Good Monday Morning!
I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. Unfortunately we did not have any website updates over the past week. With that said, a few things caught my eye over the past week that you might find interesting.
Cutting Edge Bullets, known for their machined copper solids, announced an new 22LR load during SHOT Show. I missed this in my initial summary, but felt it was worthy of at least a mention.
These unique bullets are likely too long to feed in a 10/22 but they offer high BC values. It will be interesting to see how they perform. There are some serious questions I have, such as will they stabilize in a standard 22LR barrel? Only time will tell, but it is refreshing to see a company try something new with a cartridge that’s over 100 years old. It will also be interesting to see if they offer these in a 22 WMR cartridge.
I recently got my hands on a Rock River Arms VR80. This is a 12 Gauge mag fed shotgun. Unfortunately I did not get to shoot it, but I did strip it down in preparation for cerakote and reassemble it post cerakote. For an MSRP of $699, I was impressed by the build quality. The upper was completely unique, but the lower stripped similar to an AR. Handling the shotgun felt similar to an AR-10.
Having spent quite a bit of money on my Benelli M4, I almost felt a bit cheated, almost. The extended mags for the VR-80 thing are borderline absurd, due to the single stack design. I doubt it will feed the 1 3/4in shotshells which are becoming popular. ( I am still waiting for a company to come out with a shotgun designed solely around feeding the 1 3/4 12 Gauge Shorts. Heaven knows my Benelli won’t).
With the popularity of 3-Gun and Tactical type shotguns, it will be interesting to see if anyone tries to bring the 12-Gauge shell in to the 21st century. I see a rimless 1 3/4in shot shell using a service pressure of ~25,000psi, with a gauge of 20.5/16.5/12.5 (to prevent chambering in standard 20, 16 or 12 gauge). This would allow for large capacities in a tube magazine, or enable double stack magazines all while shortening the action.
Anyway, now I’m dreaming. That is all I have for this week. I hope you have a wonderful week!
As always if you have any questions, suggestions, comment or concerns feel free to reach out to me at jayandrew338@gmail.com. Alternatively you could check us out on Facebook.
The Ballistic Assistant