This week is the official full week of fall, and we’ve already had our first frost warning. Last we had a few days that spiked up into the high seventies/low eighties, but the evenings have all been cool. This is my favorite time of year. Perfect weather and if it was like this year-round, I would have little reason to complain.
We had some successes this week. The 3D SLA printer I’ve been working on has finally come to life. I put enough warranty parts in it that I feel like it’s about 50% a new machine. Any Cubic was surprisingly good to work with and when I ran into an issue they would send a new part, no questions asked. I’ve spent the rest of the week dialing in resins and printing off both prototypes and figurines for the kids.
As you might have noticed, we skipped a week. This was not intentional, to be honest, the week got away from me a bit and I was not able to get all of the editing and formatting done.
Website Updates
Last post we posted a question asked by a subscriber, as a reminder here is the question.
Jay
I’m reloading for a 505 Gibbs with Hornady 525 both solids and softs.
I settled on 142 gr H1000 for 2150fps.
I have two questions one seems to turn the way I understand physics on its head.
First the simpler one would a faster powder loaded to same 2150 fps kick less? This 11.5lb gun kicks the snot out of me now.
The more interesting question is how can a .458 caliber 500 gr bullet be propelled at the same 2150 fps with roughly half the powder charge and half the recoil as the larger caliber similar weighted projectile?
Thanks
Mark B.
Here is my answer.
Good Evening Mark,
Thanks for subscribing, and thanks for the question.
For your first question, yes, in theory, a faster powder can reduce recoil. Powder weight counts as part of the mass being ejected from the barrel, so less powder means less ejecta. If you achieve the same velocity with a smaller charge of faster powder, recoil energy on paper will be slightly lower. The trick is that “felt recoil” isn’t just math. Recoil has an impulse curve: a short, sharp impulse can feel harsher than a longer, slower push, even if the energy is identical. That’s why one load may be technically lighter on recoil but still feel worse at the shoulder.
For your second question, the difference comes down to case design and pressure. The .505 Gibbs is a very large, low-pressure cartridge. It isn’t standardized by SAAMI, but CIP lists its maximum average pressure at about 39,000 psi. By comparison, the .458 Winchester Magnum runs at 53,000 psi, and the .458 Lott at 62,000 psi. Those higher pressures make the .458 cartridges more efficient; I.E you can drive the same 500 gr bullet to 2,150 fps with much less powder.
Powder charge directly affects recoil because the gases are part of what the rifle reacts against. In recoil calculations, the bullet mass is added to about 1.5 times the powder charge to get the “effective ejecta mass.” That means your Gibbs load with a 500–525 gr bullet and 120–150 gr of powder reacts like launching a 620–650 gr bullet. By contrast, a .458 with the same bullet weight and only 70–80 gr of powder behaves more like 570–580 gr. The Gibbs hits harder at both ends not because it’s more powerful, but because it’s burning almost twice the powder at lower efficiency.
I had to think a little bit on that second question, on the face of it, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me either until I did a little digging. I learned a little tonight about the 505 Gibbs, not a cartridge I have had much experience with.
Thanks,
Jay
What do you think, did we get it right? Did we leave anything out? How would you have responded?
Time at the Bench
338 Spectre Primed
Majority of my time was spent priming 338 Spectre brass. I had hoped to get a little further along than I have gotten but, my plan is to prime everything I’ve got so I can focus on loading. Nothing groundbreakingly exciting about this, it is just one of the many menial tasks that must be done.
I also spent a good amount of time trying to clean and organize my bench. Things just kind of got carried away. Lots of little projects combined with little time and I have found myself a little messier than usual. When this happens I always find a random primer, or a random screw, or something and I am immediately like “Jeesh I hope that wasn’t important.” I’ve got a few projects coming up and I wanted to read to go.
Industry and Legislative News
Normally this would fall into our “New Guns and Gear” section but this has become an “Interesting New Release” into a huge flub on Franklin Armory’s part. Sometimes bold actions do not always turn out how we might expect. To understand this we need to roll back time into another one of Franklin Armory’s releases, the Reformation.
Franklin Armory Reformation
For those who can remember the Reformation was an attempt to skirt the NFA laws regarding Short Barrel Rifles by offering a firearm that was not classified as a rifle and could not be classified as a shotgun. This made it classified simply as a “Firearm”, meaning it was not subject to either the $200 tax stamp for Short Barrel Shotguns or for Short Barrel Rifles.
The way they did this was to manufacture a barrel with straight grooves that imparted no twist on the projectile whatsoever. Obviously, there were issues, the twist imparts a spin on the bullet which prevents the bullet from tumbling and keeps it from wandering all over the range. So, to counter these issues Franklin Armory has what can only be described as a Nerf-Football-style projectile. The drag stabilized concept is not as ludicrous as might seem, smooth bore cannons shooting fin stabilized projectiles have been the staple of the M1 Abrams design for nearly a quarter century.
The Reformation hit the market in 2018 under this premise. However, the ATF did what the ATF commonly does and decided to reverse their classification in 2019 and determined that it was indeed a Short-Barrel Shot Gun (SBS). This ended up tying up the legality of the Reformation for some time. So, let’s now fast forward to 2025, the ATF decided to backtrack again, this time under the likely direction of the Department of Justice under Pam Bondi.
ATF Backtracks on Reformation
In a letter dated August 29, 2025 the ATF again decided that the Reformation was not classified as a rifle or a shotgun, but simply as a firearm, and thus could be sold to the public without the burden of NFA restrictions.
The letter went on to address the Antithesis firearm, another submission to the ATF’s Technology Division, which under its letter’s description, was designed to fire (This is important) “Antithesis is a type of firearm that utilizes a 14.5-inch rifled barrel to fire .410 bore shotshells and slugs, in addition to .45 Colt cartridges”. At the time ATF had classified it as a Short Barrel Rifle but was also rescinding this decision.
Under this letter dated August 29, 2025 the ATF was basically green lighting Franklin Arsenal to sell the Reformation which was introduced in 2018, and a new gun the Antithesis which, to my knowledge, had not been released. Classifying both as a “Firearm” for the purposes of the NFA. Thus neither required the NFA restrictions.
Where Franklin Armory went wrong.
The Antithesis launched on September 19th, 2025. I got texts and messages from friends, and it was a big to do. Folks were excited to see what looked like an SBR being offered as a “Firearm”. There was not one model being offered in .410/45 Colt, rather their offerings were in 5.56x45MM and 300 Blackout. My immediate question was “How are they getting around the SBR requirement?”
The answer was surprisingly novel; they had developed a shot shell that could be loaded into a 223 Rem/5.56 NATO case and fired. Each payload had essentially what was 3 balls of buck shot partially encased in a sabot or polymer shell. Duplex and Triplex loads are not new, they have been played with before, but I don’t think anyone has claim that loading a rifle with “buckshot” load was effectively turning it into a shotgun. This was Franklin Armories attempt to push what the ATF considered a “Firearm” and you can see how they got there from the decision that a rifle that could fire both a .410 Shotshell and a 45 Colt, was a firearm and not a “rifle” or a “shotgun”.
The ATF was quick to shut that down. Not even three days into it and Franklin Armory yanked pretty much everything to do with the Antithesis from their website. Issued an apology letter and a full refund for all those who bought the rifle.
My Takeaway
I think this is a clear attempt by Franklin Armory to pull a bait-and-switch on the ATF. So, it’s hard for me to get upset over this. You do not magically develop a “shotshell” that can be loaded into a rifle cartridge overnight. The looks of it, there was some serious R&D that went into it, including what is likely injection molding costs and what not. However, it was pretty darn clear it was a ploy. The list price for the projectiles was $40/10. This is not loaded ammo, this is just the payload, and it tells you tips and tricks on how to load it.
So what Franklin Armory did was challenge the NFA’s firearm definition with what was probably a legitimate product, an AR that could shoot both 45 Colt and .410 shotshells. Get the “Firearm” classification and then in effect say, “Here’s an AR in .223 Rem that shoots both regular 223 Rem and these special shells that shoot multiple rounds like a shotgun, thus it’s identical to the .410/45 Colt example that you ruled on an said was ok”. There is little doubt that Franklin Arsenal was also counting on recent change in administration and the legislation zeroing out the NFA Tax to be on their side.
The ATF called their bluff, and I can only assume it was called hard, as quickly as Franklin Armory yanked everything. What most people don’t realize is the gamble that Franklin Arsenal made and then lost. They wanted to be ahead of the market with a non-NFA SBR. They designed a whole product line around it, paid for marketing, and obviously put some R&D money behind it. They would have set a precedent in the market, in order to have a legitimate Non NFA “SBR” it had to be able to shoot shotgun like shells. “Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod”
Every Tom, Dick and Jerry who put together ARs would have quickly pointed at that and said “Same Rule applied to us” and launched their own lines. This would have continued to pound nails into the NFA coffin. Which many of us knew on seeing the launch of the Antithesis, including the ATF. Which is why I am sure the ATF quickly squashed it.
Is there someone who is right or someone who is wrong? Is there a reason to be outraged here?
No, not really. In my opinion, Franklin Arsenal attempted to pull bait and switch over on the ATF banking on the Administration’s friendly attitude towards the 2A Community, the recent passage of the revisions to the NFA Tax, to carry them through. A gamble which clearly pushed the line too much. (They pulled out all the stops offering the guns fully kitted with binary triggers and angled fore-grips). We have a long history of doing this, pushing the line of what is legal, trigger cranks, forced reset triggers, bump stocks, binary triggers, angled for grips, arm braces, solvent traps, 80% Lowers, this list goes on and on. Sometimes we get away with it, but usually someone gets burned. Whether it is the company that produces them, or the unwitting consumer that buys them.
Which is why I have played the game “wait and see” with all of these products. The last thing I want to do is dump money on a $500 trigger and then get a letter a few months, or years later after the ATF has changed it’s mind and have to forfeit my property. Yes you can argue illegal confiscation, but at the end of the day, giving up $500 is far cheaper then the lawyer and years of legal fees to keep what is, at the end of the day, a gimmick.
Editor’s Note and ATF follow up
When I originally wrote this, the ATF had not publicly come out and offered their side of the story. On September 25, 2025 they published this letter which pretty much confirmed what I suspected. The original authorization was for a .410/.45 Colt rifle, and that was what had been submitted. Franklin Armory took that and ran with it, and while they submitted the new version to the ATF, they did not wait for the ATF to make a ruling on whether it was legal.
New Guns and Gear
So, for new releases that have not pushed the legal boundaries,
Area 419 has released the 2nd Generation of its ZERO reloading press. They have updated the linkage, added a few creature comforts like a ball detent to the primer tray smoothing out the stroke, and small tweaks to ergonomics. The ZERO press’s claim to fame is a lock-up so consistent that you can expect the position of the turret to repeat within .0005in. It’s a beast of a press at 70+lbs, so there is no doubt you’re getting $1400 worth of precision machined aluminum.
Both Marc and I have opinions over the ZERO press, neither of us are big fans. Mainly because no one has yet to demonstrate the incremental gain you would get from spending $500 on a Redding T7, or spending (in this case) $1400 on a ZERO Gen 2 press. By incremental gain, we mean, when you develop a load on a Redding T7 press and it shoots a group size of 1.54 inches at 100 yards, does the ZERO press shrink that 1.54-inch group down to 0.54 inches, or only to 1.44 inches? This is not to knock on the quality of the press; it is a very sturdy and well-built machine that will last a lifetime. It is a press that looks great on Instagram, in the background of YouTube Videos and will impress all your friends when they see it.
Rossi announced a pistol configuration for their 22LR Semi-automatic action. This is the same basic action of their RS22 Rifle released a few years ago. I am not sure there is a lot to comment on here, but if we see the NFA get completely wiped off the books I think this becomes a cheap and affordable SBR Host. MSRP on this is $199
Rideout Arsenal, a new company, has a new gun that is on preorder for $5,200. Their claim to fame here is an ultralow bore axis. For those who are not familiar with the concept, the lower the bore axis the less muzzle flip you tend to experience. This is due to the bore being more in line with your wrist, a higher bore axis acts as a lever and will push your wrist back and up. The gun is an all-metal frame, 5in barrel, and it is set up to be optic-ready. The package will ship with a Trijicon SRO optic. Reportedly it uses Springfield Armory Echelon Magazines.
This one just made my head turn. We see stuff like this from time to time in the gun industry. A radical new take on something and you always ask yourself if it’s going to be something or if it will die on the vine. When Glock came out with their “Tupperware” Glock 17 design few were aware of the explosion it would kick off. On the flip side of that there are many, many examples of radical designs not paying off, only the most recent is the Hudson H9. With the price tag this high, expectations for performance will be equally high. If it fails to meet them, it will likely end up a boutique curiosity just like my beloved chimera the MK36 by Overmatch Precision Arms.
If you have questions, comments, or ideas, we’d love to hear from you.
Jay – jay@theballisticassistant.com
Marc – Marc@theballisticassistant.com
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