ShotShow 2023 Lapua, Norma, Eley, SchleTek, Mack Bros, Gunwerks, Anschutz, TriggerTech, Vudoo, ARC
Lapua, Berger, CPG
I stopped by the Lapua / Berger / Capstone precision group booth early on in the show. Outside of a few new loaded ammo offerings under the Berger label, there is not a lot to report as most of their efforts are going to trying to catch production up with demand. A good problem for them to have but not so interesting for us as it does not exactly incentivize new products. It will still be a while before I get that .224 cal hybrid in the correct weight range for .223 rem. It’s on their list of things to do though.
What is new is the Lapua super long range .22lr. As you may have guessed, this is lot selected long range which is slightly higher velocity stuff off the Center-X / Midas / X-act line. So, basically long range is somewhere in the range of Center-X / Midas+ when it comes to selection criterion and super long range is around Midas+ / X-act criterion. I spoke to Bryan Litz a bit about .22lr bullet shape, velocity, and twist rates as it pertains to long range use. This is a very important topic as, with a 1-16 twist .22lr is just on the limit of stability and as it progresses down range it can often transition from a Mahomes pass to a Tebow one mid flight. My Vudoo for instance will transition around about 175yds depending on conditions with it’s best lot of Center-X. After that point it starts dropping quite quickly and well off the ballistic model that served well before then. With a little faster ammo though it makes 375yds no problem. There are basically three potential solutions for this. Higher velocity helps as it spins the bullet faster but it is a limited solution as you need to avoid transonic instability so there is only so fast you can go. A faster twist rate has proven quite successful in tests but, of course, doesn’t help you much if you have a 1-16 twist and don't really want a new barrel or rifle. I had some hope for changing bullet shape but it turns out this is quite limited. .22lr bullets are quite soft lead and are designed to conform to the barrel and seal effectively. This is part and parcel of how they work. The base starts out smaller than the barrel as .22lr is a healed round and then expands under pressure to fill the barrel. You can’t do something like a boat tail. Even the front of the round deforms to some extent traveling down the barrel. All of this is basic to the way .22lr works and I’m not sure trying to change any of that would be a great idea as you would loose some of what makes .22lr great. Wax coated 40gr subsonic soft lead .22lr is the recipe for high accuracy, long life, low cost, and infrequent cleaning. So, you make it a little faster and perhaps buy a faster twist barrel. That is how you make it fly further while stable.
Bryan Litz and Emil Praslick on bullet design and wind reading at Shot 2023
I should also mention that Bryan and Emil gave a little talk at the Lapua booth on bullet design and wind reading during the show. A number of us recorded this and Erik Cortina’s is so the best of those recordings so that is the one I have linked to.
Norma
The big news at Norma is that they were sold by RUAG to the Beretta group this year. This sale includes everything small-caliber ammunition that RUAG owned including the labels Ammotec, Norma, Geco, Rottweil, and RWS. The sale is also not just of the brands but also of the manufacturing facilities themselves. This encompasses some five locations with around 2,700 employees. Beretta seems quite pleased with the deal as I noticed they promoted the Norma brand above all their other brands in their ShotShow marketing materials this year. The motivation for the sale on RUAG’s part seems to have been their well-documented discomfort with their success in the civilian ammunition market. RUAG is now an aerospace company that doesn’t make small arms ammunition at all. So, whatever that was all, it’s solved now. From our standpoint, we can expect more ammo in the market. I think it will be a good marriage.
New Norma Xtreme LR-22
On the product side, probably the most interesting new offering from Norma will be the Xtreme LR-22. This is a new .22lr offering intended .22lr ELR that is unusual in a couple different ways. First off, it has a tail. This is a bit like a boat tail concept but not entirely as it still has the skirt around it necessary to provide the expanding gas seal .22lr involves. It is also a 43gr projectile instead of a 40gr. This will be interesting as more weight takes more spin to stabilize. Perhaps partially to address this, it is fast. Their literature states 1,312 fps. You will note is above the sound barrier. Lastly, Norma claims to be using a special powder in this round that will give it superior velocity and consistency of that velocity. This is a lot of departures from the typical formula for .22lr. It could be class leading or, like the Aguila 60gr SS round, a dumpster fire. Norma claims it will be the .22lr ammo for beyond 500yds and I’ll be interested to try it out. While I’m at it, I will probably also try out the Tac-22 and Match-22 rounds. For those interested, as is the usual pattern for .22lr ammo makers, Match-22 is lot selected Tac-22.
Before I leave Norma I’ll mention one last new and very unusual product, the NSD Non-eXpanding defensive ammo. This round fires a very light solid cast polymer / copper projectile with some unusual flutes in the nose at rather high velocities with the idea to use hydrostatic shock instead of an expanding projectile to do damage. The 9mm version of this is just 65gr and fires at a remarkable 1,730 fps.
Eley
There is going to be an Eley long-range .22lr ammo coming out. It’s not done yet, so I don’t have details, but it is coming. Eley sees the market and they are going to throw in. Hmm, next year might make a good year for the great .22lr Long range ammo shootout that I planned back in 2015 but then failed to follow though on.
Eley also has a camera based scoring device called the X-Shot they will be coming out with soon that will tremendously improve scoring for the traditional paper shooting disciplines and should even allow for matches to be easily managed with shooters in different locations around the world. Gone will be the days of super expensive electronic scoring systems or tedious plugging of holes. The price on this is much lower than you think. It’s going to be a huge win for shooting leagues.
SchleTek
SchleTek is a German maker of gun cleaning compounds. Previously, they were not available in the U.S. but they are going to be imported by B&T (the gunmaker not the bipod maker) in the near future though I don’t yet see an active U.S. web storefront. SchleTek caught my eye with their silencer cleaning solution. They claim it can get the job done even on silencers that do not disassemble. You plug the suppressor, fill it with the solution for 20min, shake it up, empty back into the bottle, fill the suppressor with water, empty and then repeat 6 times. One bottle of the cleaner supposed to be good for roughly 15,000 rounds worth of cleaning whether you clean frequently with lower round counts or let things get filthy with high round counts between cleanings.
SchleTek gun maintenance kit
SchleTek had a full catalog of gun cleaning stuff to add to the silencer cleaner. These include a grease for muzzle devices and choke tubes, a gun cleaner, a carbon cleaner, thread lock, a grease specially formulated for plastic guns, an optic mount sealant, a PTFE based lubricant, and some other stuff. Some of these answer questions I never asked but others look interesting.
Mack bros and Gunwerks switch barrel rifles:
Both Mack bros and Gunwerks came out with lightweight switch barrel hunting rifles this year and I can’t help put them side by side because there are a lot of similarities. Lugs in extension, non AICS custom mags, euro-style 2x3 lug detachable bolt head. There are some differences as well. The Mack bros uses 700 triggers, Manners stocks made for them, and can be had with a unique quick detach pic rail whereas the Gunwerks has a custom trigger from TriggerTech, their own leather appointed stock and integral rail. Planned price on the Mack bros rifle is $6,600 and the Gunwerks Nexus will run $5,475. This is Gunwerks first rifle to have the action manufactured in house BTW.
Mack Bros new switch barrel rifle
Gunwerks Nexus switch barrel rifle
Anschutz
As many of you have seen in the
thread on AI chassis for Anschutz, Anschutz is greatly expanding it’s line of 54.18 rifles in the U.S. These have a different footprint than the (also 54 action) 1710’s that have been the only 54’s repeaters in the U.S. for a while. They also take different triggers though, I believe, the same magazines. The triggers are the big motivation here. The 54.18’s have a lot better triggers than the 1710’s (more on that in a sec). Interestingly, the 54.18’s also share a footprint with the Fortner straight pull action.
Anschutz 54.18 in AI AT-X chassis
So, Anschutz is going to offer is both 54.18’s and Fortner actions in an AI AT-X chassis with and without threaded muzzles and with what rimfire guys would call a heavy barrel but precision rifle guys might call mid-weight. All the barrels are 1-16.5 twist Anschutz factory barrels. Importantly, this Fortner action will have something you can mount a rail to at the top. These rifles will not be cheap and I think price will be their biggest challenge as they start around $1k higher than equivalently appointed Vudoo or Rim-X rifles and you can get those rifles starting even lower with lower cost chassis or going the barreled action rout with Vudoo or build your own with Rim-X. The Anschutz 54.18 in AI chassis will have an MSRP of $4,295 and you know they will charge more for the Fortner you and I have always drooled over.
Now back to the 1710’s. There is a better trigger for these now called the 5119. These will be available for special order. They are two stage and much lighter than the current 1710 trigger. For a little while now you have been able to get 1710’s in an MDT ACC chassis from Anschutz. You can also just buy that ACC chassis for your 1710 but you will need to do it though Anschutz and not directly from MDT (it costs $200 more than ACC’s usually cost). It may be time to upgrade my anniversary edition 1710. Or it may be time to transmogriphy it though the magic of economics into a Fortner.
Before I leave the subject, I should note that German law restricts manufacturers to only selling fully tested rifles. This means you can’t just sell an action. You can only sell an action already attached to a barrel. Technically, you could do a barreled action though I don’t think there are any plans in this direction. You cannot sell an action though.
TriggerTech
The news for TriggerTech this year is that they are coming out with a Tika and Howa triggers. These new offerings will be single stage triggers. I have that they will be in the Diamond and Special weight ranges. TriggerTech also has a new drop in AR15 duty trigger at just $129 and a fixed 3.5lb weight. These strike me as very rational next step expansions to their existing line.
TriggerTech Tikka prototype trigger
Vudoo and Ted’s new Coup De Grace
Vudoo had several new things going at the show this year. Most obviously, they are doing 1911’s now. Personally, I find this a strange direction to go as the custom 1911 market does not appear to me to be lacking in saturation. That being said, the aerospace machine shop they are working with here, and on the Vudoo actions, certainly has the capability. These 1911’s are super tight. They actually manufacture the frames from the inside in halves and electron beam weld them together. They have also gone to the remarkable lengths of machining things like the entire trigger including the part extends around the magazine from single pieces of metal. These are very tight 1911’s. They had a custom made QC testing jig on display showing how little variation there is in alignment at lockup. I also played around a bit with the guns on hand. Yea, they are tight. They are marketing these under the Vudoo name as well as under the name Phoenix Kustomworx. Both have the same level of mechanical function but the Phoenix versions will have fancier finishes and start at $3,500 instead of $3,000.
Vudoo and Phoenix Kustomworx 1911 pistols
Next up, the new .22lr aluminum magazines are soon to be arriving. As you can see from the pic, they have been lightened a bit, are just slightly smaller so they should fit in those chassis they previously didn’t, have slightly more angle to the column of rounds, and they have an adjustable magazine catch.
New .22lr billet vudoo mags with adjustable catch. There will be a 15rd
Lastly, Vudoo is doing a bolt action centerfire rifle in conjunction with Ted and his new
Coup De Grace action. Since Ted did not have a booth this year, this was where most folks were getting a look at the action. Some things about it are very much in line with trends I have seen in the industry a whole. It features a bolt that is wider than the lugs and rides on a groove for the bolt stop instead of needing an EDM machined raceway. This is a huge manufacturing cost savings I see in almost all new action designs and I don’t really see a downside. The CDG also has a detachable bolt head and the bolt fully field disassembles without tools. Design is certainly going this direction in general and Ted’s CDG seems particularly well done in this regard. No crappy roll pins here. Very clean design.
Like Ted’s other actions, the CDG is control round feed though this time it uses an extractor closer to a Sako than a Mauser. It is not a Sako though as it is in line with a lug instead of between them and has some different elements. It is a new design, just more similar to the Sako type than other types. Ejection continues to be mechanical as with previous Ted designs. Ted has included his lever extraction assist as with the Archimedes in the CDG though you can install a different bolt handle to go without and be limited to the normal cam type extraction. I have a theory on Ted and his pre-occupation with extraction. I think it is possible that the lack of support for the side of the case head in both Mauser type control round feed bolts and cone breaches, coupled with perhaps the Barloc not putting enough strain on barrel and action threads may have lead to Ted having more history with stuck cases than most shooters. Extraction of stuck cases seems to have become a design priority in his actions when it is something I think a lot of shooters have never had an issue with and don’t think much about. Maybe, I have just been lucky or maybe the fact I am less than diligent removing one shot lube from the outside of my cases has spared me any stuck cases. I could be way off base in my lack of faith in the strength of the brass case head but many of us push a little beyond SAAMI pressures and brass demonstrably flows, springs, and deforms to the point you need to trim and can get loose primer pockets. In any case, the CDG has the super extractor. One odd thing I noticed on the bolt is that it has a 90degree cocking piece even though it interfaces with 700 triggers which use an angled topsear. I’m not sure what the thinking on this is but it seems strange.
American Rifle company Coup De Grace bolt.
Probably the most interesting thing I noted on the CDG is the trigger hanger. I love trigger hangers and despise the standard Remington pin system. Ted took it one step further with his system essentially making the hanger system user hand adjustable for fit between the trigger and action. It’s a very clever system and should also net a bit more firing pin fall that should alleviate past difficulties some ARC actions had with some triggers. Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the CDG conceptually.
