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Good Monday Morning!

First off I made a mistake and released the Casting Bullet Quality Control write up as a post an not a page. Thus it was emailed out to all of you instead of just going live to the page. We truly do not want to spam our subscribers, so we limit emails to once a week updates for those who want to see what happens on the site. I’ll pay special attention to this in the future.

We had a successful casting session last week. Instead of doing a full “How To” I instead decided to share my thoughts on casting. Hopefully there’s some interesting stuff for newbies and veterans alike.

Some Thoughts on Casting Bullets

When you manufacturer your own bullets or ammunition you need to have some way to measure critical dimensions, and a means to establish your own quality control. While perfection is everyone’s goal, there are often factors that beyond your control that make achieving this goal impossible. Here is what we do when we look at quality control of our cast bullets.

Casting Bullets Quality Control

We’ve been working with Hi-Tek Expoy coating for our cast bullets. Expect to see a write up on that in the near future for those who are interested. This is the first time we’ve used this coating, and it has been a bit of an adventure. I do believe in the future we will see a migration away from copper and brass jackets bullets to Nylon, or Epoxy type coatings, for budget ammunition from mainstream manufacturers.

This is not without precedent, as Herters, Federal and some other have released some version of a Nylon or Coated lead bullet in loaded ammunition. While these early attempts may not have been a commercial success, we will likely see these products come back to the market as ammunition prices rise, and companies find way to cut costs and bring product to the market at lower costs.

As always if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to drop me an email at jayandrew338@gmail.com or hop on Facebook and checkout our Facebook page.

Stay sane, and stay safe!

The Ballistic Assistant

March is almost over, and what a March is has been.

We continued our series of write ups on Spud Guns. This one focused on building out the combustion chamber. Once the PVC fittings are put together and the glue has dried there is still some work in ensuring electrical connections can be made to the igniter and the fan. We detail all of that work in the write up below.

The Humble Spud Gun: Combustion Chamber

Sighting in the VZ-58 has been a small project in its own right. Discovering tools that are needed and weaknesses in the build. We took a hard look at the trigger, being that it really was not working for us. We took a look at our options, tried a few things and came up with a solution that got us a better trigger. See the detail here’s :

VZ-58: Trigger Rework

Last week we had indicated there would be an update to the Powder Burn Rate chart to include SMP 764 and 6.5 Staball powder. We have not release the update yet, as we want to check the approximate burn rate of SMP 764 against SMP 765. Be patient with us and we’ll get this update out as soon as possible.

I was able to track down some 7.62×39 ammo at a local pawn shop. So we will continue working on sighting in the VZ-58 this week. Hopefully we will have that finished off. I also plan on doing some bullet casting, and try my hand at epoxy coating. Expect some follow up write ups on both of those topics. We will also be working on the Spud gun, but we are waiting on some components to arrive, there may not be an update on that this week.

With everyone stuck indoors what have you been up to? Have you worn out your presses yet? Run out of components? Sold the kids to buy more? It been tough for a lot of us, hopefully we are through the worse of it. Let us know what you’ve been up to over at Facebook.

As always if you have questions, comments or concerns shoot me an email at jayandrew338@gmail.com. I’ve heard from a few of you and I have really appreciated the feed back and conversation. Stay safe out there.

Thanks,

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Morning!

I gotta say, man the world is going crazy right now over this COVID-19 outbreak. Certinately never seen anything like it. Fortunately it doesn’t impact much of what I do, it is just insane to watch. Stay safe out there.

We’ve been working behind the scenes on projects and do not have much in the way of website updates this week. When sighting in the VZ-58, I discovered that I needed a tool to adjust the front sight. Instead of purchasing one, we made one. Here is the write up on that.

VZ-58: Front Sight Adjustment Tool

Expect to see an update on the Burn Rate Chart this week. This update come courtesy of one of our readers. Winchester StaBall 6.5 is the consumer version of St. Marks SMP 764. We will edit the Relative Burn Rate Chart to reflect this new information. A big thanks to the gentleman who pointed this out.

If anyone has anything they would like to add or change on the Relative Burn Rate Chart, please do not hesitate to shoot me an email. When doing load development, the Burn Rate Chart was an invaluable tool for identifying all the different powders worth testing. Having a comprehensive and complete Burn Rate Chart was and is always my goal.

That is all for this week’s update. As always, thanks for subscribing, if you have comments, suggestions, or corrections please email them to jayandrew338@gmail.com. If you would like to interact with us directly, check out our Facebook Page.

Thanks,

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday morning!

Last week was a busy week working on a few projects. We still managed to hash out a write up continuing our series on basic handloading equipment. Hopefully it is somewhat insightful for people who are looking at getting started in handloading, as well as those who have been at it for awhile.

Handloading Your Way – Powder Metering Accessories

We’ll continue to work on this series as time allows. We’re dutifully working on some of the other projects for the sight, so keep an eye out for updates.

We try hard to stay away from politics and world events on this website, but we would be somewhat negligent if we didn’t comment on the current trends of the firearms industry. Currently we are seeing an uptick in ammunition and firearm purchases. This can be traced to two primary events, the CORVID-19 outbreak and the upcoming 2020 elections.

These “Run on guns” can have detrimental effects to both the hobby shooter and the professional load developer. Shortages in ammunition can result in the inability to conduct Competitor Sample comparisons, and shortages in powder often results in alternate powders being use, incomplete powder screenings, or loads unable to be loaded at all. If you have time sensitive projects coming up, be sure to order early, and anticipate standard lead times may be longer than typical.

I’m not saying to run out a purchase all the 22LR you can find, but I am saying that you may want to plan accordingly. Depending on the outcome of the 2020 election, we may see this “Run on Guns” evaporate overnight, or it could get a lot worse. We will have to see.

We’ll continue to monitor the market and see what the trends look like. Be safe out there.

In the meantime if you have any comments, suggestions, or question feel free to give a shout out to us at Jayandrew338@gmail.com or check us out on Facebook. Thanks for subscribing and we hope you have a good week!

Thanks,

The Ballistic Assistant

First Monday in March. This year is flying by!

We had a busy week last week and got a lot done. Thus we were able to get a few things published.

I made a mistake when I tried to improvise my own tool for disassembly of the Mexican Mauser action. I twisted the action, and when I tried to correct it, I really just made it worse. No one to blame but myself, and I learned what not to do. I have been able to source an additional Rem 700 Small Action, so the heart of the build lives on. I took a moment to do a design evaluation before continuing on the project. This lays out the goals of the build, and discusses some of the challenges that we may expect to encounter with the build.

308 Scout Rifle: Design Eval

As mentioned previously Potato Cannons, also known as Spud guns, are really what kicked off my journey into the world of Ballistics. As a fun side project, I want to revisit my youth and apply what I know now to this simple spud accelerator. We formally kick off this series of write ups with the construction of the gun itself. I want to get a little bit fancy with the ignition, metering and mixing set up, so expect separate write ups covering those systems.

The Humble Spud Gun: Construction

It’s been awhile since we’ve had a formal update on the VZ-58 project. We were able to get the rifle a fresh coat of paint. I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. Thanks to Utah Hydro Graphics for a job well done. Just a few more things left to do on this build before we can sign it off as complete!

VZ-58: A Fresh Coat of Paint

That is it for this week. Thanks to all those who have subscribed! If you have comments questions, or suggestions please email me at jayandrew338@gmail.com or give us a shout over on our Facebook page.

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Morning/Afternoon/Evening

This past week was pretty productive for us at the Ballistic Assistant. In case you are curious, we are nearing 6,000 views to the site. Our main focus has been, and will continue to be, providing content to all of you. Hopefully we will develop the site into a useful resource. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we are getting there. We appreciate everyone sticking with us.

Last week we continued the series of write ups on Handloading Your Way taking a hard look at some of the ways to measure/meter powder. All of this is based on my experience, and this write up hopefully covers the spectrum from the inexpensive, to the border line obscene.

Handloading Your Way: Powder Metering

Unfortunately when tearing down the Mauser Action for the Old Mauser to Scout Rifle build, I made a mistake and torqued the action. It was one of those, “I should have bought the proper tool and not tried to improvise” mistakes. We have sourced a new Remington 700 Short Action for the build, and will continue on. We are planning on doing some things that are outside of normal on this build, look for a Design Evaluation post this week detailing what we are thinking for this build.

We also made some progress with the Spud Gun project, there should be an update coming this week or next. We’ve got the part in to measure pressure, we have a PVC “Gun” put together, and are now just working on the ignition system.

Lastly I wanted to give a shout out to Utah Hyrdo Graphics. They did the paint on the VZ-58, and it came out looking quite nice! We are almost finished with this project, just a few things to be done before we can call it finished. For now, here’s how it looks.

That’s it for this week. Thanks for subscribing, and as always if you have any suggestions, comments or complaints, please email me at jayandrew338@gmail.com. Alternatively you can check out our growing Facebook page.

Have a Good Week!

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Morning All!

We’ve been taking a hard look at some of the basic equipment used in reloading. Whether you do load development as a profession, or you are just getting started we hope to give a good outline of some of the equipment out there. Recommendations are based on equipment that we have personally used.

Handloading Your Way – The Press

We will continue the Handloading Your Way series with looking at powder handling equipment. That should go live sometime this week. These are fun articles to write, and with all reviews, if we haven’t used it we don’t disparage it.

We also have a couple of local business shout outs we added to the page. Boring Rifles located in Beaver, Utah is a small business focused on building custom rifles. Their rifles are anything but Boring. Whether you’re looking for next long range paper puncher, or your next hunting rifle, check these guys out.

Utah Hydro Graphics is a small business located in Beaver, Utah. These guys do everything from Hydrodipping to Cerakote. They are doing the cerakote on the VZ-58 build, which will be an upcoming writeup. If you are considering having your rifle or pistol coated, give the fellows at utah Hydro Graphics a try, you won’t be disappointed.

As far as other news, we received a bunch of small components needed to progress some of the other projects that we’ve been doing on the site. So expect to see some progress in the near future on some of these projects.

Thank you for those who have subscribed, and who take the time to visit the site. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions please feel free to shoot an email to jayandrew338@gmail.com. You can also check us out on Facebook.

Have a Great Week!

The Ballistic Assistant

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

Good Monday Morning!

Hope everyone is recovering from the Super Bowl weekend. To aid those in recovery mode, Utah has ordered a snow storm. So far it’s dropped 6in and its suppose to last until tomorrow. Giving all Utahns (Except those in St. George) valid excuses as to why they were late to work 😉

This year we were not able to attend SHOT Show, but we still wanted to look at what companies were doing. In addition to looking at some of the newer powders on the market, we took a look at some of the new products being offered by companies to manufacturers. These products don’t get the limelight, but some people might be interested in them nonetheless. Check out some of these highlights here;

SHOT Shot Highlights

We also updated the Relative Burn Rate chart to include some of the newer powders released in the last two years. It is important to remember with any burn rate chart, that the positions are approximate, and powder burn rate is dependent on the cartridge, and pressures it is subject to. Burn rate charts are a useful tool to see what powders might work well in a cartridge, but are not a substitute for published load data.

Updated Relative Burn Chart

For inquiring minds, the groundhog saw his/her shadow, and we can expect an early spring. If today’s weather is any indication, Mother Nature disagrees.

As always if you have questions, comments or corrections, email us at Jayandrew338@gmail.com. If you want to join the conversation, check us out on Facebook.

Thanks for Subscribing!

The Ballistic Assistant

Good Monday Morning!

Lots of exciting news coming out of SHOT Show this week. I am working on a write up going over some of the highlights, that pertain to ammunition manufacturing, and industry developments.

Last week posted a write up that I had been wanting to do since the launch of the website. Ways to Measure Pressure, presented is a general overview of how pressure is measured in the industry, including the equipment used, a some of the pros and cons to each method.

Ways to Measure Pressure

Being able to accurately measure pressure and velocity in a controlled manner really sets a company apart. With that said it can be a large investment depending on how the testing is done. It can seem a rather complex task to a new comer, hopefully this breaks it down to something that be easily understood.

For the most part I have slowed down posting to try and get at least one article posted per week. This gives me more time to work on projects, and then to do the write ups on those projects. If you have questions, suggestions or comments please shoot me an email at jayandrew338@gmail.com. You can also check us out on Facebook.

Thanks!

The Ballistic Assistant.