Deep Dive into the Ammo Families of Barnes – Episode 4

Today, Dale is joined by Gregg and Mitchell to discuss in depth the wide assortment of ammunition that Barnes provides. The guys have a brief overview of all offerings, while talking in detail of the VOR-TX, Safari, Long Range, Reduced Recoil and Pioneer lines; some of our top selling products we produce. We hope you all enjoy and learn something new during Episode 4.

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Hey everyone, welcome back to another Barnes Bullet Points podcast. I’m Dale Evans, your host. We are on episode four, right? Episode four. Pretty exciting. Uh coming off the long weekend of July 4th. Everybody had fun. I hope so. Yeah. Good break. Good break. Yeah. Do some camping. Do some scouting. Yeah. Yeah. Did both. I went scouting for elk and only found deer and uh yeah, did some camping with the the goats and fishing. It was a it was a good break. Nice. Yeah, Greg. Yeah, we did uh a little bit of everything. I tried to shove in everything we could. We went took the dirt bikes out, did some single track in the mountains a few different days, rode some mountain bikes, went fishing, took the side by side out with the family, worked on a bunch of projects around the house. Nice. Sounds like a action-packed week and weekend. It was nice. We didn’t do too much. We uh went to a little parade and then just kind of hung out around the house and you know, having little kids, right? They can’t really stay up for fireworks or anything like that. So, um yeah, it was good. It’s nice to have a nice long weekend, but we’re back into it now. Um it’s Tuesday, right? Yeah. And um we’re going to talk ammo families today. I think that it makes a lot of sense. In episode two, we talked about the bullet families of Barnes. Um but now that we’ve really kind of I don’t want to say transitioned into an ammo company, but I mean ammo’s really kind of taken off for us, I guess you could say. Um makes a lot of sense to go over all the different things that we have available here at Barnes. Um, you know, I think everybody knows about our Vortex stuff, right? Because that’s kind of been our bread and butter for when uh was it 2011? Yeah, we did ammo. 2011 is when Vortex launched. Okay. So, 14 years, right? Um, yeah. And and that’s what got me into shooting barns way back then, right? Was I was able to pick it up off the shelf at Dick Sporting Goods or wherever that it was, right? Bassro. Um, so yeah, we we talked about or we could talk about that, but I would like to talk about kind of the wide array of everything that we have and then kind of hone in on some of our maybe unknowns, if you want to call it that, right? Like like some of those ones that were really designed specifically for certain purposes. um as well as some of our kind of newer things that again maybe people aren’t as aware of. Um yeah, and then just kind of take it from there. So yeah, I I would say let’s let Greg kind of go over a large overview since you have probably the most hands-on experience of any of us um of developing a lot of these. Okay. Yeah. So, starting with Vortex, um like you mentioned, Vortex is the main ammunition line. That was what got Barnes into loaded ammo. Um Vortex rifle is what it’s called. Um that’s basically hunting ammunition. You know, like we talked, it features the TTSX bullet. There are a few TSXs and LRXs, but the majority of them are TTSX. Yeah. Um, with Vortex rifle, um, kind of the split off from there, we have the Vortex LR, which is the the long range, you know, those are all LRXs. Um, a few of the offerings, a little more niche cartridge type loads, but, uh, Vortex Safari, that’s another one that was there with the Vortex launch. Um, gets us into obviously the 375 H&H, some of the big war stuff, 458 Win Mag, 470 Nitro. Yeah. And and others and those are loaded with a solid, the Barnes banded solid as well as a matching weight TSX. Okay. Uh a newer offering in the Vortex line um is the Vortex reduced recoil. Yeah, we’ll talk about that more specific later on. Um pretty neat offering where we have purpose-built, you know, cartridge bullet selection with optimized projectiles to function at lower velocity, right? where you can have, you know, whether it’s a recoil sensor shooter, um, somebody that wants to be able to shoot maybe a magnum, but they don’t need magnum performance, but they want to use that gun, those kind of things. So, and then obviously we have the Pioneer line, um, which is optimized for lever gun and revolvers, and those have both the VA Barnes original as well as some TSX flatnse offerings and XPBs. On the handgun side, we have the TAC XPD personal defense ammunition. Yeah. You know, 9ines, 380s, 40s, 45s, 357, you know, concealed carry home defense type offerings. Um, we also have precision match line, which is the match burner. You know, these are jacketed lead core, you know, match grade accuracy, high VC. Um, good offering for guy going to the range, target shooting, you know, whether it’s just plinking or shooting an NRL hunter match or PRS, guys want to do anything long range, shooting, steel, paper, those kind of things. Yeah. And we also have the JHP rifle, which is more of our kind of do all jacketed lead core, right? A little bit lower price point, still premium ammo. Yeah. I mean that that’s you you talked about plinking and stuff with like precision match, but that’s where I really look at like that center fire rifle stuff is is is what to me is the plinking, right? Because we have 308, 223, like that type of stuff. 300 Blackout. Yeah, for sure. 55 grain HP and 223, right? Um what else did we have? Did I cover them all? Let me think. Harvest. Harvest. And then the new offering, the harvest, which is we’ve, you know, the Barnes Harvest line, specifically looking at whitetail, another thin skin game. Um, and that features the Sierra TGK projectile. So, yeah. Um, then I guess we could kind of go into Shot Shell a little bit, right? Because we relaunched that. Yeah. Vortex Shot Shell. Um, really popular offering. Uh, features the tipped expander slug. great option for, you know, those hunting with slug guns, white tail, hogs, right? Um and then we also have the defense uh buckshot, right, offerings as well in Shell. Yeah. Okay. So, um I guess let’s kind of jump back to Vortex real quick. I think before we go into Vortex, I think it kind of as a overall we should explain why Barnes is different from other manufacturers as far as our loading practices and some of the some of the things we do here to to make this premium ammunition. And that doesn’t apply to just Vortex. It’s really everything. Okay. Uh so if we we can go into that and then dive into specific product lines. Go for it. Um yeah, these are loaded at Barnes. Um have pretty pretty dang rigorous quality control when they’re down loading on the on the uh ammunition equipment down there. They do a lot of quality checks uh in terms of overall lengths, powder weight, um any variation uh at the start of every run and then throughout the run, we’ll test pressure, velocity, accuracy. Uh, so we used Sammy test barrels and conformal pressure transducers to make sure it’s consistent every time. We have a awesome uh facility here. Great equipment in in Greg’s area. Um, we have a 300 yard underground tunnel that we shoot into. Um and then uh yeah, we have our Aaylor equipment that can measure accuracy out to that 300 yards and has the acoustic microphones, right? And we have just really good capability here uh to keep everything consistent. That ensures we um we have consistent muzzle velocities from lot to lot. Uh really minimize the velocity variation where possible. We try to use temperature stable propellants, right? Uh we can test all that in our hot and cold chambers. And that’s kind of that’s really what makes Barnes special and premium, right? Um and that’s across all product lines here. And then when it’s when it’s loaded, we gauge every single round. They actually go into uh minimum chambers, make sure everything fits. If it doesn’t fit, it’s getting called out. Everything’s looked at from the from the head stamp end to the tip. if anything’s wrong or offsp spec or um something’s going on, everything gets they get pulled out so it all gets sent to the the consumer. So that’s another thing. It’s I mean 100 every single round get gets looked at, right? Um so it’s there’s just a lot of quality control that goes into the every one of our products. Yeah. I mean, that that was one of the things, you know, for me only being here for the past year, you know, when I came to the facility for the first time, like to see just what goes into making our ammo was pretty damn impressive, I would say. um walking the floor really seeing, you know, not only the equipment that it that it takes to do this and and how accurate that equipment is, but also the people on the floor that have the desire that like want it to be the absolute best that it can possibly be, right? I mean, good enough isn’t good enough for us, if you will, right? like we almost always kind of look at things as, you know, in in a way almost like matchgrade standards for even our cheapest stuff, which is kind of crazy. Um, you know, you look at Harvest or even talking about like Centerfire stuff, right? Like I mean, yeah, it’s mass- prodduced, but it still has tighter tolerances than let’s just say 90% of the other ammo that’s on the market right now. Yeah. And as well as the components that go into it, right? Right. You know, like you mentioned the JHP center fire rifle, you know, it is our lower price point, but it’s still premium ammo. I mean, this stuff’s still quality components, good brass, good primers, good propellants, good projectiles. um still held to as Mitchell said tight standards, quality control practices and the people on the floor um like you mentioned I think that’s worth noting it it is unique I feel um in a production environment because they do care you know whether it’s operators um loading operators press operators building the bullets you know shipping people inspectors the quality control well and I think a lot of that goes back to you know they’re not here just because it’s a nineto-ive job right? They they love the brand. Um they’re also endusers, right? So like they look at it as, you know, I’m going to go use this in the field. I’m going to go hunt with it. I’m going to go shoot a match with it. Whatever that it is. So I’m essentially loading it for myself in a way, which is kind of a cool way to look at it, right? like um instead of again just being a 9 toive job of just like hey I got to punch in punch out and you know I need to run through whatever 50,000 parts today or something 2,000 parts a day. Um you know they’re definitely trying to have that utmost attention to detail on everything that they do. Yeah, for sure. And there’s a lot of there’s a lot of passion here, right? Um that stands out across the board in multiple areas, different people. There’s a lot of passion. They take pride in what they do. Um, very critical, you know, even to the point of being sometimes too critical, you know, but it’s, you know, that’s kind of part of the culture at Barnes. It’s, it’s pretty unique. Yeah, absolutely. Um, got anything else, Mitchell, before we start having a little bit deeper dives? Uh, I can say a little bit kind of about our R&D process, too. Uh, you know, how we get to factory loaded ammo. It’s a it’s a very rigorous process and how we get to our finalized loads and loads and selecting what propellants and what velocities to hit. Um just yeah, it’s a extremely rigorous process. Like I said, we have temperature chambers. We’re testing um extreme hots, extreme colds. We’ll test ambient. Um we cycle rounds through our rifles that you’ll see in the field. Yep. Make sure everything’s feeding okay. there’s no issues. There’s no primer leaks or extraction uh issues, anything like that. And it’s a it’s a huge process. So, um that’s another part that that makes our product shoot so well. Well, and I I know that you touched on our underground range, right? But like we’re not only shooting it out to 300 yards and calling it good and and kind of knowing what our velocities are going to be and everything, right? Like I mean I I’ve been there as part of it where we’re going to longer you know outdoor ranges that we can shoot out to 1,00200 yards getting Doppler data to understand the true bullet drop and the true ballistics the G1 G7 right of the BC for everything even out to those very extended ranges as well as you know and this is kind of going back to the bullets but like doing the gel testing out to 7 800 yards to truly you know, you can have a theory of what it’s going to do, but then you have to actually put it to use, right? And and again, I think that just goes back to everything that we do, we kind of overdo, you know, like like you said, almost almost to a hindrance to the company in a way. Um because it’s expensive to do all this, right? I mean, it takes it takes manh hours. Um you know, when we went to the range that day, I think that we had six six guys there, right? um and and just getting all that data, all that stuff to create um to be able to give the end user the best possible thing that we can that we can give them and what we would like to think is the best ammo in the market. Yeah. You know, that’s that is a good point. You know, we’ve invested as a company in the from the development stage, the production testing, a lot goes into it. You know, the the lab itself, the range, the facility, the equipment. um all the way from instrumentation, test barrels, PV barrels, sensors. This stuff is not cheap, right? I mean, it it adds up quick. You know, they’ve invested a lot of money and time and resources into ensuring that we have quality performing products, you know, from the front end developing all the way through, you know, everyday production. Um, and like Mitchell brought up, you know, part of that process, too, is we qualify those components. I think it’s worth noting we do not manufacture um the brass shell in house um at least not at this time right um and so we source those um from different suppliers right and we’ve sourced brass from many different people um and we put it through a extremely rigorous test right all the way where we’re rejecting brass to the point of you know and you have to balance obviously with business relationships you know we’re not trying to piss people off But there’s been multiple brass manufacturers. What I’ll say very reputable brands that, you know, everyone can make mistakes. You know, I’m not pointing fingers. Everyone has the chance in any production environment to have something slip through or something go wrong. Um, but we’ve rejected shells um from multiple manufacturers that don’t meet our standards, right? Um, and we’re selecting those components primers that, you know, we try to select the best primers for that load. primers that are consistent and are going to have good ignition and are reliable. Yeah. And I guess what I was going to kind of jump to there was, you know, how long does it take, for example, and and and I’ve kind of learned this over the past year is when we decide to develop a new load for a specific cartridge, whatever that it is. I mean, it’s not like, let’s say, the standard ladder test, if you will, for for for the average Joe that’s going out there and saying, “Okay, I’m going to run this powder because, you know, this says this will give me decent velocity and and accuracy.” Um, so now I’m going to load up whatever 15 shells and run five different um, you know, grain weights or something and then just kind of start to narrow that down. We’re doing it a lot deeper, right? We’re we’re testing multiple different powders for every single load, um seating depths, everything, right? So, how long did what would you say is kind of the average that it takes to develop just one single load? Like for example, when we were developing the seven PRC stuff, like how long did that truly take? Uh the 7PRC we spent a lot of time on. Yeah. Um but nor on average um just get through what we call the handload stage. Yeah. Um which is where we’re qualifying the four major components. Um but we go through a big powder screening. You know, generally we at times will have some primer selection, you know, um depending on what’s available. Um but obviously the primer has to be sufficient ignition for that propellant in that cartridge at those temperatures as well. Yeah. um shell. Um like I said, there’s generally that’s where we work with sourcing to say, “Okay, what shells can we get?” We put it through our test standards. Does it meet our criteria? But once we have the primer and the shell found and we know what bullet we’re going to load. Um and before I jump too much into the to answer your question, I think it’s worth noting too one advantage with Barnes loading ammunition as a bullet company first, as a bullet manufacturer, you know, we are the experts. We know which projectile to load in which cartridge, right? We know when a projectile needs to be optimized for a given cartridge, you know, all the way to where we make unique bullets for ammo. You know, this isn’t just a handloading component that might get loaded in five different 30 caliber. Right. Right. This one’s a 308 Win specific or 300 PRC specific. Hey, we’re going to build a 152 grain LRX specifically for the 280 Acly improved. those kind of scenarios. You know, we’ll get into it deeper with reduced recoil where we’ve really optimized those projectiles. Um, but it I just want to bring that up where it’s another advantage because we know the ins and outs of the bullet. We know the ins and outs of that projectile to say this is the exact fit. If we need to move a canler for different seating depth or if we need to tweak the function window a little bit for that bullet to put it in that cartridge specifically, we have the advantage and the ease of doing that, you know, as the bullet manufacturer. And so the Barnes loaded ammunition, you know, really has the the the leg up there versus other, you know, there’s some great companies that are loading our bullets. You know, not to dog on them, there’s some awesome ammo companies that buy Barnes bullets and load them in their ammo. And there are some great products. But I think that’s one advantage when you have the the inside information, the experts making those decisions to say, “Okay, this bullet, this projectile is going to go into this cartridge, you know, for this application.” Right. That’s a big advantage. Yeah. One thing I did want to go back to on the testing, um, ballistic coefficient, it’s extremely difficult to measure. Um, even at 100 yards with our state-of-the-art equipment, it’s it’s still not good enough. You can maybe get within 10% at 100 yards. Um, so we we measure at 300 here and then we go out go out to the range and shoot Doppler, get those values. You can’t you can’t just say it’s estimated based on drop or use our computer program because the computer program do that a lot of other people are doing that. Yeah, that’s it’s not good. Um like I said it’s it’s extremely difficult to to measure and that’s why we shoot Doppler. That’s why we shoot at 300 yards. Um that’s one of the things we do out out at the range. The LR products will actually shoot real gel, real ordinance style, not the the silicone clear gel. That’s the cheap easy option. It’s not a valid medium. It’s good for simple things. It doesn’t melt when it’s out in the sun and it’s convenient for that. But other for, you know, actually measuring performance, ordinance gel, right, um, is the way to go. So, we’ll do that with Vortex LR. Vortex will go to a little bit more reasonable range um for what guys are shooting. Um and then just looking at this Pioneer box too, uh we actually list two muzzle velocities, one for a 24in barrel for 4570 and one for 18. So we actually took rifles at different barrel lengths and measured velocity through all of them. Our chronographs can get to a a tenth of a percent, right? uh in terms of accuracy. So, we tested a bunch of different rifles for the the lever guns. And then for some of the cartridges, we shot revolvers and lever guns and listed two velocity. So, just just a ton of testing on the development side and and as we run production as well. Yeah. And Barnes has a a ton of really cool capabilities here in terms of uh ballistic testing equipment and experience here that we can really offer the best product to the consumers. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, real quick before I forget and we get too far to go back to your question, uh it’s generally um I’d say we we have a R&D tech that probably spends a solid week to two weeks just on the handload portion, right? you know, he’s loading hundreds to even sometimes over a thousand rounds doing powder screening and what we call our sensitivity testing where once we’ve really narrowed it down to maybe the top two or three choices of propellants, we go through sensitivity, we go through, you know, different coal variation, we go through powder positioning testing where we’re putting powder to bullet, powder to primer, hot, cold. Yeah. So, so when you’re doing that, like what type of temperature ranges are you Yeah. So, we go to we condition the rounds on the cold side at -20. Okay. Um and then on the hot side, we’re at plus 150. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So, pretty extreme. Um and obviously we safety. Um we’re looking for pressure shifts, you know, dropping and climbing. Um as well as velocity shifts that go along with that. You know, we’re looking for selecting components that are still going to work together that are reliable. You know, obviously there’s always going to be variation. Yeah. And when you add temperature extremes of -20 and plus 150, you’re going to introduce a lot of variation. Um, but there’s propellants that work extremely well and are incredibly flat. Um, still, you know, we’re looking for good performance, especially when we look at say the Vortex LR, precision match, those types of lines where we’re, you know, and we don’t always have, you know, everything available. That’s the other thing. It can be a challenge. I mean, just being upfront. the world we’ve lived in for the past say four or five years with propellants and even shell cases. You know, it’s a challenge at times even to the point where we could be backordered on a product or we’re not getting product to market because we don’t have the propellant we need or we don’t have the the shells that make that meet our requirements, which sucks to be in that position, but that’s just sometimes we’ve made those decisions where we’re not putting ammo on the market because it doesn’t meet our standard. we have the shells available or this propellant, we can get this propellant that works. This other one, you know, it’s okay. Those kind of situations, but we hold ourselves to those standards and luckily we’ve been able to to find workarounds, you know, and we’ve had to at times, you know, make changes with propellants and things like that. But we still meet those standards um both on accuracy, pressure velocity, you know, velocity variation as well as temperature sensitivity. Yeah, I mean that’s that’s pretty crazy. Like I didn’t know that we went to those extremes. I mean you’re talking what 170 degree uh swing in temperatures, right? I mean 99% of people are never going to hunt at -20 degrees. Um and I would say probably that same 99% probably aren’t really hunting over 90 degrees. Maybe early analopee or something like that. Um or you know down in South Texas or something, right? But for the most part, like nobody is ever going to see these huge temperature swings. They might see it in the 30s to the 70s, right? Give or take, right? So like we’re going way outside of those, if you would call it kind of the standard normal temperature ranges that people would probably um do it at. And and to say that we’re doing that for I mean I I would guess and you can correct me here, but like probably 80 to 90% of our loaded ammo rounds are are doing this type of temperature ranges. Um, again, right, like you almost don’t need it because yeah, more than likely you really only need it kind of for that hunting, you know, maybe even the top tier hunting stuff, but we’re still going to do it because that’s our standard, right? And we our entire lines, uh, regardless of the offering, go through the safety standards, okay? Um, and requirements there. Make sure that it’s reliable and it’s safe pressure and velocity. You know, we’re not going to have anything crazy at those extremes. And then obviously the depending on the product line and the application, we have different criteria. Yeah. Um for what we’re looking for, whether it be how much velocity variation we’re willing to accept. You know, obviously I mentioned like Vortex LR, precision match, you know, we’re going to hold those to tighter standards for velocity variation at extreme temperatures than say, you know, the JHP rifle and those kind of things. Right. Right. You’d be you’d be surprised how many issues we see at those temperature extremes. That’s probably one of the most difficult things to to pass. And uh there’s a there’s a reason why we do it. If you go sight in your rifle on a a hot summer day in Utah and it’s uh you know 100° outside, that’s not uncommon here. You set your ammo on your dash, it can get up to 150. And uh if you’re not using the right propellants, you can you can have unsafe pressures with certain propellant types. So we we fail those and switch to a different propellant. Um and same thing at cold. If you look at uh you know it’s negative 20 is you can you can get there. Absolutely. Um and you know on cold is a it’s a a different thing where maybe your gun won’t go off. You have a hang fire or misfire or have extremely low velocity. You can have a lot of issues there. Yeah. Um there’s been a lot of craze for the small rifle primers where it shouldn’t be or usually there are large rifle primers like in a Creedmore or something. Yeah. Uh and that’s maybe fine for shooting a match or something but you take a small rifle primer and you want to go hunt in Minnesota 20 which is it can legit be colder than that really. Absolutely. Um you’re going to have issues. Y uh and that’s why we we test that. That’s why we have large rifle primers in there. we haven’t made that change and it but it is legitimate. You run into a ton of issues at hot and cold and that’s one of the hardest things that we have to go through um as far as testing. Okay, quick question before we get off the hot and cold. What’s the coldest temperature that you’ve ever killed an animal in? Killed an animal in that would probably be a cow elk. It was a late season cow hunt in Utah. And it’s actually fairly local to where we are right now. Okay. And believe it or not, myself and Chris in the lab, we had these cow tags and we’d been watching this herd pretty close to our location here and somehow we managed to pull off killing two cow elk after work on a Wednesday night. Wow. Yeah. We like So you had like an hour. It It maybe an hour. It was like, “Hey, let’s leave here.” We like busted out of here like a few minutes early after 4:00. Got on the elk. We’re trying to make it happen, killing two elk at once. Usually doesn’t work out that way. Like a 321 kind of thing. Shoot. Um but I always have a 3-2 boom and then and then the other guy shoots. So I’m laying down freezing cold in the snow. My hands are like numb. I was clear. He was waiting for a clear shot. Um and it was I’m not going to have too extreme because I’m kind of a pansy when it comes to I’m not like a Minnesota guy. Yeah. Uh but it was I mean it was single digit. Yeah. It was cold. It was kind of a cold snap and we were it was probably 56 degrees if I remember right. It was cold. Okay. But just laying there in the snow waiting for that shot as you’re getting numb and cold. Oh, it was it was miserable. So single digits for Greg. Yeah. Single digits. Mitchell, what’s the coldest temperature? Uh we killed some elk in Montana. Um, it was, yeah, single digits, five, six degrees. In the mornings, it was zero. Yeah. Um, I’ve pheasant hunted in zero degrees, maybe a few below zero. Um, I grouse hunted in 17 in northern Minnesota. I didn’t see anything, but Well, okay. Never killed in 17. I should have said big game. Sorry. I was I was trying to keep it to that, I guess. So, you’re going to say single digits probably for Yep. elk hunting. Yeah. Nothing too extreme. I think I’ve I’ve tried calling coyotes before. Yeah. Um been pretty cold, but like I said, I at that point I’m just going to probably stay home. Well, I will say um this is a testament again way before I ever worked here. Um my first year living in Montana, it was Thanksgiving Day. I went out and I I still had my elk tag and I was like, I’m just going to go kill an elk. Thanksgiving day, I went out and it was negative – 24, right? I found some elk pretty quick. I was about the only person out there because it was negative – 24. Um, killed the elk. I killed a cow elk at hour and a half after sunrise. And by time that I got packed out and it was 100 p.m. or so after, you know, cutting her up and packing her out in knee to almost waist deep snow. I mean, it was pretty brutal. Again, it was my first year in Montana. I was like, I’m just going to be a hard ass, right? mountain man and I’m just going to go and do it. Um it was -11 on my truck when I got back at 100 p.m. So it was somewhere in that I mean it was probably 17gative -20 probably when I killed her. So again great testament I was shooting vortex seven rim mag right. So great testament that it does work. Yeah those are pretty cold temps. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it it’s possible. You know, guys in Africa, they hit high temperatures, right? You know, we talked about the Safari line. Yeah. Making sure the propellants and the primer and that cartridge combination um is compatible for good ignition um as well as safe pressures. You know, whether it be Mitchell brought up a good point with a small rifle primer in standard cases, you know, that is a trend on the match world. It might work great. Um, there’s arguments that it could lower standard deviation and get better, more consistent ignition, but if you’re out there calling coyotes and it’s single digits or below or you’re hunting elk in Montana on Thanksgiving and it’s negative 20, I wouldn’t rely on a small rifle primer igniting that propellant in a 65 Creedmore or, you know, whatever it be, right? Um, and even on top of that, even with Magnums, you know, we go through development with the, you know, we have a really good, uh, ultramag lines in the Vortex, 300 ultra mag, 7 ultra mag. Um, and those big magnums with the propellants that we use, they’re tough to ignite. Yeah. And it takes a very specific primer. Um it’s that basically there’s one primer that works good in those ultrams to get through consistent ignition um with those powder chargers and those propellant types. Um and it’s that testing and you know being being willing to invest into that to take it all the way that deep and say okay these are the components we need to use. This is what we need to source. This is what we’re going to go through for development to make sure it meets our criteria. Right. All right. Well, I know we’re kind of on a time crunch because we do have a meeting here in a little bit, but let’s um let’s do a quick dive into the Vortex line and just the overview. I mean, we could talk about Vortex, but I would I’d like to talk about Vortex LR, Safari, and reduced recoil. Yeah. Um so, Vortex, like I said earlier, Vortex is, and you mentioned this, Vortex is our main bread and butter. Um it’s the biggest line. Yeah. um has the most offerings across, you know, 223 up to the Safari stuff, you know, right? But that’s your standard, you know, 243, 270 Win, 65 Creedmore, you know, 306, 308, all those different, you know, TTSX is mainly the projectile that’s featured in Vortex rifle. Um, goes through the standards. We’ve talked about the testing really. It’s your general purpose hunting ammunition for everything big game is vortex and it’s it’s accurate. That’s the other thing to bring up, you know, and we’ve talked about this with the bullet side. TSX’s, TTSXs are extremely accurate. 300 Win Mag, I’ve mentioned this already on this podcast. 300 Win Mag, 180 grain TTSX and Vortex rifle, it just works. Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen that load through multiple test barrels. I can’t tell you how many rifles shoot that load, you know. And again, there’s always there’s always variables, right? I think it’s worth noting whether it be velocity, you know, Mitchell brought up, we we took a lot of effort and took a lot of time on Pioneer to give you both barrel lengths. you know, if it was carbing and rifle, if it was revolver and carbing, you know, like you look at 357 and the 44 mags. Um, and the others we listed a 6 in and a I think 18 in on a lot of those, which is cool because it gives at least it’s something, right? It’s a number on a box, but we want to be as accurate as we can. But I think it’s worth noting whether it be velocity out of your gun versus his gun versus your gun, my test barrel, or whether it be accuracy. Um, there’s always going to be variables. We can’t control how our ammo shoots out of every gun. Yep. You know, the velocity isn’t going to be exactly the same as the box out of every gun. There’s variables in chamber dimensions, tolerances, different reamers, different barrel profiles, barrel lengths. You know, there’s all these all these factors. Right. Um, so it is worth noting that, but I think we do a good job of taking time to make as most accurate usable information, whether it’s the most accurate BC that we can provide you. Um, accurate, consistent velocities on the box. You know, Vortex LR, we went as far as shooting. Um, originally we actually listed multiple drop charts even out to further distances. You know, your generic drop on most boxes maybe gives you drop out to 400 yards, right? Um, with Vortex LR, we have data charts on our website that’s now available that shows out to say 6 or 700 yards as well as different um, temperature and elevation. You know, in today’s world, most people are going to use some sort of ballistic app and whether it be on your smartphone or we have a chronograph or you know with the new kind of Garmin style chronos. I mean, it’s pretty awesome the technology and the equipment that’s there. Yeah. And and how easy it is, right? And how quick it is to be able to get your data, right? But at the end of the day, if a guy’s in the field and all he has to go off of is what’s on the box, we want to try to provide him with as most consistent, accurate information as we can. Yeah, it’s interesting. Um, over the weekend, I actually had a guy reach out to me that had been watching the podcast um and was like, “Hey man, I don’t have a chronograph. I just got the 7PRC. It has a 22-in barrel. Like, I’m shooting your guys’ 7PRC. Like, what should I expect for velocities?” I’m like, “Oh, perfect. My 7PRC also has a 22-in barrel. this is what I’m getting roughly out of it. This is what you should get. So, you should be able to at least put it into your ballistic solver and figure out, right? And he he he’s I was like, “Go with this.” I think I’m getting like give or take right at 3,000 foot per second out of my uh 7PRC. And he messages me back two days later. And he’s like, “That’s amazing, man.” And he’s like, “I literally just put in your exact same data for my gun, started shooting it, and I had first round impacts at 700 yards with it.” Yeah. Likewome. That’s pretty damn impressive to know that. And this guy’s I I think he was down in Texas, I believe. Maybe he was the Midwest. But um you know, different elevations, different temperature ranges, like all that type of stuff. And yet we’re still able to like do that. and knowing that roughly we have the same gun all this, you know, because he was just scared that he wasn’t he was going to be losing 150 feet per second or something like that out of the muzzle. But, you know, again, kind of the testament to that is one thing that I’ve noticed is I’m actually getting almost like the exact same speed that we advertise on the box for a shorter barrel. And a lot of people are telling me that they’re getting the speed or faster, which, you know, not to call out other manufacturers, but there’s a lot of other manufacturers that never get to those speeds. Yeah. Right. That they advertise or they’re grossly under. For sure. It’s, you know, and again, there’s always going to be those times where your gun’s not going to match what’s on the box. you know, it doesn’t mean that the data wasn’t accurate, but there are those times where I mean there’s when the majority of guns is 200 plus feet off from what’s on the box, right? Okay. Something’s a little bit off there. So, to to make a point on that, we do account for that. Uh that’s with our standard Sammy testing. We shoot a a reference lot of ammo out of a test barrel and the reference lot has been assessed by multiple other people in the industry. And it’s a this is the average velocity. This is the average pressure. and we make adjustments to that. So even if our barrel is shooting a little bit different, we make adjustments to it to get more of a an average. And we always try to hit our box velocity. We don’t try to go high or low or it’s always we try to get nominal. And then a important thing to note that uh some people may not know, we always go to the Sammy uh barrel length, right? So what do we have here? We have a a 300 6 at 2750. That’s out of a 24 in Sammy test barrels different for every cartridge. Usually rifles are 24, but like you said, if you have something different, you might want to subtract a little bit. If you have a 22 in or 20 in, or if you have a 26 in, you might get a little bit more. So that’s something to pay attention to. Well, and I think that one thing to talk about there, right, is that as people are doing more, let’s call custom or even semicustom because I mean in my seven pairs, I consider it kind of a semi-custom gun, right? I just slapped a new barrel on it, slapped a new um stock on it, but I shortened up that barrel by 2 in. What’s kind of the average when it comes to every I’ I’ve heard numbers before, but getting your guys’s perspective on it as well. Like every 2 in is from what I’ve heard is anywhere from 20 to 50 feet per second that you’re going to kind of start to lose. Yeah. I mean, there’s it’s an average like I said, and it’s it’s more of a guesstimate because propellant each propellant is going to act different. You know, some are more efficient. Um, some are going to lose more in the same cartridge. I mean, we’ve seven PRC. You talked about development on that. Yeah. You know, we shot through a lot of test barrels. We also shot through a lot of guns. We’d really narrow it down to a couple propellants. We wanted to make sure the accuracy was still there. You know, obviously pressure, velocity, all the safety, you know, those have all been checked, right? And we’re just looking at pure performance. Now, what is velocity? What is the velocity variation? You know, low standard deviation as well as accuracy out of multiple guns. And it was interesting because one of the propellants, they all met velocity out of our standard 24inch test barrels. But when we go to 22inch guns and 20inch guns, one of the propellants didn’t lose very much, you know, where the other is starting to lose more. But you’re usually in that 25 to I’d say probably 35 feet per inch. Per inch. Yeah. Okay. So sometimes less, you know, I I have seen where you know it is more 25 feet for two inches. Yeah. Okay. But I on average you’re probably more that 25 to 35. Yeah. And I mean I think that’s really important as suppressors become a bigger and bigger thing, right? Guys are trying to go shorter barrels and still achieve, you know, decent speeds. Um, so I think that’s really important just to understand that. And I think that a lot of people, right, that they want the suppressor, so then they get a shorter barrel and they’re like, “Well, this is weird. I’m I’m not getting I’m losing 100 feet per second.” Well, yeah, you just cut off 4 in of barrel like, right, which you got to pay attention to. I mean, you look the 65 Creedmore. I mean, it’s obviously popular. It’s been around a long time now. Yeah. You know, everyone loves it or hates it or both, but our 127 is an awesome option in the Vortex LR. Um, we’ll start to talk about Vortex LR with that. Yeah. Um, 24 in Sammy test barrel, right? A lot of guns out there are 22 in. A ton of guys are running 20 in. Next thing you know, it’s like, why not go 18, 16? Like you said, I got this suppressor. I’m packing on this rifle. I want something short and handy. I totally get it. And but if I’m now running an 18inch barrel, 65 Creedmore, and it’s not a powerhouse to begin with, right? It’s not some super magnum. Yeah. Our box velocity on our 127 Vortex XLR is 2840 ft per second, but now you’re down to an 18 or 20 inch barrel. you know, that’s limiting your range as well because of retain velocity, right? You start out slower, you’re obviously going to be slower, and that bullet is designed to expand well at low velocity with that 127 LRX. Yeah. But when you just lost maybe 150, 200 feet, and you already were only starting out at 2840, right? And now we’re talking 2650 to 2,700 feet per second of the muzzle, you know, you really can limit your range. Maybe that’s only a 3 400 yard load now, right? you know, where we took it out and we did the testing on that one originally. You know, we’re setting gel at 6700 yards with these Vortex LR products. Yeah. You know, we got good bolt expansion at 600 yards in gel with the 65 Creedmore load. Wow. Out of a 24in barrel, right? So, it’s just something to think keep in mind, you know, and that’s obviously where you look at things like the 7 Backount or the 7PRC, you know, where it’s still pushing our 160 grain. I mean, I put together a 20-in gun with our factory load with our 160 and the Vortex LR. I mean, I’m still getting almost 2900 feet per second. I’m like 28.90 out of a 20 inch. Pretty good performance still. Still. And then I’m able to run a can, still keep it short and handy. But I think it’s just worth mentioning the velocity, you know, the number on the box. We’re going to provide you with the most accurate data possible, right? But there’s always variables that we can’t control. What platform are you shooting it out of? What’s your barrel length? Those kind of things, right? And and that’s what I was going to say, right, is that all all of our stuff is always going to be Sammy Specs, right? So, it’s going to be the semispec barrels. It’s going to be that twist rate. It’s going to be, you know, that velocity that we’re trying to get out unless we specifically state otherwise like the Pioneer where we’re going to say, “Okay, this is an 18inch barrel and a 24in barrel, right? We’re stating on the box what the barrel length is.” You know, if it’s just a velocity, it’s just going to the Sammy spec. Yeah, we do do that on pistol stuff. we’ll say have an asterric and say this is out of a certain barrel length because that’s out of revolvers it makes a huge difference whether you’re you know super short or I I guess I should have prefaced that that’s out of most of our center fire rifle stuff right like you start to talk about Pioneer you know where that is made for revolvers or lever guns you could have a lot of different barrel lengths and everything that you know that’s where having what we are put out there is is super helpful. Okay. Um, let’s talk about reduced recoil real quick. Give me five minutes on why people should check out reduced recoil and what it was really designed to do. Yeah, I’ll start quick and Mitchell can clean up my mess, whatever I missed. But reduced recoil, um, it’s one that, you know, from just kind of a outside looking in, it’s like, oh, it’s simple. We just lower the velocity, right? You just take powder out. um that’s not really how it works. Um there was actually a lot of development that went into reduced recoil. We put a lot of effort to select the right propellants. We looked at obviously we’re lowering the velocity. You know, we’re specifically going to say, “Okay, we’re going to take a 270, a 7 mag, a 300 Win Mag, a 308, a 306. We’re going to lower the velocity. That’s going to help lower the recoil.” Um but it’s not the only factor, right? Um we also wanted it to be consistent. We wanted it to be safe and reliable. We wanted good performance, good accuracy, um low muzzle flash. That’s one thing that we found through development when we’re starting to use specific propellants. You know, this is not some easy you just go take powder out. We’re now using burn rates and propellants that are abnormal for that cartridge and bullet combination. Yeah. In order to get safe, reliable ignition, and good performance, good velocity, good pressure. Um we found that we could hit all the boxes with say powder A, but it would give us a fireball out the muzzle. just crazy muzzle flash. And so again, we had to dig deeper, find another solution. Um, but with the reduced recoil, we also looked at the bullet. You know, I mentioned that earlier. We were the bullet guys, right? We were the bullet company, right? We build Barnes bullets first, not just the ammunition. We knew if we just took a standard TTSX and loaded it at lower muzzle velocity, kind of like I just mentioned with the the 65 scenario with a shorter barrel, right, you’re going to limit your, you know, maximum effective range for bullet expansion because your velocity is that much lower, right? So, we built specific purpose-built projectiles. These are unique optimized TTSXs that are loaded into reduced recoil to function at lower velocity. You know, these were purpose-built bullets that only go into that ammunition that have different function criteria when we build it. They have different internal cavity, different tooling design to be able to function at those lower velocities. So, right, you can get low recoil. You know, it is at a lower velocity and a lot of these are going to be lighter than normal bullet weights and that also helps with that felt recoil. Um, but we also measured it. Um, and I’ll let Mitchell kind of go into some details there. He probably has some more data off the top of his head, but we were able to reduce some of these, you know, and I’ll Mitchell can correct me, but I mean these are 20 30% um reduced felt recoil, you know. So, you take a a 270 Win or 7 Remag with a standard Vortex load and if I throw my, you know, 10-year-old daughter behind it, right, you know, she’s probably not going to have that pleasant of experience at the range. Yeah. Um, but if she’s shooting reduced recoil, you know, all a sudden she can use that gun. And so to me, the application is it’s a couple things. One, it could be the magnums. You know, we offer 300 Win Mag, um, 7 mag options and reduce recoil. Maybe you want that magnum to go hunt elk or you went to Africa or you’re going out west and you’re hunting big game, but now I’m just shooting white tail at 100 yards, 150 yards. Yeah. And but I still want to use my 300 Win Mag. you know, reduce recoil is a good option to be able to give you good performing ammunition. It’s still going to work great out to 300 yards um in those magnums, but I don’t have to beat the crap out of my shoulder. Another op another or I say potential um use case would be, you know, guns are expensive. They’ve gotten better. I’d say you can buy more accurate guns for a lot less than it used to be 20, 30 years ago. Yeah. But at the end of the day, like everyone has limited funds, right? And so if I’m going to buy, you know, I have kids, um, they all hunt and I’m getting them into hunting. You know, my boys have hunted quite a bit now and they’re 14 and 16, but when they started out at 12 years old, you know, you buy him like a 243 win and next thing you know, well, now he’s going to go hunt elk, he gets lucky and draws some awesome tag somewhere, right? You really going to go with your 243 win to go hunt elk in Utah? probably not, you know, okay, but he can use my 300 Win Mag with this reduced recoil ammo or he can use my SEM mag or maybe it’s you inherited grandpa’s 3006. Exactly. You know, and it’s a Woodstock, you know, not the most pleasant butt pad. Yeah. And but you want to use grandpa’s 300 6 or your dad’s gun or whatever, you know, that’s another awesome awesome use for reduced recoil is a recoil sensitive shooter. be a kid, you know, a woman, a youth, somebody with a shoulder injury. Um, you know, there’s multiple applications to where an end user could say, “Okay, I can still get good performance. I can still get good accuracy, get good velocity, and it’s bullets that were specific purpose built to function at those lower velocities, right?” You know, whether it be I went out and bought my kid is 65 Creedmore and he’s just starting out at 10 years old. Yep. Or my wife has never shot a gun before for somebody, you know, and maybe they’re just brand new shooter. So that’s what I did last year actually. Um got married just I don’t know three four weeks ago and the wife uh last fall was our first hunting season and she’s I don’t think she’s ever shot before that. So I got her on the the 65 gindle loves that. Put a can on it. Uh hardly any recoil but I I’m not going to hunt elk with that. So, I had a 30 out six and I didn’t want her wanted to jump into a full house load and have her get gunshy and flinch and and have issues. I wanted her to be able to dial and work the bolt and just like how she’s going to practice for elk hunting. So, I I use the reduced recoil, the 130 grain 306 load. And um like Rick said, it’s uh it reduces it maybe on average is 20 to 30%, probably closer to 25. Uh but our our 300 Win Mag, we actually measured from our one of our industry friends and compared to our standard vortex load, I think it was 48% reduction in force. And the force was spread out a lot longer, too. So that’s a it’s a huge difference from a you can take your 300 Win Mag and cut the recoil in half and all of a sudden a new shooter can go shoot it, right? Um so she I got her sighted in with the 30 six. She didn’t have any issues with it. Um when she wasn’t looking, I slipped in a a full house load when we went out hunting cuz I didn’t know what distance we were going to be shooting. To reduce recoil, you do got to pay attention um to your distance. Yeah. So, where we were going to be, you could shoot uh pretty dang far. So, I I slipped in a full house when she wasn’t looking and she didn’t have any issues. The adrenaline was pumping. Yeah, I was going to say it’s funny how when you’re pulling the trigger on an animal, right, you never feel the recoil. You never hear the gun go off like all that stuff. So, you can kind of do that um for sure. But, I mean, I think that reduced recoil is a really cool round. Um you know, obviously you hit on all the things. I wish that I would have had it when I was younger, right? I mean, cuz I look at it, I started with a 3030, right? Then I started shooting like 243, then I had to get a 270. And it felt like I’m sure that my parents were like, damn, every year and a half I’m having to get this guy a new gun because he’s, you know, growing up, he’s getting bigger, and he can just handle more. Um, where nowadays you can look at it and be like, well, you know, you have a 12-year-old son and you’re like, well, I don’t I don’t need him shooting a 30 six or seven mag or something right now, but I know that in 3 years he’s going to be able to handle it, right? So, I might as well just go ahead and buy him the gun then and then shoot the reduced recoil. You’re still still getting a all copper projectile, a bullet that was made to expand at those velocities, right? Yeah. He’s not going to have the crazy extended range that you would want out of that cartridge, maybe, but still 300 yards for a 12-year-old’s pretty dang long shot most of the time. Yeah. And I’d say the standard C cartridges in the reduced recoil line, you know, we made sure you get good bullet expansion out to 300 yards. And with the two Magnums, it’s out to 400 yards. Okay. So, yeah. Sweet. Well, that was that was a pretty good one. Um, do we want to talk briefly about Harvest since we haven’t done it? We’re going to do a full podcast on Harvest. Yeah, we could. Uh, um, but we do want to wait until we can get one of the Sierra guys here to kind of Should we Safari? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I I think Safari would be good. Um, and then maybe just like quick brief overview of Harvest just because it’s so new. So, Safari, um, like I said earlier, it’s a part of the Vortex line. Vortex Safari. Um, these are obviously Safari offerings. Yep. Cartridges. You know, 375 H&H, right? 458 Win Mag. Uh, we do 416 rigby, 416 rank mag, 47500 nitro with a solid and a TSX. You know, kind of that classic African combo. Um, really, I’ve mentioned this before, with a TSX, you can look at it as an expanding solid. Me personally, if I’m hunting Kate Buffalo, I’m probably just going to use a TSX, but you could still have a solid to back it up. But if you are doing stuff like elephant, those other things, you know, we have the bandit solid offering. Um, that one was quite a bit went into as well for development. Um, point of impact, that’s worth noting. We put a lot into ensuring that those two loads are going to have, you know, a reasonable acceptable point of impact. So, if you’re zeroed with the TSX, the solid’s going to work alongside of it. You don’t have to worry about rezeroing. Yeah. Especially the distances that you’re going to be using these for. Um, propellants and components, you know, quality premium components. good shell cases, good primers, good good powder selection, um good velocity, you know, it’s really just high quality premium ammo to go hunt, you know, big mean dangerous stuff with big war hard kicking type type guns, but a lot went into that. Um we have a double rifle in the lab, uh 470 Nitro that everyone loves to shoot. Yeah, it’s we can’t even get Mitchell to shoot. No, he’s a pansy. I’m a chicken, but I think they’re fun to shoot. But when we did the development way back when, um I actually remember personally shooting that one out of the rifle off a bench. And if you want miserable, shoot a 470 Nitro double gun on a bench, you know, standing up and being able to just take it. Well, that’s not bad. Yeah. Set it on a bench and try to shoot accuracy groups where you’re shooting at 50 yards and I was shooting solids, NTSX’s going through powder screening to look at point of impact. And then we also went through all that FNC testing which is function casualty where it’s feed function fire and we shot I mean literally hundreds of rounds off shoulder out of those double guns. It wasn’t fun. It’s a good way to develop a flinch and ruin your your shooting ability. But it’s just one more thing where we we took the time and effort to Yeah. to really, you know, deep dive and make sure we select the right components and and have a good quality performing product. Yeah. And I mean it makes sense obviously for us to have a Safari load, right? Because I mean we go back to kind of the history barns and and and as the Brooks kind of took them over, right? Like Africa was a big thing for them and and they wanted to be there. They wanted to um you know take these really large animals and stuff. So we developed bullets for it. So why not have the actual loaded component for it as well? So people could buy stuff off the shelf. That for sure. And that’s when I was uh quite a few years ago. Um, I remember the first time I ever went to SCI show, Safari Club. Yeah. It was in Reno, Nevada. And you know, this is way back when, 15 plus years ago, right? And I remember I was just amazed cuz like I knew Barnes, Barnes Africa, like it like you said, it’s kind of goes hand in hand, right? But I was amazed because I cannot tell you how many PH’s walked into the booth and they wanted our product. You know, back then it was just the bullets. Yeah. You know, we were selling just the component box bullets and they would buy up what they needed for the year. But it was time and time and time again the phes that were how much they love Barnes, how much it worked for them. I don’t let anyone shoot anything but Barnes. They come into my camp. I always recommend Barnes. You know, it was a true testament to the product and the performance of the product. Um, you know, those dieh hard, you know, just hands-on, you know, experience that are seen hundreds of animals a year, big animals, hard to kill animals. Um, you know, those phases in Africa that that really love the product. And obviously with the Vortex Safari, it allows, you know, the factory ammo shooter, right, an option to be able to get into that big bore stuff. Yeah, I was going to say that. I mean, even this year at SEI, right, like we had so many guys walk into the booth and PH is from Africa, other places as well, right? And it’s like, we have to pick this up here because it was easier for them just to buy it and take it back. And I mean, you know, we had bought we’d brought quite a bit of bullets. We could only sell bullets at trade shows. Um, but I mean these guys are buying five boxes a piece, you know, to load up because they’re like, “This is the only thing that I will shoot.” Yep. Yeah. The the cool thing there is if guys come into the booth are a little bit unsure. They’re like, “I don’t know this 375 expanding on a Kate Buffalo. I don’t know.” And you try to tell them like, “Yeah, this is the bullet.” It’s so easy. Just tell them you can go talk to the guy across the booth, the guy over there, any PH here. He’s going to know who Barnes is and they’re going to recommend them. And it’s it’s so easy just to just to tell them that and then they come back like, “Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, I’m going to buy some.” Everyone said really good things and Right. So it’s in Africa, Barnes is renowned. They’re is one of the number one brands over there. Absolutely. All right. So I know we said we were going to talk about Harvest, but I do want to talk about Pioneer instead. Okay, let’s let’s jump into Pioneer. I know that we’ve kind of hinted at it, but let’s talk about why it was developed um and kind of the offerings that you have there and and why you would use it over potentially, you know, regular Vortex. Yeah. So, really Barnes Pioneer um we do offer the Barnes original and the TSX or XPBs if it’s a pistol. Yeah. For revolver. Um but really I like to focus on the original. um the TSX offerings in Pioneer um just they’re basically the Vortex offerings, right? It’s just to be able to have this the TSX solid or the XPB, right, to go along with the original, but really the line was developed around the original. Um and the reason being is especially in lever gun and revolver, it allows us to go heavy for caliber. Yep. Um with that lead core bullet that we’re not going to be able to get to with a copper projectile. Yeah. Um, but one thing that’s unique with these originals um for Pioneer. These are what I like to call kind of unofficially new originals, right? Um, these were new projectiles that were built um for these offerings. Um, these weren’t just where we pulled bullets out of our catalog and said, “Throw it in there.” Um, so we developed a new 400 grain original um for the 4570. You know, we built 190 grain for the 3030, which is awesome. Y, you know, you talk about like a woods gun 3030. If a guy wants to hunt elk or or bear, that 190 is awesome. You know, good sectional density, good penetration. These are thicker jackets. You know, they do expand. These are expanding bullets, right? Um but they’re not just going to flatten out, pancake, come apart. You know, we made sure we had good good weight retention, good penetration. Um we do a really cool 180 grain for the 357 mag, which is an awesome load. Um Kagan in the lab, he used it out of a a lever gun, one of those Marlin um 1894 Dark models. Kind of the modern tactical lever gun with a suppressor and the and a scope, but he killed a white tail with that at like 150 yards with that 180 grain. Pretty awesome. Um we do 45 Colt, 250 grain, 300 grain, and a 44 mag. Yeah. And this stuff’s legit. Like if you’re a heavy handgun guy, kind of those big board revolver guys. Um really cool loads, good velocities. you know, we really focused on getting good performance, right? And a bullet that’s going to hold up when it hits at those higher velocities. Yeah. And like we said, we a lot of development into selecting the right propellants and the right loads that’s going to get good velocity out of whether it’s a 6-in revolver or an 18inch carbine. Um, but some of these they’re uh like for example the 44 Mag 300 grain with that original, it’s it’s a stout load. Yeah, it’s legit. It’s not for the if you’re kind of a limp wrist over here and you’re not a big revolver guy, but it’s you want that performance. There’s some cool options in the Pioneer line. Yeah. One of the most difficult parts about the developing these new originals was making it work in a carbine length lever gun, say 18 in uh we’ll take the 357 180 grain for example. Making that work in a 18inch carbine and then also making the bullet work in a 6-in revolver. I mean, that’s a huge velocity window. And if you want to make it expand and mushroom out of a little 6-in barrel at a low velocity, how do you make it retain weight at a rifle velocity? So, we did a ton of R&D work uh testing the the highs and lows and making sure, you know, you had expansion on the low end and then some controlled uh expansion and and weight retention on the high end. So that was uh that was all thought through measuring velocity as we did it posting on the box and it’s really optimized for that uh for those cartridges where you you can shoot revolvers and carbon length. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s I’m glad you brought that up because you’re absolutely right that they will hold together and retain weight. They’re not just going to flatten and pancake and completely ball apart at the high velocity out of the carbines. But we still get we still do get some expansion out of the revolvers. Um, like I said, even that 357, we’ve even shot out 4 in guns. Um, it’s not a huge expansion, but it will still expand, which on those you’re generally wanting some penetration anyways. It’s kind of what you’re after. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I was really impressed. You know, I did that bison hunt um in January with it and shot a 4570 with the 400 grain and absolutely crushed that thing. the guys haven’t watched that or if people listening haven’t watched that, right? We have that video up on our YouTube channel. Um really cool pioneer story um with the with the bison. So, how was the recoil on that? I mean, I think it was manageable, right? I mean, it was a pretty short gun. It was one of those Marlin 1895s, I think it is. Um but overall, I thought it was Yeah, they’re not bad. I mean, you don’t go out and shoot for fun, you know, 100 rounds a week in a gun. But I mean, I had put probably like practicing with it and getting comfortable with it. I mean, cuz I hadn’t killed something with a lever gun since my first 10 white tails with that 3030 that I talked about earlier, right? Like, so it it was fun to kind of get back into the old school ways of shooting a lever gun and um and taking it. But I mean, that was probably I’d probably shot a 4570 a few times, but all in all, I mean, I felt like it was a manageable recoil. um both shooting off the bench, both shooting it, you know, just offhand as well as like on sticks. And I ended up shooting, you know, that that bison off sticks at 130 yards or something. And and I mean, talk about penetration, like I end up shooting him multiple times just to put him down as quickly as possible, even though that, you know, the first two shots were essentially through the heart. Um, and never found a bullet, right? Just completely blow through a big bison bull. So, yeah. All right, I think we did it, guys. I think we covered it. Well, I appreciate you guys time this morning. Um, let’s let’s wrap this thing up and get into our new product meeting. So, maybe you guys will be excited about that if they listen this far. Yeah. So, we’ve got some cool things coming down the line that maybe we can talk about here soon. Perfect. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks,