Good Monday evening!
Overall, it has been a very wet and cold spring in the upper northeast. I’ve been setting aside a few hours each Saturday to take one of my kids fishing on Lake Champlain. It’s supposed to offer pretty good fishing, but so far, we haven’t had a single verifiable bite, let alone landed a fish. I have been watching all the YouTube videos and reading everything I can to remedy the situation. I’ve learned a lot, various knots, rigging techniques, and the differences between a square-bill and regular crankbait, as well as a spinning reel and a baitcaster, but it hasn’t paid off yet.
I walk into the fishing aisle, and I’m still lost. It reminds me of how I felt when I first got into shooting and reloading, and how a newbie might feel. I think the internet these days does more to confuse people than to help.
Website Updates and New Stuff
This week we have a few website updates that went live. I have finished updating the SAAMI Rifle Catalog. SAAMI has added about half a dozen or so cartridges in the last three years. I have updated the catalog to include these. This catalog is meant to be a quick glance at some important dimensions such as the max case length, the trim-to-length, and the SAAMI MAP pressure, sometimes referred to as the service pressure. I will be going through a similar exercise on the pistol, shotshell and rimfire catalogs in the coming weeks.
The updated SAAMI Rifle Catalog can be found here.
I have also done a deep dive in the 8.6 Blackout. This is something that I have wanted to do ever since it was announced at the 2022 SHOT Show. I had planned on starting out by comparing the 338 Spectre, 338 ARC and the 8.6 Blackout, however as I began to write it, I realized that just telling the story of the 8.6 Blackout was enough. I plan on circling back and doing a 338 ARC and 338 Spectre comparison at some point in the near future but for now I hope this write up on the 8.6 Blackout is a worthwhile read.
The article is under Jay’s Commentaries, and is linked here: An Honest Look at the 8.6 Blackout
Time at the Bench
This week I have been wrapping up some 30-06 loading I had started about a week and a half ago. As previously mentioned it is not too exciting of a load, really, I would like to spend more time at the range practicing the fundamentals of shooting then trying to develop the perfect load.
I have also been doing quite a bit of brass cleaning. I have tried pretty much everything under the sun when it comes to cleaning brass. I keep coming back to the dry tumbling method. The tumbler I have been using and abusing for probably 12 years now, might be starting to die. You can hear the RPM’s of the motor suddenly drop and then recover a few seconds later. Maybe I’ll tear into it, hopefully it is a failing bearing.
In terms of what tumbler, I’ll buy to replace it, that is up for some debate. The one I have was sold by Cabela’s, I doubt it is still made. I will freely admit I was looking at the Harbor Freight models and wondering how they might hold up. Overall, I would like something about the same size, maybe a touch bigger, but would like something quieter. I know Harbor Freight can be a mixed bag.
Marc and I bought a Harbor Freight dual drum rock tumbler when we were doing some wet media testing. I personally was a big fan of it. We could clean a bunch of brass quickly, allowing us to try out different additives and different tumbling media. The small size of the containers made it easy to load and unload. Something that I really am not a big fan of when it comes to the larger wet tumblers. I would recommend it to someone who is just starting out reloading and is on budget.
Industry and Legislative News
We are all waiting with bated breath to see what happens to the Hearing Protection Act in the Senate. I have not heard of any meaningful movement on this. So, keep pushing on your senators.
Supreme Court Ruling
The news broke today that the Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases regarding the constitutionality of laws regulating “high-capacity magazines” and assault weapon bans. In both instances the circuit courts upheld the state laws, which lead to appeals to the Supreme Court. The rejection of the appeals means the lower court’s ruling stands.
It’s easy to say that a rejection by the Supreme Court is a loss for Gun Right as a whole. I tend to take the middle road. When a Supreme Court ruling is given, it is supposed to set a precedent for the lower courts to follow (Or Ignore in the cases of Heller and Bruen). What we absolutely don’t want is an unfavorable precedent set. If the justices realize they don’t have the votes for a favorable outcome, I’d rather see the case rejected.
Maybe I’m stretching to see the glass as half full, but politics is messy, and it’s rarely as cut and dried as we might like. Again, it’s not the outcome we wanted, but it is preferable to the alternative.
Texas
As per usual we see laws being pushed on the state level. In Texas they are working to change how they regulate Short Barrel Rifles. In short, they are stripping the language from the State law that mirrors the Federal laws. This does not change a whole lot for Texan gunowners unless SBRs are removed from the NFA, however it does clear the path for Texans if this does happen.
The most interesting piece of legislation to come out of Texas is the banning of municipalities and state funded organizations from holding so called gun buy back programs. To me this has been a scam preying on ignorance. By turning in a firearm, you got a $50, sometimes up to a $100 gift card often times at the taxpayers expense. No questions asked. The firearms would then be destroyed. While it was fun to watch entrepreneurial gun owners craft their own firearms and capitalize on the stupidity of the whole thing, the real harm was done to those people who had a firearm worth far more than a $100 gift card. I suppose you could call it the “stupid tax”.
Connecticut
While we are winning some battles on the state and federal level we are losing some ground in some states as well. Last week we mentioned what in effect would be a ban on Glocks in California. This week it is in Connecticut where we are seeing laws passed that encourage companies and municipalities to file lawsuits against firearm companies who do not enact reasonable controls to prohibit criminals from purchasing or obtaining a firearm. The “Reasonable Controls” definition is left purposefully vague. This legislation has been enacted in 8 other states, so it is not novel or new.
New Guns and Gear
Dillon Auto Center Decapping Die
Dillon Precision has released a new decapping die. As far as I can tell it is functionally identical to the FW Arms Decapping die. I am curious to see if they are licensing the patent from FW Arms, if Dillon has stepped in it, or they have found a way around the patent. The FW Arms decapping die is my favorite decapping die on the market. You don’t bend or break a decapping pin if you hit a Berdan primed case, and it positively clears primers past the crimp launching them down through the ram.
Springfield Armory KUNA
It’s not every day you see a new ground up design of a roller-delayed blow back action, however Springfield Armory recently released a new roller delayed carbine named the KUNA. Technically this was released a few weeks prior to the release of the 2020 Heatseeker, a chassis version of their Model 2020 bolt action, so we are late to the punch but better late than never I suppose.
I think it is a handsome looking piece that is just begging to be an SBR, (Get rid of that silly pistol brace) and it comes ready to be a suppressor host. What’s not clear to me is whether Springfield Armory is doing any of the manufacturing, or if they are just importing it as the firearm was designed by HS Produkt in Croatia, being named after the Croatian word for the European pine marten, Croatia’s national animal. The XD line of firearms was a similar collaboration. The MSRP for the KUNA is not terrible at $1150 for the version with the pistol brace.
That is all I have for this week.
Jay