Good Monday! We are almost halfway through April. The older I get the faster time seems to move. It is a weird experience. The length of a second has remained unchanged but I feel like there are less of them in a day. There are quite a few things to talk about, unfortunately not much to report regarding the website. The family and I are still settling, still getting things unpacked and organized and that takes a good portion of my free time. That and the kids are getting to be more and more of a handful.
The big news is obviously the Biden’s Administration’s announcement of new executive orders. I will be honest, none of them surprised me all that much. I was more surprised that there was not an announcement about the State Department cracking down on ammunition importations. That still may be coming, who knows.
What I found to be more frustrating than the Executive Orders, (like I said I was not surprised by any of them), was what was said in the announcement of these orders. Particularly that “No Amendment to the Constitution is Absolute” and that “From the very beginning, you couldn’t own any weapon you wanted to own. From the very beginning the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren’t allowed to have weapons.” Of all the half-truths and outright lies that were told these two bothered me the most. They cut to the very core of the Constitution and what the Amendments to the Constitution represent.
If we can pick and choose what Amendments are “Absolute” and which ones are simply “Eh, we will follow it when it’s politically convenient”, then the idea of Rights is completely eroded. After all, President Biden surely would not be so indifferent if he was referring to the 13th Amendment which abolished Slavery, or the 14th Amendment which granted those free slaves’ citizenship, and extended the protection of life, liberty, and property.
Furthermore, we know that many of the early gun control laws, which were passed in the early days would surely be found to be Unconstitutional in every court today. These laws prohibited slaves from owning firearms, these are the people Biden is referencing, by saying that “From the very beginning the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren’t allowed to have weapons.”
Cannons were largely considered some of the premier weapons of the day. In the days when the 2nd Amendment was ratified it was not uncommon for private citizens to own warships with a dozen or more cannons. It was also not uncommon for the United States Government to give commissions to Private Citizens, or Private entities, known as Letter of Marque, in order to hunt those considered enemies of the State. For a time, an industry was built around this notion and were even have a word for captains and crews who engaged in such practices, Privateers.
Repeating rifles were also invented and known to most if not all of those who signed the Constitution. Repeating rifles, the precursor to modern Semi-automatic rifles, had magazines exceeding 10 rounds, some up to 22 rounds or more. I do not expect the general public to be well educated or well versed in any of this. However, I do have a misguided expectation that my leaders, particularly the President, to be better at making arguments on behalf of why we should allow Government to infringe on our Rights. This is not to say that I would agree, with any one point, but rather to say, that the serious nature of the discussion deserves well thought out, and articulated arguments on both sides. This is something of an art that is lost.
The good news is much of this is expected to be noise. It is unlikely we will see significant legislation pass the Senate unless the Senate changes the rules to allow a pure 51 vote majority to pass a bill of this nature. Something that seems unlikely to happen, despite the noise being made about it. We are looking at another month before we see proposed rule changes on these “Ghost Guns” and “Braces” both, I suspect, will have significant legal challenges as we are seeing with the Bump Stock ban. After all, what authority does the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms must change 80% to 60%? I suspect none, it is something that must be done legislatively and while they can try, I suspect the courts will say it is an overreach.
In other firearm news, Alliant has announced a new powder. Reloder TS15.5 is supposed to be a Temperature Stable version of Reloder 15. It also has a slightly slower burn rate that places it in-between Reloder 16 and Reloder 15. It will be a while before I’ll get my hands on it, but it does mean I am likely due to update the burn rate chart to include it. Reloder 16 is one of my favorite powders for 6.5 Creedmoor, especially when loading 140gr. Very temperature stable, even if it can be a bit tricky sometimes to get it to flow neatly into that tiny case neck. If Reloder TS15.5 is anything like its slower sister, it will likely be an excellent powder.
Load data avialible indicates this is likely going to be a good powder for rifle loads that tend to like the slower powders but do not quite reach into the magnum burn speed. This includes cartridges like the 22-250, 243 Win and the 30-06. There is of course some overlap, and it will be a suitable powder for 6.5 Creedmoor, and 6mm Creedmoor. If you are looking to move a heavier 77 or 85gr pill in 223 Remington, and have used Varget in the past, this may be a powder to look into. This extruded powder is made in Sweden, so which means it is highly likely that it is a Bofors powder.
One last thing, there are not a ton of people who get this email, but I think we are up to 95 subscribers. Who knows how many people read my weekly musings, but of those who do, I’d be interested in hearing what features you like in a reloading press? For right now, I am most interested in single stage presses. Do you think one company does it better than the others, and why do you think that? I would be interested in your feedback as I do a bit of market research. If you have some thoughts you would like to share, email me at Jay@theballisticassistant.com.
As always if you are looking to get in touch, best way is to send me an email 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.
Thanks for subscribing, stay safe and shoot straight!
The Ballistic Assistant
the new RL15.5 will be a Bofors powder, as there is only the Bofors plant for small arms powder in Sweden. Bofors is part of Eurenco and its powders are also branded and sold by Norma and RWS in Europe.
I suspected as much. I knew there was only one plant in Sweden, but I am always hesitant to call something definitive until I can get something else to confirm it beyond just my own speculation.
Thanks for the comment!
Jay
Ok, I am English, so not educated in your constitution.
But the 2nd Amendment was ratified in 1791, I think, and repeating arms were a great rarity at the time surely, and at the time of the adopting of your constitution, even more so.
Rifles as opposed to muskets, had of course been invented, and indeed used in your war of independence from us, but they were a rarity and hardly considered by the military of all nations as suitable for a general issue arm, just for special minority units like skirmishers.
No worries, part of the reason I began this website was to talk to people and to connect with others of like minds.
Repeating Arms had been in development since the early 1600’s and had some adoption by military forces particularly in Denmark. These were considered a “cutting edge” arm at the time, and would have been quite expensive to manufacture given the technology of the day. Also the sooty nature of Black Powder, such actions would undoubtedly been more susceptible to fouling, and I am somewhat curious to how they compared to the musket which was the by far the more common arm of the day. By the time of the Revolution repeating arms were well known in both Europe and in the American Colonies but were expensive. All of this is to say that the Authors of the Constitution were aware of such arms. In 1777 the Continental congress purchase 100 repeating rifles from Joseph Belton, but ultimately were not adopted for widespread use.
The full detailing of this history can be found in the Amicus Brief that was filed by the Firearms Policy Coalition to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on April 5th 20,21. The link to that brief can be found here: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/firearmspolicycoalition/pages/191/attachments/original/1617655649/Duncan_v_Becerra_FPC_Amicus.pdf?1617655649
Thanks again for reaching out!
Jay