Month: May 2025

Today is Memorial Day. Let’s take a moment to remember those who gave all so that we may remain free people. It is a shame that this holiday has become so commercialized, and that people are more apt to look for the “Memorial Day Sales” than to take a moment to pause and think of those men and women who gave everything. 

Website Updates and News

In terms of website updates, we have one! The new burn rate chart is finally live [LINK].. We included a few new powders that have been released over the past three years. Mainly Hodgdon powders.

Time at the Bench

The last few weeks I have been working on getting caught up on my reloading. I had a large pail of collected brass, some that I shot myself, some that I picked during range trips.  I have been cleaning that, then running it through a decapping die and cleaning it some more. I really don’t like putting dirty brass on my presses.

 I have loaded quite a bit of 45 ACP and have switched my Dillon 550 over to load 9mm. I think this is the first time I’ve loaded anything else besides 45 ACP on that press. Switching over a Dillon 550 is not hard, it is straightforward it just takes a little bit of time to get everything swapped over and the dies adjusted right.

As far as rifle loading, right now I have been working through the backlog of 30-06 brass I have collected. Mainly I am loading for my FN Mauser in 30-06. I’d like to spend more time shooting that rifle and getting it dialed in. For the load I am running 44.0 grains of N140 under a 168-grain Sierra MatchKing.

I hear Marc is working on some loads for his 45-70. Last time I helped him work up a load he did me a favor and let me test the loads in his Marlin Lever gun. I’ve shot 45-70 before, I had not shot “that” 45-70, and I decided I didn’t much care to shoot it again.

Industry News

Progress of the Hearing Protection Act

The obvious buzz in the industry is the excitement over the possibility of suppressors being removed from the NFA.  The Hearing Protection Act (H.R. 152 / S. 494) cleared the House on May 24, 2025, and is now in the Senate. Now is the time everyone should be on their phones calling their respective Senators to keep this legislation in the bill passed by the House.  I tend to be pessimistic about stuff like this, while a new important milestone that has been reached there is much politicking to be done.  Still, I have a few guns I would love to “accessorize” with a can.

Adjacent to this is the blowback the Silencer Central is getting. I personally have been slow to get upset over this. Brandon Maddox, the CEO Silencer Central and Banish suppressors, gave an interview to Tom Gresham of Gun Talk which aired, Sunday the 18^th.  The CEO laid it all out, and I found his explanation about the accusations credible. There is no doubt that if suppressors are removed from the NFA just about any company that makes suppressors is going to see a demand so great that we may see a new industry bubble.

It has been my observation that the Gun Owners of America (GOA) has a tendency to want to make a lot of noise and then fundraise over it. They are not beyond taking on other gun right’s groups if those groups do not take the same 100% No Compromise approach that GOA champions. After reviewing a lot of online commentary, and listening to the interview on Gun Talk, I truly believe this is a manufactured narrative pushed by GOA for the purposes of stirring the pot and then fundraising off emotions. Boy, do we love a good conspiracy theory, and we can often be very quick to eat our own before the full story can be released. Moving on.

ATF settles with Rare Breed over Forced Reset Triggers

Rare Breed, the company behind the Force Reset Trigger, reached a settlement with the ATF in May 2025. While details are limited, it appears the ATF has dropped its classification of the FRT as a machine gun, though stipulations remain regarding use in handguns. This is a stunning about face that I don’t think anyone saw coming.

For those who are not familiar with Force Reset triggers, it still complies with the definition of “Semi-Automatic” as it fires one round per actuation of the trigger. The hammer and sear are mechanically returned to a non-firing state prior to being tripped by the shooter and fundamentally work different from auto sears. As a shooter you are able to increase the rate of fire and prevents you from getting a “Dead Trigger” because you have overrun the bolt.  The ATF had sought to classify these as a machinegun conversion.

With the this new Trump Administration we have the largest swings in governmental attitude towards the 2^nd amendment in my lifetime, and quite possibly since the turn of the 20^th century.

As always, my concern here is when this political pendulum swings the other way, how many of these changes are going to withstand the test of time in five years or ten years? Then what will be the state response? As we have seen, many states will pass laws for what I chalk up purely to spite.

Legislation Efforts to Ban Glock Pistols

To reinforce the point there are  many efforts in states across the nation in restricting or banning firearms. This is probably the most notable in California where they are seeking to ban any firearm that can be readily converted into a machine gun.

This is mostly targeting Glock pistols as there has been a surge in the availability of so- called Glock Switches (Pictured Right) . Regardless of if you are a Glock fan or not (personally they are not my favorite) it is admirable that the basic design has not changed much since the initial release of the Glock 17. The means that for most of the Glock models’ parts are interchangeable.  Several states have filed lawsuits, claiming that Glock refuses to “fix” their pistols, so that “Glock” switches become irrelevant.

As per usual, these laws seek to make something that is already illegal (it is illegal to modify a firearm to fire more than one round per press of the trigger) to be more illegal. Because making things more illegal, always seems to solve the problem *Sarcasm*.  With California, you can count on them to try this, it will be challenged legally, and it will go to the 9^th Circuit Court, which then will likely rule in favor of California, and it will be a crapshoot if that makes its way to the Supreme Court. Other States would have to do a similar thing and we would like need a circuit court to rule the opposite of the 9^th circuit.  A process that takes half a decade or more.

Never mind that the Glock Pistol is the definition of “Common Use” as outlined in the Heller decision.

New Stuff

For those who use QuickLOAD. The 4/29/2025 QuickLOAD update is available now. You can find that here.  This updated amends the Cutting-Edge Bullet Database, however like all QuickLOAD updates it will update all the databases with the most current information. If you load a lot of Cutting-Edge Bullets, or you are a few updates behind it is probably worth looking at this update.

Weatherby has launched a new line of rifles: the Model 307, which is compatible with Remington 700 accessories. This is something I can really get behind, anytime you have a manufacturer back a design, whether it is an MSR or bolt gun, I think it is a good thing. It creates more demand for after-market accessories and this benefits everyone.  It is also nice to see Weatherby offering just the action for those guys who like to build rifles.

Springfield Armory has launched a new chassis version of their 2020 bolt action and have called it the Heat Seaker. Marc’s first impression of this was “Who came up with that name?”.  Chassis bolt guns have become popular, especially with the PRS crowd. It’s the flavor of the week right now, no doubt it’s a quality rig. For the price point it better be.

Lastly I wanted to say thank you to all those who wrote in to welcome me back. It was not something I was expecting, and I was grateful to receive so many messages of support.

That’s what I have this week.

Jay

It has been a long time since I have updated the website. At the beginning this absence was due to some family issues. That has since been resolved, favorably. After that it was about getting settled into a new home and a new job. After a 3 year hiatus, I have finally found some time to start back again.

During this time I worked primarily as the New Product Developer for Creedmoor Sports. Odds are you may have seen videos of me on YouTube going over new products. I can honestly say doing product development in the reloading space has become a passion of mine. I worked closely with and developed a deep friendship with Marcus Brown. Together we brought nearly two dozen new products to market with many other getting design updates and improvements. 

That began to change in the fall of 2023, there was a noticeable slowdown in the market. The shooting sports, and particularly our little niche area is highly dependent on disposable income. I strongly suspect that as COVID money dried up and as Americans began to feel the pinch of inflation all the disposable dollars people spent on their hobbies began to dry up.  COVID created a bubble of demand, and I suspect many companies gobbled that demand up, not realizing it was a bubble, and made plans to grow and expand. When the bubble began to subside, the companies that made purchases and tried to expand were left with crippling debt.

Marc and I had more ideas and more designs than we could bring to the market. It was an unfortunate reality of the business, the development cycle is expensive, and it can be hard to go from concept to design unless you have capital to back it. When sales fell so did the appetite for risk, and despite our successes with items like the Wind Indicator, the line of Enhanced Turret Heads, The Comparator Tool, and various other reloading items, the company became risk averse and scaled back.

I have been part of sinking companies before and could see the writing on the wall. I started looking for another job early in 2024, leaving Creedmoor Sports at the end of May 2024. We moved north to the New England area not far from where I grew up.  Marc was at Creedmoor for about another year, and we stayed in touch. He was unceremoniously dismissed from the company at the end of February 2025, due to slow sales. As a southern boy through and through he remains in the south.

Despite some bitter moments, I largely see the three-year period as an amazing period of growth for me. I learned a tremendous amount from the industry, about the product development cycle, and about the market. I also made several connections and lasting friendships that have extended well beyond my employment. It also gave me an opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different reloading tool brands, and I began to develop more of a sense of what I liked and what I didn’t. Brands like L.E. Wilson, and Triebel began to help me see what quality reloading tools could and should be.

I’ve also added new cartridges to my handloading menagerie. Most notably .458 SOCOM and .357 Sig. This has come with a few new guns and gun builds which I am sure I’ll discuss at some point.  It was not a direct intention of mine to get into short and squat cartridges but I have a collection now. 300 Blackout, 357 Sig, 458 SOCOM, and 338 Spectre it’s becoming a trend.

What is the future for the Ballistic Assistant?

The move north has brought stability and an opportunity to finally set up my reloading presses and spend evening slowly working through the backlog of handloading tasks that have piled up over the years. As handloading does, you have lots of time to think, and both Marc and I have a long list of things we would like to bring to market. That will be our next step. I’ll continue to build out this site, offer commentary on current firearms news. Discuss and share projects I am working on, and overall try and keep building this website as a resource for the handloader.

In the meantime, I have been working on an updated burn rate chart. There have been some new powder releases in the past three years that are absent from the chart. SAAMI has also accepted several new cartridges, including the 5.7x28mm, and the 338 ARC which is Hornady’s interpretation of the .338 Spectre.

Federal has introduced the 7mm Backcountry, which has elicited an eyeroll from me on the marketing. I remain unconvinced that steel case ammo and 80kpsi cartridges are the wave of the future. I am also skeptical of Federal’s claims that it can be reloaded, the rumors are that die manufacturers are having a hard time creating functional sizing dies.

We are likely to see big changes on the ATF’s positions on several firearm accessories. We have already seen an about face on the Forced Reset trigger, I suspect there will again be reclassification and changes regarding the rules around pistol braces for the 100^th time. I’m also not convinced that any of these changes will last much longer than the next Democratic Administration. I have seen a lot of enthusiasm for possible removal of suppressors from the NFA. Something I completely support and would love to see. However, the realist in me will “Believe it when I see it”, it is not something I expect will happen in this congress.

The industry has seen an explosion in double stack 1911, often called 2011 though the term is trademarked by Staccato, who used to be STI. Everyone who is anyone is putting out double stack 1911’s. I have to admit, they are a pretty nice update to a 100 year old design. Time will tell how long this trend continues.

I have all but dumped the social media scene. It was a tremendous time suck and while I know it is good for website and business growth it also kills a lot of my time.  So I have unceremoniously abandoned Facebook, Reddit and Instagram. For now, it is those who have subscribed, which thankfully, it has seen growth in my relative absence.

As always, if you want to get in contact the best way is send me an email at jay@theballisticassistant.com

Till next week,

Jay