Federal, the industry’s No. 1 rifle ammunition brand, is proud to introduce Buckmasters Bonded. The centerfire rifle loads were developed for serious deer hunters in partnership with Jackie Bushman and Buckmasters. Shipments have been delivered exclusively to Academy Sports+Outdoors.

“We at Buckmasters are very excited about teaming up with Federal Ammunition, our partner now of over 32 years, in developing the ultimate ammo for the whitetail hunter,” said Jackie Bushman. “This ammo gives you everything from maximum weight retention, accuracy and knock down power for those big bucks, plus at a price point that everybody can afford.”

Buckmasters media outlets, including its magazine, TV show and digital properties, entertain and educate deer hunters with information on the latest technology and strategies from the most respected experts in the field. For more than three decades, Buckmasters and Federal have worked hand-in-hand to bring deer hunters the very best. Now that partnership offers even more with the creation of Federal Buckmasters Bonded ammunition

“The hundreds of thousands of Jackie Bushman’s Buckmasters fans are dedicated hunters from all corners of our country. They are die-hards who seek performance in all their trusted gear, especially their ammunition,” said Federal Ammunition Centerfire Product Director Mike Holm. “Jackie has decades of experience taking many types of game with Federal ammunition. Now, it’s time for him and his Buckmasters community to get their own specialized, branded ammunition.”

Buckmasters Bonded features high-quality Federal components. Its bonded bullet retains weight for deeper penetration, and consistent expansion transfers more energy to the vital zone. Its eye-catching packaging features Realtree’s new Edge pattern and the iconic Buckmasters logo.

Features

• Copper jacket is electro-chemically bonded to its pressure-formed core, resulting in perfect uniformity

• Maximum weight retention for deep penetration

• Accurate, hard-hitting bullet design with large, lethal expansion.

• Consistent Federal primer and precision-drawn Federal brass

• Realtree Edge pattern and Buckmasters logo

• Available in the most popular deer cartridges

Buckmasters Bonded will be available in 12 of the most popular hunting loads including 243 Win., 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm Rem Mag., .30-30 Win., 308 Win., 30-06 Sprg., 308 Win., 300 Win. Mag., and 7mm-08 Rem., with bullet weights from 95 to 180 grains, depending on caliber.

For more information on Federal ammunition, visit www.federalpremium.com.

SEDALIA, MO – Starline Brass has added another rifle caliber, the .350 Legend to their growing line-up of high-quality rifle brass. Starline’s new .350 Legend rifle brass is produced with the same demanding quality control standards for which Starline has become known.

Introduced by Winchester and approved by SAAMI in January of 2019, the .350 Legend is a brand new cartridge that has no parent case. This tapered case has a rebated rim allowing it to utilize the standard .223 bolt face found on many common rifles including the AR-15. Like many other AR cartridges, the .350 Legend only requires changing the barrel and magazine. This cartridge’s allure is that it can be used for hunting in several states that allow straightwall rifle cartridges only, but doesn’t have near the recoil of other AR cartridges that fill this niche. Utilizing .355” diameter bullets, the .350 Legend is capable of impressive ballistics, without a lot of recoil. Read more

MISSOULA, MT (July 16, 2019)— The Boone and Crockett Club released a position statement today in light of California’s statewide ban on lead ammunition for hunters, which took effect on July 1, 2019.

Triggered by concerns for the endangered California condor, which inhabit some regions of the state, a bill was signed into law in October 2013 banning all lead ammunition for the taking of game anywhere in the state.

“The history of wildlife conservation in North America has been shaped by the choices sportsmen make to benefit wildlife and their habitats,” said Timothy C Brady, president of the Boone and Crockett Club. “Unfortunately for the sportsmen in California, legislators have made the decision about the use of lead even in areas of California where condors aren’t present.” Read more

Sedalia, MO – Sierra Bullets is excited to announce the launch of their line of loaded ammunition. Sierra™ Ammunition™ is currently available in eight popular hunting calibers, all topped with the new GameChanger™ Tipped GameKing bullet.

“This is the next step for Sierra,” says President Pat Daly. “The way we make ammunition is simply an extension of the way we make bullets. We begin with highly engineered loads which utilize the best components on the market. Assembly of these loads is done to the industry’s strictest tolerances and the results are proven before they ever leave our facility. It’s rewarding to know that Sierra shooters now have the option of loaded ammunition.

Sierra™ Ammunition™ is the perfect combination of unparalleled accuracy and bone-punching terminal performance all packed in a precisely-tuned cartridge… ammunition with the same dedication to perfection the Bulletsmiths at Sierra are famous for. For more information, visit www.sierrabullets.com/ammo. Read more

By Glen Wunderlich

Last week, the .450 Bushmaster cartridge, which is fast becoming a favorite among Michigan deer hunters, was highlighted in terms of bullet design. Two major ammunition manufacturers, Hornady and Federal, have developed loads that claim proprietary bullet technology meant to be tough in weight retention and overall performance. This week, we learn the truth about their claims in a head-to-head test.

The .245-grain Hornady Interlock and the 260-grain Federal Fusion factory ammunition were compared in an unscientific experiment in which both rounds were shot through a whitetail deer’s shoulder blades and into water-soaked bundles of phone books and magazines. The rounds were also chronographed for velocity.

Before beginning, a certain understanding of why the test was conducted is in order. For me, the ideal round will not only be accurate, but the bullet will expand and not disintegrate to any degree. To be clear, a bullet that fragments and sends pieces of its jacket into the animal are not desirable. While explosiveness is desirable in varmint hunting, it’s not necessarily a good thing in big game hunting, because it destroys too much meat, if the bullet placement is not ideal.

When the .450 Bushmaster came onto the deer-hunting scene, Hornady’s Flex Tip bullet offering was about the only factory load available. I found it to be extremely accurate, but its destructiveness was too severe. In a similar test with this bullet last year, weight retention was far less than optimal, and therefore, other options in factory ammo were sought.

By recycling a road-killed deer’s shoulder blades and placing them in front of wet expansion medium, I would be able to recover the bullets and weigh them for comparison. This method of testing was meant to simulate what happens to particular bullets under extreme conditions to offer a relative comparison of toughness. A video of the test is available on YouTube by entering “.450 Bushmaster Bullet Integrity Test #2” in the search bar.

First up was the Hornady 245-grain Interlock ammo. Advertised at 2200 feet-per-second (fps), the bullet passed through the sensors at 2156 fps out of a Ruger American rifle with its relatively short barrel of 16 inches. The bullet created an excessive wound channel that could only be described as overkill. Sorting through the wet pages, pieces of the bullet’s jacket were found along with only 55.1 percent of the bullet’s core.

Next came the Federal Fusion load with a slightly heavier bullet weighing 260 grains. It was clocked at 2029 fps and was found to retain 86.5 percent of its original weight. Of the four bullets tested in this manner to date, it was by far the most intact projectile of the group; both penetration and expansion were substantial, as well. Upon close inspection of the mushroomed bullet, the jacket could be seen totally enveloped by the lead core. It did not blow up!

The Federal Fusion ammo will get the nod this hunting season for me, because it really lives up to the claims of integrity. And, if shots hit bone, as they typically will, the bullet can be relied upon to stand up to even the most demanding conditions, and that’s what I was looking for.

Sedalia, MO – Lapua, world-renowned for producing the finest rimfire cartridges, is proud to announce our second USA Lapua Rimfire Test Center at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio. The new Lapua Rimfire Test Center will offer competitive shooters and consumers alike the opportunity to match individual lots of Lapua ammunition to their match rifles and pistols. The new East Location will officially open in late Fall of 2019. All of the capabilities of the new test center will replicate our current Lapua Rimfire Test Center in Mesa, AZ.

“We’re excited to partner with Lapua and bring this facility and test capabilities to our current and potential customers,” stated Jim Henderson, Director of Competitions at the Cardinal Shooting Facility, “We feel this will help many consumers, as well as junior and collegiate teams elevate their competitive advantage.”

The new location will feature testing at 100 meters, with electronic target readouts at both 50 meters and 100 meters for each test conducted. Customers have the option to send their rifles in for testing or schedule an onsite appointment to participate and view the test process. Read more

Mesa, AZ – Berger Bullets is shipping the new 6.5mm 156gr EOL Elite Hunter projectiles to exclusive retailers now.

The long-awaited 6.5mm 156gr EOL Elite Hunter bullets are purpose-built for hunters demanding a heavy-bullet solution for their Creedmoor, PRC, 26 Nosler and other 6.5 caliber long-range hunting platforms. EOL Elite Hunter bullets are “heaviest-in-class” and designed to break the common trend-line for today’s heavy hunting offerings. The sleek profile features an ultra-high ballistic coefficient (B.C.) and increased sectional density, delivering the highest energy retention upon impact.

EOL Elite Hunter Bullets utilize Berger’s industry-leading hybrid ogive design, which blends tangent and secant designs to optimize efficiency, reduce wind-drift, and minimize sensitivity to seating depth. EOL’s are easy to load and shoot, and provide the unmatched accuracy and performance that long-range enthusiasts expect from Berger Bullets. Read more

For more than a century, hunters have relied on Norma® for accuracy, reliability and unsurpassed terminal performance. In 2019, Norma is proud to deliver this same standard of quality and reliability to even more shooters with the release of its new Tactical line, which debuts with the highly anticipated 223 Norma Tactical.

The all-purpose addition to Norma’s 223 line is topped with a 55-grain full metal jacket bullet designed for reliable feeding in a wide variety of rifles and pistols. The brass-cased ammunition is manufactured to exacting specifications to ensure effortless extraction in the most trying of conditions. The consistency offered by the new 223 Norma Tactical will set a new standard for performance. Read more

By Glen Wunderlich

Ammunition manufacturers seem to tout their brand of load offerings as the best in overall performance compared to their completion. However, the truth about the matter cannot be found by punching paper targets, unless accuracy is to be the only factor. Although bullet placement is always the most critical component in taking a whitetail deer, factors such as bullet expansion and penetration play a vital role – especially if shots are not perfectly positioned.

Independence Day provided an opportunity to test two relatively new ammunition offerings from top-brand manufacturers in .450 Bushmaster: Hornady and Federal.

The .450 Bushmaster was designed by the Hornady Manufacturing Company for Bushmaster Firearms International producing a .45 caliber cartridge that would function in the short AR-15 action. The result of this collaboration is the increasingly popular .450 Bushmaster. Initially, ammunition choices were quite limited, but as the cartridge has gained popularity in what was once labeled as shotgun zones, so has the options in firearms and ammunition.

Hornady’s 250-grain FTX bullet has been the popular choice and by all accounts is very accurate. In my limited experience in recent years, it has done its job in the field. However, my unscientific testing found that the bullet’s weight retention is less than ideal, even though it is reported that Hornady has made this bullet tougher than normal. I sure don’t know what that means in specific terms, but other manufacturers claim similar results. I’m about to find out.

If a firearm and ammunition combination cannot produce acceptable accuracy, bullet integrity is a moot point. Since the Hornady FTX load is extremely accurate, it will take a good competitor to replace it as the go-to hunting load. At the shooting range, my testing with a Ruger American rifle, the Hornady Interlock 245-grain bullet offering (not the FTX load) put three shots in the bull’s eye at 100 yards with absolutely no adjustments in the scope from last season’s setting with the FTX ammo.

Hornady explains the Interlock ammo this way: InterLock^® bullets feature exposed lead tips for controlled expansion and hard-hitting terminal performance. Bullets used in American Whitetail^® ammunition feature our pioneering secant ogive design and exclusive InterLock^® ring — a raised ring inside the jacket that is embedded in the bullet’s core that keeps the core and jacket locked together during expansion to retain mass and energy.

Next up for accuracy testing was a new load by Federal with a slightly heavier bullet in 260 grains. Dubbed the Fusion line, Federal puts it this way: Fusion® was the first rifle ammunition specifically built for deer hunting—and it’s still the best, offering the largest expansion and highest weight retention in head-to-head comparisons against the competition. With a molecularly fused jacket and a pressure-formed core, Fusion transfers maximum energy on target.

Again, without so much as a one-click adjustment, the Federal Fusion ammo with its 260-grain bullet was on the mark at 100 yards with a 3-shot group of less than 1.5 inches – plenty good for minute-of-deer accuracy. Interestingly, the advertised velocity is 2200 feet-per-second – the same as the lighter Hornady bullet loads. This means more energy and that’s a good thing.

However, there’s more to effectiveness than mathematics and it’s the transfer of energy. A bullet must not only penetrate, it must expand, as well. The more the bullet penetrates and expands without disintegrating to any degree, the better.

Now that we know all of three types of ammo are more than acceptable in the accuracy department, it’s time to measure a most important aspect of performance. Next week, we’ll do just that.