountry and 7 mag is2850 or 27.
I'd have to look it up and seewhat exactly it is.
I want to compare apples toapples, but on the back we show
the 20-inch.
Because that's really where wego down the rabbit hole and say
(19:45):
this is the way that the gunmanufacturers are going with
their platforms.
They're shortening the barrels.
Some are 22, 20, like I said,18 and 16.
Put a suppressor on the end,but we didn't lose any of that
performance.
And coming full circle back tothis, we can do that because of
the 80,000 pounds of pressure.
That 80,000 pounds I'm puttingenough powder in the case.
(20:12):
I'm not compressing the powder,but I'm putting enough powder
in that case.
Standard long action to pushthat bullet 3,000 feet per
second.
And that is the case is how wedo that.
The case contains all of thatpressure.
The gun doesn't know thedifference if it's shooting
brass or alloy, because all ofthat 80,000 pounds is contained
(20:35):
within the backcountry case, thepeak alloy.
And that is how we get to thatperformance level because of
that case.
It's not a special powder.
What we load, the powder thatwe use today in the factory, we
load in other calibers, 6.5,creedmoor 308.
You know it's across.
What we're loading isproprietary, but that has a lot
(20:58):
more to do with maybe some ofthe coatings and just but there
will be a commercial equivalenceto that, but it is nothing.
The secret sauce again is notthe powder.
It is that case.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I know the question that a lot of people are asking
right now is will it bereloadable?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
It is reloadable.
So we're working through that.
We've been using a rock truckerpress and an RCBS die for I
don't know the last nine to 12months.
We modified what RCBS sent us alittle bit.
Did you have to change thealloy of the dyes?
No, it was carbide.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And really, what you're doing is essentially neck
sizing.
That's what I wondered about.
Yep, so it's the case, doesn'tgrow, is there?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
trimming involved.
There's no trimming involved,because this case doesn't grow
at all.
Well, that's nice, yep, andit's not.
It's alloy, it's steel alloy,but it's normal pressure.
We're not doing anything fancywith a lube or a wax or you know
.
It's just essentially.
If you think of an expanderball or a mandrel, you're just
resizing the neck.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And that's all you're .
We're not going to be able toanneal it.
Okay, to start, we have.
We have five, five skews thatin our lineup.
One of them is they are allnickel plated but one of them is
a matte finish nickel plated inour Fusion Tipped.
That particular case is notplated on the inside of the case
.
The bright nickel which followsour premium lineup is coated or
(22:27):
plated on both the inside andthe outside.
So we're going to start withthat because if something
happened to that fusion tippedcase and you got a little bit of
surface rust, changes thevolume.
We're not going to go down thatpath with reloading.
So to start with, the brightnickel ones will be the ones
that are going to be reloaded.
And again, you're essentiallyresizing the neck standard 210
(22:48):
primer and there will becommercial equivalent powders
that you'll be able to load.
We'll put the data out there atsomething less than 80,000.
And then we are going to haveto work through the pressure
portion of how do we measurethat.
It may be by speed.
We might say you get to 3,000feet per second and that's
(23:09):
you're done.
But we'll work through that andI would imagine sometime by
this summer.
We've engaged other reloadingcompanies Dillon, custom, short
Action.
We've sent them cases.
They'll work through it.
We obviously started with RCBSbecause we had the relationship
with them.
But to start federal, we loadammunition as a company.
(23:32):
That is our primary objective.
But we also understand thereloading market is a big
segment and making sure, butwe're going to load first and
then we'll come back and makesure that the reloading market
understands there's going to bea lot of nuances to it.
Again, it is not brass.
So there's a little educationpiece that says it's not brass.
(23:53):
We're going to treat this alittle different and there'll be
some parameters around how toreload it and just kind of take
what you think of brass and goput that to the side.
Is it a large rifle primer?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It is a large rifle, primer Yep 210.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Good, good, and there are no.
The same tells that you see inbrass where you're popping a
primer, okay, when you're overpressure.
You don't see that in the alloybecause that primer isn't
moving.
You're not going to flatten aprimer, you're not going to pop
a primer um.
You just don't see that.
Even in our proof loads wedon't see pop primers um.
We don't see extractor marks,anything like that in a proof
(24:29):
load when we shoot with alloy um.
So there will just be somedifferences as we go down this
reloading process.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So six years of brilliant engineers and
thermophysicists working on thisstuff.
What was the biggest hurdle?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I think it was where we're going to land with
pressure.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
What we're going to do for performance.
You know the material wasavailable.
There was, I wouldn't say it'sthe boring part, but the
manufacturing process.
There are so many littleavenues that go into making the
loaded round and a lot of thatis on the front side with the
(25:10):
engineers and looking at how dowe get this case, how do we load
it?
How do we form it?
Yep, how do we put it on?
Does it go on a normal headturn machine?
Can we put it on a normal JITlike we do on brass?
All of those questions we wentthrough.
Once it gets to the formed casestage, we put it on a primer
insert machine and it runs justlike a regular standard load.
(25:31):
We put it on a primer insertmachine and it runs just like a
regular standard load.
We put it on a standard loader.
None of that portion of it isnot different.
It's everything that leads upto that part.
So that's what they worked onand as we were going through the
marketing and going through thedevelopment, we were obviously
still learning things.
We're very good at nickelplating brass.
We didn't know how to nickelplate steel.
(25:53):
Sure Alloy.
We had to learn how to do thatDid you do it with electrolysis.
Yeah, and we actually send itout just because there's a whole
bunch of science behind thechemicals that we use that is
specific to brass, that hasnothing to do with alloy, so we
can't mix them, we can't putthem in the same tank, we don't
(26:18):
have a line that we can add onto that kind of thing.
So we do send it out to beplated.
Same with annealing.
We have to send it out to avery specific annealer for the
exact temperature that we want,and the hardness so I had to
work through all that and that'sa lot of what that team did is
to get to that point.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Cool.
Well, internal ballistics arefascinating, often slept on as
far as people's understanding ofwhat's going on.
So everything between theprimary getting struck by the
firing pin, to the bulletexiting the end of the barrel or
the silencer, that's ourinternal ballistics.
Let's get into the externalballistics a little bit.
That's something that I thinkis thought about probably too
(26:54):
much these days.
We've got 170 grain 7mm bullet.
What's our ballisticcoefficient?
It's got to be over 500.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Depending on the bullet I know for.
So we're loading five loads.
Okay, we have a Berger 195,which is the heaviest hunting
bullet that we could find.
That BC is 755.
Yep, so cup and core bulletlong, heavy, heavy for caliber.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
We load a Barnes LRX.
Okay, I know that BC is 0.513.
Okay so copper13.
Okay so copper bullet.
Yeah so heavy, heavy bullet.
And then our terminal ascentbullet is 0.645.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Okay, and what is?
The burgers are wonderful onthe range.
I've seen a lot of failures onwildlife with them.
What is the terminal ascentbullet?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Terminal ascent is a federal made bullet that we make
in Minnesota in the plant inAnoka.
It is an iteration of JackCarter's Trophy-Bonded Bear Claw
.
Okay, it must be the fourth orfifth version of that bullet.
You know we just kept improvingon the original and it is a
bonded.
I like to call it a bondedmatch-grade hunting bullet.
(28:04):
Okay.
I like to call it a bonded matchgrade hunting bullet.
So it is not a match bullet butwe have a very tight spec
internally that we have to hitwith that bullet and so we have
a lot of Q&A or quality andassurances that we put into that
bullet to make sure that we hitthat spec.
It is a bonded bullet, solidcopper shank.
We have what we call aslipstream tip, which is a
(28:27):
hollow tip on the end.
Okay, and what that allows usto do when that bullet
essentially reaches the end ofits terminal velocity, where it
does not have enough energy toupset, that bullet because of
fluid dynamics in that hollowpoint fills up with fluid blood
and allows some expansion,essentially at the end of where
(28:48):
the velocity would normally notallow that bullet to upset.
So we do get some upset to thebullet.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
What do you mean by upset?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So the terminal, the penetration, so after I
penetrate, the diameter, theexpansion of the bullet.
So my bullet is upsetting.
When you look at a mushroom Yepexactly Now.
Now if you look at it, itdoesn't look like a whole lot at
say, depending on caliber, 995yards, but there's still some
energy transfer.
What I really like about thebullet is it is a robust bullet,
(29:18):
bonded, and even at 10 or 15yards, where that bullet is
moving so fast, I don't knowthat you could make a bullet
strong enough that it wouldcompletely stay together.
We still get a very high weightretention percentage-wise.
But after that point, as thevelocity slows down a little,
I'm going to be 90, 95, 96, 97%weight retention of that
(29:41):
original 170 grains or whatever.
It's a different cartridge.
I'm going to retain that weightand all of that weight
continues through the animal.
I continue with that energytransfer, and not all the time,
but sometimes you're going tocapture it on the other side.
The far side Hides elastic.
I'll capture it sometimes onthe shoulder.
(30:03):
A lot of that there's so muchthat depends on is the animal
quartering away is it wateringto me?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
hit on the way there do I hit a?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
rib?
Do I glance off the shoulderblade?
Do I blow right through theblade?
Yeah, all of that affects thebullet and my personal opinion
is I want that bullet to be asclose as I can get to the
original grain weight 170 grainsand I want that energy and I
want to be able to carry itthrough as much as I can
(30:31):
throughout my animal.
Yeah, and that's I, like abonded bullet.
Everybody has different.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So the lead is like chemically bonded to the copper
of the jacket.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Chemically and mechanically and mechanically
bonded, so we do have a bulletthat we make which is our fusion
tip bullet in this lineup thatis molecularly bonded and still
bonded, but different process.
So I take a lead core, I put itin a bath of copper and the
copper electronically bonds tothat lead core Right.
(31:02):
That makes a very concentricbullet and a very accurate
bullet.
I have no variable in thatbullet because it is very
uniform all the way around andinherently is very accurate.
The terminal scent bullet isalso and I'm going to go back to
match grade so we make it asaccurate as I can.
But because of that bullet andhaving a solid copper shank it's
(31:24):
not like a cup and core bulletor, in our fusion tip,
molecularly bonded bullet.
So there is some accuracy butit is still MOA or sub MOA
bullet.
It may just not be as accurateas a fusion tip.
A lot of that depends on how weload it and we are finding that
we can.
You know, a lot of the riflemanufacturers most of the rifle
(31:44):
manufacturers that we've workedwith all require some sort of
MOA guarantee on their rifles.
We're a large part of that inthe load development.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Oh, yeah, massive.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
When we started we sent them function ammo shoots
it it's fine, works in 80,000.
They knew it would.
They were already going downthat path 80,000.
They knew it would.
They were already going downthat path.
Then we tweaked them and theonus was on the engineers to
make sure that it was the mostaccurate load that we could get.
So we talked about we're goingto talk about overall length,
we're going to talk about powdercharge.
Um starts with how the bulletsmade, making sure that you know
(32:21):
we don't have a heel on thebullet or anything.
You know that that it is is thebest bullet that we can make.
That lends itself to being themost accurate bullet and then,
in turn, the most accurate loadwe can get.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay Well, elk hunters, bear hunters, deer
hunters, you need to be payingattention to this one.
You're going to have anaccurate rifle that you can
handle well, that you can put asilencer on the end of.
I know a bunch of manufacturershave gotten on board with
building this out, includingSeekins, with all the new stuff
(32:55):
that they just rolled out whichis pretty exciting to me.
I'm going to do a podcast onthat in the future, when me and
Maddie have a little bit moretime in our lives.
Okay, so this thing is fast.
It's got a high BC.
It's a well-constructed bullet.
I'm going to encourageeverybody to check out this
Terminal Ascent bullet.
That's going to be your gamebullet, from what I'm hearing
(33:16):
for sure, this is a really,really legitimate option that I
think people should beconsidering for Western rifles.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And it's not just you know when you think about it.
For Western rifles, yeah, andit's not just you know when you
think about it.
I would still say most of thegame shot is probably still east
of the Mississippi and so themarketing portion of it is
really where is your backcountry?
I hunt whitetails in Wisconsin.
I'm not even sure I can see ahundred yards, let alone shoot
past a hundred yards.
For the most part, yeah, but Iwould still shoot this caliber.
(33:48):
I would pick the fusion tipbullet or the Barnes bullet.
It just depends on what you'reusing it for.
But it takes out.
You know I can make someadjustments with the scope and
dialing but again, you touchedon it it takes out some
variables in my holdover.
Touched on it.
It takes out some variables inmy holdover.
(34:09):
Instead of dialing in at 200,now I don't have to really
adjust for hold until it's 300or 350, depending on the bullet.
I'm shooting all those thingsand I still.
I would encourage everybody togo out and shoot.
Make sure you know where yourrifle shoots.
Shoot past 100 yards, shoot asfar as you can conceivably.
I know some ranges you justcan't.
The gun may dial in at 100, butthere's a big difference
(34:32):
between shooting at 100 andshooting at 400, 500, 600 yards.
But with this caliber, with thespeed, everything that we're
shooting, you can make up forthat.
You'll have trust in the rifle,you'll have trust in the
ammunition, you'll have trust inthe ammunition yeah, and that
the performance is there.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So yeah, well, look, folks, you know that I love long
range shooting.
Um, I'm passionate aboutprecision guns, but when it
comes to hunting, I want thatanimal to have powder burns on
it.
Get as close as you can like.
Reduce that variable.
Have fun with your hunt.
Remember to have that stock.
Remember to have that patienceand set up your ambush position
(35:11):
so that you can be as close aspossible.
I promise you'll get moresatisfaction out of a close hunt
than you will out of a longrange hunt.
I promise you.
This isn't a, this isn't awildland math competition, right
.
But when you get to the range,have fun burning it way out
there and learning the wind andplaying this game.
It's wonderful, do it.
(35:31):
It is.
Encourage people so much toexperience both long range and
short range.
Keep the hunting short rangeand then have fun shooting long
range when it's on paper orsteel.
Yeah, okay, well, eric, thankyou so much for your time.
This stuff is available now.
People can get it.
They can find it.
They can order it online.
They can find it at Cabela's orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yep, yep.
So we started with 13 gunmanufacturers.
Within that 13, I think,there's 84 models available 84
models Weatherby alone has 13.
Again, you touched on theSeekin's point.
If you haven't looked at thenew action, definitely go look
at the new action.
It is fantastic, love it.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Weatherby's got some great new stuff too.
They do.
Since Tim Butler's come onboard over there.
He's done wonderful things forthat company and I know Tim
helped out with engineering onthis cartridge as well, and you
guys have heard me talk abouthim in the past, but he's
probably the greatest mind infirearms alive, so anything that
he touches you can have a veryreasonable expectation that it's
(36:32):
going to be fricking awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And this is a case of that.
Yeah, we had.
We had great partners in thislaunch.
We had again, I'm going to say,13 gun companies, but Proof
Research, fierce, savage,weatherby, glenn and Seekins
were great.
I mean, all of our partnerswere fantastic.
There's more gun companies, youknow.
Look at them.
There's some great firearms outthere.
A lot of these guys havealready shipped firearms.
(36:55):
A lot of the dealers and yourlocal gun store have already
sold what they've gotten.
We've shipped ammo out.
We have it, you know, available.
It's shipping.
We're loading it as fast and asbest as we can.
Cool, so it's getting out there.
Awesome, just keep your eye outfor it and it's available.
Great, thank you so much for theinformation, yeah anytime,
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Bye everybody.
Thank you to everyone who hastaken the time out of their busy
lives to write a review for theshow and share it with their
friends.
I'm extremely proud of howintelligent, engaged and
adventurous this audience is.
Original music for the SixRanch Podcast is written and
performed by Justin Hay.
(37:36):
Art for the Six Ranch Podcastwas created by John Chatelain
and digitized by Celia Harlander.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you again next week.
These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert
advice from folks with callousedhands.
I'm James Nash and this is theSix Ranch Podcast.
Mr Eric Miller, we're talkingabout some interesting
(00:31):
developments that are happeningin ammunition.
I'm here at the Western HuntExpo in Salt Lake City, utah.
Eric, tell me what's going on.
So we launched a new cartridge.
Who's we?
Federal Ammunition, federalAmmunition Yep, I think folks
have probably heard of you, yep.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yep I think folks have probably heard of you Yep,
Yep, and we launched a newcartridge beginning of January
January 7th to be exact was theactual launch date and what we
launched was called 7Backcountry Yep.
And so it is.
A new cartridge Was justapproved by SAMI right before
SHOT Show in January.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
What's SAMI?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
SAMI is our regulatory body that we adhere
to and they set the essentiallythey set the regulations for
cartridges.
So if you always hear aboutSAMI approved cartridges, it
kind of sets the parameter forwhat a cartridge should operate,
the specs, the drawings,everything that goes along with
(01:24):
that cartridge.
It sets the standards so thatFederal can load it, remington
can load it, winchester can loadit, hornady can load it.
The firearms manufacturers puttheir chamber to that
specification, gotcha.
So then that we're all on thesame, so that you pick up a 308
from X manufacturer and you pickone up from Y, the spec is the
(01:48):
same for the chamber.
So then that the ammo that weshoot across that and there's
obviously more ammo brands thanI mentioned we all adhere to
that specification.
So you think of overall length?
That's set by Sammy Pressure.
So we're going to talk aboutpressure with seven back country
.
So that's all set and what welook at, and it's really a
(02:11):
safety mechanism that theindustry uses.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, I love it, huge fan.
I know it's always a pushbecause there's oftentimes a
brand who's trying to introducea new cartridge at SHOT Show.
So I imagine there's a hugeeffort on behalf of both
engineers and the folks at SAMIleading up to that where they're
(02:34):
trying to get this stuff done.
But I think about it in termsof like boots.
Right, I wear a size 12 boot,but if I go to Danner my size 12
might actually be an 11 and ahalf, or whatever.
Because there is no Sammy forboots, but because of the
(02:55):
requirement for tolerances andthings that explode, then we
need to have that stuffregulated and I think Sammy's
awesome.
Yep, yep, okay.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So you got Sammy approval, so we got SAMI
approval.
That's badass.
Good job.
We put our drawings back inSeptember.
Yep, they were approved inJanuary.
We put a placeholder in beforethat.
So, we've been working on thenew cartridge which is
7-backcountry.
We've probably been working onit for about two years Okay,
longer for the process of thecase.
The peak alloys what we'reloading with 7-Back Country, but
(03:30):
that technology has probablybeen six or seven years in the
process and started from,essentially, some solicitations
from the military.
That's how we went down thispath and 7-Back Country is the
commercial outcome of thatresearch or development.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
When the military started doing this solicitation.
I was aware of that and I wasworking on it with another
company and I was very excitedabout this challenge right of
trying to take a, you know, a6.8 or 7 millimeter cartridge,
move it really quickly out of ashort barrel Right, and I've
(04:14):
been a silencer guy for a longtime.
I think that muzzle brakesshould be illegal.
They are uncivilized and thatrecoil reduction is a huge
portion of accuracy right.
So I understand why people do itas a guide.
If I see somebody show up witha muzzle break, I'm just
(04:35):
crestfallen, right, because Ican't be close to them when
they're shooting without hearingprotection, which is cumbersome
in a hunting scenario, and thenit's it's hard to communicate
quietly if you're wearinghearing protection of any kind,
and then if you're not wearingit, you're really exposing
yourself to significant harm.
So the the solution is asilencer, right, if you're not
(04:59):
hunting with a silencer, you'redragging your knuckles
everywhere you go.
You need to get with the times.
You need to get with the.
You need to get with silencers.
I'm going to talk about thatuntil you're sick of it and then
I'm going to keep talking aboutit after that.
But if you hang an eight inchor nine inch or 10 inch silencer
off the end of a rifle that hasa 26 inch barrel, it's very
(05:19):
cumbersome, correct, and barrellength used to be a requirement
to achieve adequate velocity,but the way around that was to
increase the pressure of thecartridge.
But there was material limitsto that, right.
So these are some of theproblems that you guys are
trying to solve, not just forthe military but also for the
(05:41):
hunting community, correct.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Yeah, and what happens when you?
You know we're talking aboutbrass.
Brass has limitations and asyou look at the firearm, the
action is not what's failing,the brass is what fails.
When it gets to that pressure,when it increases pressure, the
brass is what fails.
And so when we started downthis path with 7-back country,
(06:06):
we did that same thing that youjust talked about.
We're looking at 26-inchbarrels, 24-inch barrels.
A lot of customers, shooters,were taking these great calibers
cartridges, 7prc, 6.5,creedmoor, you could name a
whole bunch of them and they'recutting the barrel lengths down
because of that suppressor use.
(06:26):
What happens then?
As I cut barrel length down, Ilose all the great performance
of that great cartridge right, Ijust lost all the performance
that I had because I cut thebarrel length down.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Because in physics and elsewhere there's no
replacement for displacement.
So you have a certain amount ofvolume inside that barrel and
that is the time where, as thatconflagration of powder turns
into gas or plasma and expands,like until that bullet comes out
, it can continue expanding andpushing on it and accelerating
(06:59):
that projectile as soon as ituncorks out the end of the
rifling dial.
As soon as it uncorks out theend of the rifling, then that
propellant can't push on itanymore.
Right, right.
So we have a finite limit tohow fast we can get this bullet
going.
It's the same thing witharchery and draw length.
Right, I was just at WinterStrong.
Sean Mellon was there, formerNFL linebacker.
(07:19):
The dude has a 31 and a halfinch draw length.
I hate him passionately.
Big, tall, fit, beautiful man.
He can draw 60 pounds with hisdraw length and he can shoot an
arrow faster than I can if I'mdrawing 90 pounds with a 28 inch
draw length, because the arrowhas more time on the string.
Same thing with a bullettraveling down a barrel, yep,
(07:42):
okay.
So how do we fight it?
How do we beat it?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
So we beat it by taking this technology, peak
alloy, and it is a steel alloy.
We took a standard long action.
We started.
We tried with a short action tostart.
We started with a sevenmillimeter odd eight, but we
could not get enough powder.
In that case we could beatcertain calibers.
(08:07):
We just couldn't get to theperformance that we wanted.
We just didn't have enoughcapacity in that short action.
So we started there.
We went to long action.
Um, and when we're talkingseven back country, it is
standard long action.
Um, standard overall length isa two, 70.
This doesn't have a parentcartridge.
If it did, it would be a 280ackley.
(08:28):
Okay, 280 ackley has a 40degree shoulder.
Okay, um, seven back country is30 degree.
But when you look at thecartridge you're going to think
280 ackley, 270, 30.6.
And we went to.
When we went to the riflemanufacturers and showed them
the cartridge, there's nothing.
The secret sauce is not in thecartridge itself, in any of the
(08:51):
shoulders or overall length,anything like that it's in the
case.
And when you think of aWinchester short mag, some of
the others, they had feedingproblems.
To be honest, when we produceshort mag it's a relatively hard
piece of brass to produce.
Because of that, shoulder yepand we crush shoulders and fold
(09:11):
necks and do all sorts of things.
Still make great brass, butthere are some challenges with
that.
This is very similar to what wedo day in day out in making
brass, just a completelydifferent material.
And peak alloy is a steel alloy, essentially the same alloy
that could be used in the wallof a nuclear reactor, very
(09:34):
different makeup.
We didn't make it specificallyfor ammunition, it was out there
.
It wasn't developed for us.
We took technology.
It was out there, but the timeinvolved on the research and
development and by the team ofengineers was to get the
hardness correct and everythingcorrect so that we could shoot
it in a firearm, not damage anextractor.
(09:55):
There were limitations that wewanted to hit and that's what we
did with peak alloy and withthat on a traditional legacy
cartridge.
Doesn't matter the cartridge,the caliber, somewhere between
60 and 65,000 pounds of pressure, 300 wind mags, 7 PRC, 7 mag
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I don't want to gloss over that, because people
oftentimes do, but let's talkabout what that really means.
Think about it for a second.
You've got 60,000 pounds ofpressure per square inch.
That is gargantuan, right?
Think of it on your foot.
(10:34):
We're going to take 60,000.
What would that be?
What's something that weighs60,000 pounds?
I don't even know Semi-truckwithout a trailer, something
extremely heavy.
And then you're going tocondense that down to one square
inch and set it on top of yourfoot, right?
That's a lot of pressure.
That's a lot of pressure, andit's occurring very quickly,
(10:57):
right?
So it's an impulse of pressureas well, and it's in a very.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
when you look at your firearm chamber it it doesn't
matter if it's a Magnum or astandard long action, but it's
in a very small containercompartment and with peak alloy.
So we're 60 to 65.
Traditional Peak alloy7-backcountry is 80,000 pounds,
(11:25):
and again I'm going to go backto standard long action.
But we're at 80,000.
And what that allows us to doin the failure point of brass
when we are at 60,000, I canonly put so much powder in that
case to get to 60 or 65,000.
And then I have to stop.
That's the regular.
That's where it's at.
A proof load for brass is about80,000.
(11:46):
And what is proofing?
So proofing is a.
You are going to load that caseto a pressure that the firearm
will survive.
Okay, right.
And so it is a safety mechanismfor us, for the firearms
manufacturers, and somemanufacturers will proof every
gun before it goes out.
Some manufacturers will proofjust the action and do quality
(12:10):
assurances throughout theprocess to make sure that
there's no failure in the metalper se.
And again, it's not the actionthat's going to fail, it's the
brass that's going to fail.
The actions that these firearmsmanufacturers make doesn't
matter who it is can withstandfar more than what we're
shooting at.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
But it's the brass that fails.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
If you wander over to your gun cabinet right now and
you pull out your granddad'sshotgun that's sitting in there
and you look down at the portionof the barrel that connects
with the action, you're going tosee a little stamp.
You might even see a couple ofthem, and those are proof stamps
, right yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:48):
By a proof house Yep, yep, yep.
And so they're tested.
And every firearms manufacturerhas a different process?
Yep, but they are testing, theyare safe and we make sure that
we don't want to put that intoquestion with the ammo.
So we are going to make sure,we are going to do our due
diligence, we are going to doall our research.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
We are going to do all of our testing to make sure
that we put this out there andit's safe, all right.
So we're at 80,000 PSI Now.
We're more than half of anAbrams M1A1 main battle tank per
square inch of pressure.
Like that is still almostimpossible to conceive of.
Like condensing something withthat much mass down into such a
small space, something with thatmuch mass down into such a
(13:35):
small space, since we'veachieved that, and done so with
this nuclear reactor alloy thatis in the brass, that is very.
I guarantee you an engineerdidn't have anything to do with
calling it peak alloy.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Right, that was the marketing side of it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
That feels marketing to me, engineers would call it
like M3, alpha, bravo, 279er.
Yeah, point one.
So yeah, now that we've doneall this, we're ready to send
this projectile out a shorterbarrel I've got to talk about
short barrels a little bit,because it's not just a matter
(14:09):
of convenience and being able toget it around in and out of
vehicles, um, in the brush, ifyou're putting the rifle inside
your pack, things like that.
Obviously this is going to bemore, more important to have it
have it short.
But there's something thatoccurs when a projectile goes
down the barrel, um calledharmonics, and the barrel
(14:31):
wiggles around.
So if you were holding on to agarden hose and there was, you
know, 30 inches of garden hoseout past the end of your hand
and you turn the water on, thathose would whip around, right.
Something very similar happenswith a rifle barrel.
Now you have magnitude andfrequency.
So if I have six feet of gardenhose out there, it's going to
(14:51):
whip much more, but much moreslowly.
If I have six feet of gardenhose out there, it's going to
whip much more, but much moreslowly.
If I have 12 inches of gardenhose, it's going to whip faster
but with less magnitude Everytime you cut a rifle barrel down
it's going to get stiffer, sothe magnitude is going to
decrease.
And every time I've cut a riflebarrel down, the gun is shot
(15:12):
more accurately than it didbefore, every single time, not
most of the time, not some ofthe time, every time.
But the drawback was I'm givingup on velocity, and velocity is
a cheat code in hunting.
It really, truly is, becauseit's going to decrease your
margin of vertical error on ashot, truly is, because it's
(15:33):
going to decrease your margin ofvertical error on a shot.
And if you accidentally, youknow, hit a piece of brush in
front of or behind your targetwith your laser range finder,
that velocity is going toprovide you a margin of error.
That's really important, as wellas lethality with that
projectile, right, if I tossed160 grain bullet at you right
now, it would do nothing.
But if it was moving now itwould do nothing, but if it was
moving very quickly it would doa lot.
(15:54):
Right, velocity does matter, itabsolutely matters.
And I think as laser rangefinders became more and more
available and they started tohave ballistic compute systems
in it and stuff like that, a lotof people kind of let go of
velocity and they thought, well,all I really care about is
accuracy, because I'm just goingto be dialing for everything
anyways, and what we saw comefrom that was the disaster,
(16:21):
which is the 6.5 Creedmoor.
And this is a really fun rifleto shoot on the range at close
range.
It's good for deer, it it is,in my opinion, as, as an elk
guide for the last 25 years,it's.
It's inadequate for elk, it'stoo small.
But, um, people, people forgotabout velocity, right?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
yeah, so now we're getting it back.
We're getting it back.
Uh, we're getting back in ashorter barrel and the other
part to a little bit of atangent, for what on suppressor
use?
There is a part of it.
When you put a suppressor onthe end, I would argue that you
are going to shoot betterbecause of recoil for one, and
also, when you talked about itearlier, the noise portion of it
(17:01):
.
Yeah, I don't have to thinkabout the concussion from yeah,
the noise, yeah and also therecoil.
So in a bit I'm inherently goingto shoot a little bit better
with the suppressor.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Everybody does.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Everybody does, and I wish I would have shot one
years and years before.
And now that I do shoot onelove it.
Wouldn't shoot without one Same.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
That's the biggest problem about them.
As soon as you shoot with one,you're like well, why didn't I
do this before?
I'm not shooting without onenow, right, why didn't I do this
?
Speaker 1 (17:30):
before.
I'm not shooting without onenow, right, yeah.
And so when we talked about andwe're looking at this, we went
to the gun manufacturers, showedthem the cartridge and we said
20-inch barrels.
And that was our kind of ourdirection as we went through and
the engineers had developed,the team worked on this, looked
at this, then went to themarketing team and said this is
(17:52):
how this is what it does, thisis what we're going to talk
about, this is how you're goingto position it for the marketing
folks.
And they did a great job onthat side.
And the engineers did afantastic job on their side,
proving out and showing this iswhat I can do at 20 inches.
This is what it does at 26inches or 18.
And we went to the firearmsmanufacturers with the idea of
(18:16):
20 inch barrels.
It quickly went to 16s and 18sand again the whole point was
I'm cutting the barrel down, I'mputting a suppressor on.
Now I have a very manageablefirearm.
Think of getting in and out ofa side-by-side, getting in and
out of the truck, putting it ina case.
Don't have to take thesuppressor off.
All of that some of getting inand out of a side-by-side,
getting in and out of the truck,putting it in a case uh, don't
have to express her off.
All of that.
Some of that we didn't evenreally think through per se as
(18:38):
we started, but obviouslyquickly became evident as we got
to these shorter barrels.
And what we didn't give up wasthe performance.
So we're we're 20 inch barrel170 class bullet.
We offer more, but we're goingto talk about the 170 grain
bullet.
Okay, and it's 3000 feet 3000feet per second Out of a 20 inch
(18:59):
barrel.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
So we are beating 7 PRC.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
We beat 7 mag.
We beat 280 Ackley.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And depending on the ammo and the rifle, we're going
to beat 7 PRC by 250, 300 feetper second.
When you're comparing apples toapples On the shelf, when you
look at 7 backcountry, we showthe ballistics for 24-inch.
Because if I pick up a 7 magbox and I pick up a 7
(19:25):
backcountry box, I want to lookat them and I'm going to go 3150
for backcountry and 7 mag is2850 or 27.
I'd have to look it up and seewhat exactly it is.
I want to compare apples toapples, but on the back we show
the 20-inch.
Because that's really where wego down the rabbit hole and say
(19:45):
this is the way that the gunmanufacturers are going with
their platforms.
They're shortening the barrels.
Some are 22, 20, like I said,18 and 16.
Put a suppressor on the end,but we didn't lose any of that
performance.
And coming full circle back tothis, we can do that because of
the 80,000 pounds of pressure.
That 80,000 pounds I'm puttingenough powder in the case.
(20:12):
I'm not compressing the powder,but I'm putting enough powder
in that case.
Standard long action to pushthat bullet 3,000 feet per
second.
And that is the case is how wedo that.
The case contains all of thatpressure.
The gun doesn't know thedifference if it's shooting
brass or alloy, because all ofthat 80,000 pounds is contained
(20:35):
within the backcountry case, thepeak alloy.
And that is how we get to thatperformance level because of
that case.
It's not a special powder.
What we load, the powder thatwe use today in the factory, we
load in other calibers, 6.5,creedmoor 308.
You know it's across.
What we're loading isproprietary, but that has a lot
(20:58):
more to do with maybe some ofthe coatings and just but there
will be a commercial equivalenceto that, but it is nothing.
The secret sauce again is notthe powder.
It is that case.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I know the question that a lot of people are asking
right now is will it bereloadable?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
It is reloadable.
So we're working through that.
We've been using a rock truckerpress and an RCBS die for I
don't know the last nine to 12months.
We modified what RCBS sent us alittle bit.
Did you have to change thealloy of the dyes?
No, it was carbide.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And really, what you're doing is essentially neck
sizing.
That's what I wondered about.
Yep, so it's the case, doesn'tgrow, is there?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
trimming involved.
There's no trimming involved,because this case doesn't grow
at all.
Well, that's nice, yep, andit's not.
It's alloy, it's steel alloy,but it's normal pressure.
We're not doing anything fancywith a lube or a wax or you know
.
It's just essentially.
If you think of an expanderball or a mandrel, you're just
resizing the neck.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
And that's all you're .
We're not going to be able toanneal it.
Okay, to start, we have.
We have five, five skews thatin our lineup.
One of them is they are allnickel plated but one of them is
a matte finish nickel plated inour Fusion Tipped.
That particular case is notplated on the inside of the case
.
The bright nickel which followsour premium lineup is coated or
(22:27):
plated on both the inside andthe outside.
So we're going to start withthat because if something
happened to that fusion tippedcase and you got a little bit of
surface rust, changes thevolume.
We're not going to go down thatpath with reloading.
So to start with, the brightnickel ones will be the ones
that are going to be reloaded.
And again, you're essentiallyresizing the neck standard 210
(22:48):
primer and there will becommercial equivalent powders
that you'll be able to load.
We'll put the data out there atsomething less than 80,000.
And then we are going to haveto work through the pressure
portion of how do we measurethat.
It may be by speed.
We might say you get to 3,000feet per second and that's
(23:09):
you're done.
But we'll work through that andI would imagine sometime by
this summer.
We've engaged other reloadingcompanies Dillon, custom, short
Action.
We've sent them cases.
They'll work through it.
We obviously started with RCBSbecause we had the relationship
with them.
But to start federal, we loadammunition as a company.
(23:32):
That is our primary objective.
But we also understand thereloading market is a big
segment and making sure, butwe're going to load first and
then we'll come back and makesure that the reloading market
understands there's going to bea lot of nuances to it.
Again, it is not brass.
So there's a little educationpiece that says it's not brass.
(23:53):
We're going to treat this alittle different and there'll be
some parameters around how toreload it and just kind of take
what you think of brass and goput that to the side.
Is it a large rifle primer?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It is a large rifle, primer Yep 210.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Good, good, and there are no.
The same tells that you see inbrass where you're popping a
primer, okay, when you're overpressure.
You don't see that in the alloybecause that primer isn't
moving.
You're not going to flatten aprimer, you're not going to pop
a primer um.
You just don't see that.
Even in our proof loads wedon't see pop primers um.
We don't see extractor marks,anything like that in a proof
(24:29):
load when we shoot with alloy um.
So there will just be somedifferences as we go down this
reloading process.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
So six years of brilliant engineers and
thermophysicists working on thisstuff.
What was the biggest hurdle?
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I think it was where we're going to land with
pressure.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
What we're going to do for performance.
You know the material wasavailable.
There was, I wouldn't say it'sthe boring part, but the
manufacturing process.
There are so many littleavenues that go into making the
loaded round and a lot of thatis on the front side with the
(25:10):
engineers and looking at how dowe get this case, how do we load
it?
How do we form it?
Yep, how do we put it on?
Does it go on a normal headturn machine?
Can we put it on a normal JITlike we do on brass?
All of those questions we wentthrough.
Once it gets to the formed casestage, we put it on a primer
insert machine and it runs justlike a regular standard load.
(25:31):
We put it on a primer insertmachine and it runs just like a
regular standard load.
We put it on a standard loader.
None of that portion of it isnot different.
It's everything that leads upto that part.
So that's what they worked onand as we were going through the
marketing and going through thedevelopment, we were obviously
still learning things.
We're very good at nickelplating brass.
We didn't know how to nickelplate steel.
(25:53):
Sure Alloy.
We had to learn how to do thatDid you do it with electrolysis.
Yeah, and we actually send itout just because there's a whole
bunch of science behind thechemicals that we use that is
specific to brass, that hasnothing to do with alloy, so we
can't mix them, we can't putthem in the same tank, we don't
(26:18):
have a line that we can add onto that kind of thing.
So we do send it out to beplated.
Same with annealing.
We have to send it out to avery specific annealer for the
exact temperature that we want,and the hardness so I had to
work through all that and that'sa lot of what that team did is
to get to that point.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Cool.
Well, internal ballistics arefascinating, often slept on as
far as people's understanding ofwhat's going on.
So everything between theprimary getting struck by the
firing pin, to the bulletexiting the end of the barrel or
the silencer, that's ourinternal ballistics.
Let's get into the externalballistics a little bit.
That's something that I thinkis thought about probably too
(26:54):
much these days.
We've got 170 grain 7mm bullet.
What's our ballisticcoefficient?
It's got to be over 500.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Depending on the bullet I know for.
So we're loading five loads.
Okay, we have a Berger 195,which is the heaviest hunting
bullet that we could find.
That BC is 755.
Yep, so cup and core bulletlong, heavy, heavy for caliber.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
We load a Barnes LRX.
Okay, I know that BC is 0.513.
Okay so copper13.
Okay so copper bullet.
Yeah so heavy, heavy bullet.
And then our terminal ascentbullet is 0.645.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Okay, and what is?
The burgers are wonderful onthe range.
I've seen a lot of failures onwildlife with them.
What is the terminal ascentbullet?
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Terminal ascent is a federal made bullet that we make
in Minnesota in the plant inAnoka.
It is an iteration of JackCarter's Trophy-Bonded Bear Claw
.
Okay, it must be the fourth orfifth version of that bullet.
You know we just kept improvingon the original and it is a
bonded.
I like to call it a bondedmatch-grade hunting bullet.
(28:04):
Okay.
I like to call it a bonded matchgrade hunting bullet.
So it is not a match bullet butwe have a very tight spec
internally that we have to hitwith that bullet and so we have
a lot of Q&A or quality andassurances that we put into that
bullet to make sure that we hitthat spec.
It is a bonded bullet, solidcopper shank.
We have what we call aslipstream tip, which is a
(28:27):
hollow tip on the end.
Okay, and what that allows usto do when that bullet
essentially reaches the end ofits terminal velocity, where it
does not have enough energy toupset, that bullet because of
fluid dynamics in that hollowpoint fills up with fluid blood
and allows some expansion,essentially at the end of where
(28:48):
the velocity would normally notallow that bullet to upset.
So we do get some upset to thebullet.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
What do you mean by upset?
Speaker 1 (28:54):
So the terminal, the penetration, so after I
penetrate, the diameter, theexpansion of the bullet.
So my bullet is upsetting.
When you look at a mushroom Yepexactly Now.
Now if you look at it, itdoesn't look like a whole lot at
say, depending on caliber, 995yards, but there's still some
energy transfer.
What I really like about thebullet is it is a robust bullet,
(29:18):
bonded, and even at 10 or 15yards, where that bullet is
moving so fast, I don't knowthat you could make a bullet
strong enough that it wouldcompletely stay together.
We still get a very high weightretention percentage-wise.
But after that point, as thevelocity slows down a little,
I'm going to be 90, 95, 96, 97%weight retention of that
(29:41):
original 170 grains or whatever.
It's a different cartridge.
I'm going to retain that weightand all of that weight
continues through the animal.
I continue with that energytransfer, and not all the time,
but sometimes you're going tocapture it on the other side.
The far side Hides elastic.
I'll capture it sometimes onthe shoulder.
(30:03):
A lot of that there's so muchthat depends on is the animal
quartering away is it wateringto me?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
hit on the way there do I hit a?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
rib?
Do I glance off the shoulderblade?
Do I blow right through theblade?
Yeah, all of that affects thebullet and my personal opinion
is I want that bullet to be asclose as I can get to the
original grain weight 170 grainsand I want that energy and I
want to be able to carry itthrough as much as I can
(30:31):
throughout my animal.
Yeah, and that's I, like abonded bullet.
Everybody has different.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
So the lead is like chemically bonded to the copper
of the jacket.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Chemically and mechanically and mechanically
bonded, so we do have a bulletthat we make which is our fusion
tip bullet in this lineup thatis molecularly bonded and still
bonded, but different process.
So I take a lead core, I put itin a bath of copper and the
copper electronically bonds tothat lead core Right.
(31:02):
That makes a very concentricbullet and a very accurate
bullet.
I have no variable in thatbullet because it is very
uniform all the way around andinherently is very accurate.
The terminal scent bullet isalso and I'm going to go back to
match grade so we make it asaccurate as I can.
But because of that bullet andhaving a solid copper shank it's
(31:24):
not like a cup and core bulletor, in our fusion tip,
molecularly bonded bullet.
So there is some accuracy butit is still MOA or sub MOA
bullet.
It may just not be as accurateas a fusion tip.
A lot of that depends on how weload it and we are finding that
we can.
You know, a lot of the riflemanufacturers most of the rifle
(31:44):
manufacturers that we've workedwith all require some sort of
MOA guarantee on their rifles.
We're a large part of that inthe load development.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Oh, yeah, massive.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
When we started we sent them function ammo shoots
it it's fine, works in 80,000.
They knew it would.
They were already going downthat path 80,000.
They knew it would.
They were already going downthat path.
Then we tweaked them and theonus was on the engineers to
make sure that it was the mostaccurate load that we could get.
So we talked about we're goingto talk about overall length,
we're going to talk about powdercharge.
Um starts with how the bulletsmade, making sure that you know
(32:21):
we don't have a heel on thebullet or anything.
You know that that it is is thebest bullet that we can make.
That lends itself to being themost accurate bullet and then,
in turn, the most accurate loadwe can get.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay Well, elk hunters, bear hunters, deer
hunters, you need to be payingattention to this one.
You're going to have anaccurate rifle that you can
handle well, that you can put asilencer on the end of.
I know a bunch of manufacturershave gotten on board with
building this out, includingSeekins, with all the new stuff
(32:55):
that they just rolled out whichis pretty exciting to me.
I'm going to do a podcast onthat in the future, when me and
Maddie have a little bit moretime in our lives.
Okay, so this thing is fast.
It's got a high BC.
It's a well-constructed bullet.
I'm going to encourageeverybody to check out this
Terminal Ascent bullet.
That's going to be your gamebullet, from what I'm hearing
(33:16):
for sure, this is a really,really legitimate option that I
think people should beconsidering for Western rifles.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
And it's not just you know when you think about it.
For Western rifles, yeah, andit's not just you know when you
think about it.
I would still say most of thegame shot is probably still east
of the Mississippi and so themarketing portion of it is
really where is your backcountry?
I hunt whitetails in Wisconsin.
I'm not even sure I can see ahundred yards, let alone shoot
past a hundred yards.
For the most part, yeah, but Iwould still shoot this caliber.
(33:48):
I would pick the fusion tipbullet or the Barnes bullet.
It just depends on what you'reusing it for.
But it takes out.
You know I can make someadjustments with the scope and
dialing but again, you touchedon it it takes out some
variables in my holdover.
Touched on it.
It takes out some variables inmy holdover.
(34:09):
Instead of dialing in at 200,now I don't have to really
adjust for hold until it's 300or 350, depending on the bullet.
I'm shooting all those thingsand I still.
I would encourage everybody togo out and shoot.
Make sure you know where yourrifle shoots.
Shoot past 100 yards, shoot asfar as you can conceivably.
I know some ranges you justcan't.
The gun may dial in at 100, butthere's a big difference
(34:32):
between shooting at 100 andshooting at 400, 500, 600 yards.
But with this caliber, with thespeed, everything that we're
shooting, you can make up forthat.
You'll have trust in the rifle,you'll have trust in the
ammunition, you'll have trust inthe ammunition yeah, and that
the performance is there.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So yeah, well, look, folks, you know that I love long
range shooting.
Um, I'm passionate aboutprecision guns, but when it
comes to hunting, I want thatanimal to have powder burns on
it.
Get as close as you can like.
Reduce that variable.
Have fun with your hunt.
Remember to have that stock.
Remember to have that patienceand set up your ambush position
(35:11):
so that you can be as close aspossible.
I promise you'll get moresatisfaction out of a close hunt
than you will out of a longrange hunt.
I promise you.
This isn't a, this isn't awildland math competition, right
.
But when you get to the range,have fun burning it way out
there and learning the wind andplaying this game.
It's wonderful, do it.
(35:31):
It is.
Encourage people so much toexperience both long range and
short range.
Keep the hunting short rangeand then have fun shooting long
range when it's on paper orsteel.
Yeah, okay, well, eric, thankyou so much for your time.
This stuff is available now.
People can get it.
They can find it.
They can order it online.
They can find it at Cabela's orwhatever.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yep, yep.
So we started with 13 gunmanufacturers.
Within that 13, I think,there's 84 models available 84
models Weatherby alone has 13.
Again, you touched on theSeekin's point.
If you haven't looked at thenew action, definitely go look
at the new action.
It is fantastic, love it.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Weatherby's got some great new stuff too.
They do.
Since Tim Butler's come onboard over there.
He's done wonderful things forthat company and I know Tim
helped out with engineering onthis cartridge as well, and you
guys have heard me talk abouthim in the past, but he's
probably the greatest mind infirearms alive, so anything that
he touches you can have a veryreasonable expectation that it's
(36:32):
going to be fricking awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And this is a case of that.
Yeah, we had.
We had great partners in thislaunch.
We had again, I'm going to say,13 gun companies, but Proof
Research, fierce, savage,weatherby, glenn and Seekins
were great.
I mean, all of our partnerswere fantastic.
There's more gun companies, youknow.
Look at them.
There's some great firearms outthere.
A lot of these guys havealready shipped firearms.
(36:55):
A lot of the dealers and yourlocal gun store have already
sold what they've gotten.
We've shipped ammo out.
We have it, you know, available.
It's shipping.
We're loading it as fast and asbest as we can.
Cool, so it's getting out there.
Awesome, just keep your eye outfor it and it's available.
Great, thank you so much for theinformation, yeah anytime,
appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Bye everybody.
Thank you to everyone who hastaken the time out of their busy
lives to write a review for theshow and share it with their
friends.
I'm extremely proud of howintelligent, engaged and
adventurous this audience is.
Original music for the SixRanch Podcast is written and
performed by Justin Hay.
(37:36):
Art for the Six Ranch Podcastwas created by John Chatelain
and digitized by Celia Harlander.
Thanks for listening and we'llsee you again next week.
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