It has been a few weeks since the last update. I was on the road for about two of those weeks. First time driving up from the South to the NorthEast. I found it to be a fairly decent drive. Spent a few days in New Jersey at a machine shop to sign off on some new product coming off the line. This will be announced on CreedmoorSport.com when it becomes available and I will do a write-up article explaining the development and its production. I am pretty excited about it.
Since getting back to Alabama I have been rushing around playing catch up which accounts for the rest of my absence. The weather here in Alabama is, as a friend of mine put it, “Fat Boy Weather.” As a naturally raised Yankee who happens to be horizontally challenged (for the moment), this weather is much appreciated. I actually believe it is getting to be perfect casting weather. Too bad half of my equipment is currently in Texas. We will hopefully get all of that consolidated here in November and then start doing so more casting projects in December.
As far as industry news goes, there is a lot that has been happening. Right now it is SHOT Show registration. If you are going, or have people you would like to go to, nows is the time to get in. If you were hoping to check out the Sig Sauer booth, unfortunately, they will not be going this year, however, Vista Outdoors has expanded their booth to cover the vacuum that Sig will be leaving. With COVID a big part of the news, it will be interesting to see who will and who will not be there. When Sig made the announcement that they were pulling out, SHOT was suddenly up in the air for a few days, but I think with Vista Outdoors doubling down, we are likely to see it happen this year. I will be going this year, there will be some writes up that come out of this year, and I’m excited to be able to put those together.
The other piece of news that caught my attention was Hodgdon closing the last domestic Black Powder Manufacturer in the United States. Goex powder has been with us for well over 200 years and Hodgdon announce, rather unexpectedly, that they were closing the plant in Camp Minden, Louisianna. Unfortunately, Hodgdon really did not give many details on why it was closing the plant down. Leaving a lot of us speculating. With the advent of so many black powder substitutes, it is entirely possible that the production of Black Powder just cannot be done competitively enough to make it worthwhile. Remember Black Powder is truly explosive, unlike Smokeless Powder. Meaning that the manufacture, transportation, sale, and storage of Black Powder is a logistical challenge compared to Smokeless Powder. Unless some other company purchases the GOEX brand/assets we are likely relegated to imported brands of Black Powder if we want the true “Smoke Pole” experience.
Anyway, that is what I have for this week. As always if you are looking to get in touch, the best way is to send me an email at jay@theballisticassistant.com. You may check us out on Parler, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. If you’d like to submit a load to our load database, the instructions are here.
As always, shoot straight and stay safe!
The Ballistic Assistant