Ammunition

Back in 2021, we reported about a long-range anti-materiel/sniper rifle and cartridge (12.7x114HL) developed by a Ukrainian company called Horizon’s Lord. The 12.7x114HL cartridge was created by necking down the 14.5x114mm case to .50 caliber. In this article, we’ll take a look at a new rifle and cartridge system designed by this company which is kind of the opposite of the 12.7x114HL concept. The new MCR .57 HL rifle is a shorter-range integrally suppressed bolt-action rifle and the cartridge it is chambered in, the .57 HL, is a 14.5mm caliber cartridge based on the .50 BMG case.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire world, including guns, gear, shooting sports, history, and of course weird projects like we’re going to talk about today. I’m sure you’ve seen the idea floating around the internet, or within your circle of friends for a long time - “How much ammo can I stuff in this empty Altoids tin?” 

Norma just announced its new Rival competition line of ammunition available in two variations of 9mm, 147gr FMJ and 158gr TMJ. The subsonic competition loads are meticulously quality-controlled for consistent feeding with greater accuracy and predictability from shot to shot, all wrapped up with an affordable price tag. Norma promises a competitive edge by significantly reducing recoil, achieving a greater ability to stay on target for faster follow-up shots with ease and confidence.

Federal is now shipping a new shotgun slug. The Freight Train copper sabot slug uses monolithic copper projectile with a polypropylene tip. This ammo is intended to give hunters tight groups out to 200 yards, and humane performance on target.

Ever since the dawn of the pistol, we’ve always sought to optimize the projectiles we shoot at those who are threatening us. Throughout history, we’ve seen the simple round ball shot evolve into all sorts of shapes, and eventually into the sleek, high ballistic coefficient, and complex expanding bullet designs meant for the greatest terminal effect out of the shortest barrels. With such a long history of developing ammunition, humanity has a long laundry list of even just 9mm cartridges that many people would consider carrying for self-defense. How do you sort through all of that? Today I’m going to give you what I and a lot of the TFB staff agree are the best available 9mm carry ammo.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and all of the different types of guns, shooting sports, history lessons, and ammunition you can think of! Last week we talked about a neat little aftermarket Ruger BX-1 mod I was able to pick up that allowed you to reliably feed CCI CB 22 Shorts out of a 10/22 rifle. While it’s not everyone’s first choice for a garden gun, it’s a lot cheaper than purchasing an entirely new firearm just to shoot shorts. This week we’re getting back into some more potent ammo - a lot more potent. This week’s rimfire ammo specimen is none other than Federal’s 22 WMR 45 grain Punch ammo.

Lowe’s Market, a local grocery store in Canyon Lake, Texas, has become the first location in the state to offer their customers the unique experience of buying ammunition from a vending machine. Seated next to the store’s ATM, the vending machine employs TSA facial recognition technology to confirm the buyer’s identity, ensuring they are at least 21 years of age to complete the purchase. 

Got a pest problem? CCI doesn’t want you to call the exterminator—they want you to reach for your handgun, and load it up with Hevi-Bismuth shotshells.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and all of its different types of guns, gear, shooting sports, history, and ammunition. Over the last few months, we’ve been slowly digging and rigorously testing various types of rimfire ammo. My primary mission with this entire series is to provide readers and shooters with a good set of starting data for the types of ammunition they’d likely be buying for their various guns. While everything thus far has been chambered for a .22 Long Rifle, today, we’ll be getting into our first of many .22 WMR tests. First, we’ll be starting with a favorite of mine for years, CCI’s Maxi-Mag 40 gr JHP .22 WMR load.

Federal Ammunition’s Fusion lineup needs little introduction. It has a reputation as an effective load on game animals, with a soft point bullet and a copper jacket “electro-chemically” bonded to the lead core. The newest iteration in the family is a range of Fusion Tipped ammunition, which adds a polymer tip for a better ballistic coefficient. Federal also claims that the polymer tip does not change the expansion and weight retention characteristics of the parent bullet design.

Duck season is just around the corner, and the product development team at Federal has a new option you might want to check out before the festivities begin this fall.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and all of its different types of guns, shooting sports, history, and ammunition. In our ongoing series of ammunition tests we’ve encountered many different cartridges so far, but I promise they’ll only get more interesting from here on out! I figured this week we’d take a break from the typical type of 22 caliber rimfire cartridge, into something a bit more strange - CCI’s CS 22 Shorts.

Federal Ammunition has just secured itself another high-profile government contract. According to an announcement from the American ammo manufacturer, it’s secured a 12-month contract to provide 7.62x51mm rifle ammunition to SOCOM.

It turns out that the Czechoslovak Group (CSG) really really really wants to buy Vista Outdoors’ ammunition business. They want it so bad that they’ve actually upped their bid again, ahead of a crucial shareholder vote that will see whether or not a huge chunk of American domestic ammo manufacturing ends up with foreign ownership.

The seemingly endless expansion of the Czech Republic’s arms and ammo manufacturing continues, with news of the country expanding production inside the borders of Ukraine.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is about the rimfire firearm world and its different types of guns, shooting sports, history, and ammo! Last week we took a look at the new North American Arms Sentinel swing-out pocket revolver. So far I have to say I am pretty impressed with the tiny little revolver. While the recoil is pretty stout, the shooting experience overall is enjoyable and I’m looking forward to sharing my full review with you guys shortly right here on The Rimfire Report. This week I wanted to get back into our ongoing series of ammunition tests by going back to a classic - CCI Standard Velocity 40-grain. I put the tried and true CCI Standard through the same set of tests I’ve been putting all of the other ammunition through, in the hopes it might provide an anchor point for us to compare CCI’s other offerings to. What does boring, plain ole CCI Standard 40 grain bring to the table? Let’s find out!

Welcome to another edition of TFB’s   Photo Of The Day! A friend posted this image and it’s too good not to be shared. We have a Ruger M77 416 Rigby, and it’s a thing of beauty. The rifle is probably from around the early 1990s and has the great, almighty rifle scope Z6i from Swarovski.

The board at Vista Outdoors is unanimously behind a restructuring plan that will see the Czechoslovak Group (CSG) buying its ammo-related business, with the rest of the company restructuring after the sale.

Say you want a handgun cartridge that hits hard and carries small. You might end up buying a pistol chambered in 30 Super Carry and then you might be looking for practice ammunition. Federal says it’s got what you want, with a new loading in its Champion Training series.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and all of its different types of guns, history, shooting sports, and ammo! Last time we took a look at the relatively inexpensive CCI “Green Tag” 40-grain ammo. Billed as a more affordable alternative to genuine match ammo - CCI Green Tag is produced via a hand-picked process where particularly good lots of CCI Standard Velocity 40 grain are separated for their consistency which in turn typically leads to smaller group sizes. As with any rimfire ammo - whether or not one particular lot of ammo is going to group well out of your specific rifle is another matter entirely and probably the reason many of you commented that while the appeal of CCI Green Tag is there, CCI Standard does it better for the price that it is being asked for. I would tend to agree with that assessment of my level of skill and the type of shooting that I do.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and all of its different types of cool guns, unique history, and of course its ammunition. Last week we took a look at CCI’s Quiet-22 Segmented Hollow Point Subsonic ammunition. Apparently, I am quite the ammo snob as while I thought that the performance of the round was a bit lackluster at longer (50 yards) ranges, most of you said you’d be more than satisfied with that performance since most of you only plan on using that ammo at about 15-25 yards max. Most of you who reached out also commented that the major selling point was really how quiet the round is - so quiet that it can be shot out of a bolt action or lever action gun without hearing protection. However, since I am a creature of habit, we once again will be chasing numbers in this week’s ammunition test of CCI’s Green Tag ammunition. So let’s see how this “budget match ammo” stacks up!

Welcome to another of TFB’s Wheelgun Wednesday, where we discover all there is to the world of revolvers. This week we’ll jump back into our Revolver Cartridge Spotlight series, focusing this time on .30 caliber revolvers. This caliber hasn’t gotten a lot of love from revolver manufacturers, but your chances of finding a wheelgun in .30 caliber aren’t zero, let’s take a look.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and its many different types of guns, gear, and ammo! Last week we talked about one of Federal Ammunition’s most popular hunting cartridges. The 38-grain copper plated hollow point is a fairly decent budget rimfire pest control round. When it came to my testing, I found it to have acceptable accuracy at 50 yards for small game applications, and it had a decent standard deviation in the velocity department of about 17 fps. This week we’re moving on to one of CCI’s more obscure 22LR loadings - Quiet-22 40-grain Segmented Hollow Point ammunition. Another round designed for small game hunting and pest control duty, CCI Quiet-22 takes the opposite approach to the 38-grain Federal CPHP and goes well below the subsonic threshold - but how does this approach translate to accuracy and consistency out of our B14R test platform? Let's find out in this next ammo test!

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about the rimfire firearm world and its many different types of guns, shooting sports, ammunition, and history! Last week we covered Ruger’s first-ever firearm, the Standard .22LR pistol. While the pedigree of the Ruger Standard pistol is still cherished today, as many of you pointed out, the pistols were pretty unreliable and inaccurate back in the day - modern examples are a much better example of what Ruger was probably going for upon the initial release of the Standard. Today and over the rest of the year we will be getting back into ammunition testing - both in Clear Ballistic gelatin, and also through chronographs and one type of rifle to give you guys a general idea of the performance you can expect from every kind of ammunition. To kick off this new set of ammunition tests we’ll first be testing Federal’s Game-Shok 38-grain Copper Plated Hollow Point 22LR Ammunition. This ammunition from Federal claims to be suitable for hunting small game and should provide the user with an “accurate and consistent” load for shot-to-shot accuracy on presumably squirrel-sized targets.

G9 Defense is pleased to announce the .308 Win 145gr Barrier Blind Solid Copper Hollow Point ammunition. G9 Defense is entirely focused on producing top-quality ammunition with unrivaled projectile performance for both pistols and rifles for defense and hunting. G9 Defense typically takes the approach of having lighter projectiles with higher muzzle velocities which tends to increase terminal performance, even through barriers and bone.

Got a pocket pistol that needs feeding, and you want the most hitting power you can get? While it is unrealistic to ever expect a quarter-bore to turn into a hand cannon, you might be able to improve your pistol's performance with Federal's new .25 ACP load in its Punch lineup.

New options are coming to market for fans of the .32 H&R Magnum. High Desert Cartridge is bringing three new loads to market this year, with two already available for purchase on their website and another listed as coming soon.

The times, they are a-changin’. And for evidence of that, check out the new Hornady Reloading App. It’s a 21st-century twist on a very old idea, bringing the company’s reloading handbook data onto your mobile device.

James Reeves is at IWA and Enforce Tac 2024 to talk to the guys from ReShell about their product, a compressed air, reusable shotgun training round kit. Load reusable training rounds with paintballs, 3D-printed projectiles, M&Ms, whatever. Check the video for details.

If you’re looking for big hitting power from your little concealed carry pistol, Federal wants to help. The new Federal Premium .32 ACP Hydra-Shok Deep load is supposed to offer superior stopping capability from one of the oldest self-defense cartridges in the world.