Well this past week has been a crazy one but with some good developments.
First off, I know most hunting seasons have either started or are starting. So I wish everyone a safe and bountiful hunt. I know many people who’ve been using this social distancing and isolation as an excuse to develop new hunting loads. I look forward to hearing how they performed in the field.
Secondly, the big firearms news of the week is Remington companies being sold off as part of the bankruptcy. When it comes to ammunition, the most interesting news is Remington Ammunition being acquired by Vista Outdoors, and Barnes Bullets being acquired by Sierra Bullets. Since I’ve been somewhat close to the fire on both organizations, I am curious to see how this affects both companies long term.
Barnes Bullets is most well known for their TSX and TTSX line of copper solid bullets. To my knowledge Sierra Bullets never came out with a copper solid, further more Sierra does not manufacture it’s own ammunition. Barnes Bullets does both. While Barnes used Sierra bullets in a few of it’s loads, it more often used the Match Burner bullets. It will be interesting to see if Sierra allows the Match Burner to continue as it directly competes with Sierra Match King line of bullets. I’m not saying they’ll kill the brand any time soon, but I’ve seen it happen before.
One of the bummer things to come out of this for Barnes is that it looks like they had bid to be their own company. Basically purchasing themselves from Remington, I’m not sure if it was to be an employee owned, but I do know that many Barnes employees had wanted to be employee owned business.
The purchase of Remington Ammunition by ATK can only be a good thing for the company. I’ve been to the Lonoke Arkansas facility a few times. Much of the equipment has been rebuilt many times over, and the plant is in need of an manufacturing update. Remington had attempted to do this, but had only updated their 9mm manufacturing line, and it was not without it’s own issues.
The last bit of news is the progress I’ve made on the garage. Ever bit closer, honestly I feel bad not devoting more time to the website, but in a way getting that taken care of will allow me to produce the content that I’ve been wanting to all along. So bare with me a bit longer and we’ll get things sorted.
Of course there is the impending Supreme Court battle, but I’ll stay out of that…
If you’d like to submit a load to the database, download the form here. Regardless of what I am doing when I receive the email, I will review the entry and will add it to the database right away. No new loads this week, but there will be some soon.
As always you can reach me at jayandrew338@gmail.com. I enjoy the emails and feedback I receive and will always respond as best I can. Alternatively you can follow us on Facebook, or Instagram to see what we are up to.
Stay Safe Out There!
The Ballistic Assistant