Full Transcript for Federal Answers All Questions Surrounding 6.5 Plus Peak

so, you know, we we assume that there'll be some there would be some level of that still even with the plus peak side of it. ⁓ but I think for the most part people really got, you know, what we're trying to do and and what that cartridge can be now. So what is the point of plus peak? I have my own ⁓ my own thought on this, but to somebody that says, look, I bought a six five Creedmore because I wanted it to be a mild, inherently accurate cartridge, I didn't want a six five PRC. So why make this load? Like if I wanted a six five PRC kind of velocity, I would have got a six five PRC. Great question. And You know, ⁓ when we first came out with it and launched it, a lot of people were commenting that like, ⁓ this is gonna kill the six five PRC. And to be honest, you know, that that's not really our intention. What what the Peak Alloy case allows you to do is to basically pull more performance out of your current system. So you probably have a six five creep more in your gun safe right now. If you're running brass case, even if you're hand loading, if you're running safe hand loads. You know, there's a finite amount of velocity in those performance you can get with with that brass case. If you wanted to step that up, your only option was to go to something like a six five PRC, or if it was, you know, in any in any diameter bullet, if you wanted more performance, your option was to stick a bunch more gunpowder behind it, and that's going to give you more recoil. ⁓ it's gonna burn out barrels a little bit faster. There's a lot of ⁓ of can be downside as well to adding that extra powder. When you go to the plus peak cartridge, you're kind of changing the game a little bit. You're operating a little more efficient system. So you're still going to be in the same ballpark of powder weights as you are as a ⁓ brass case six five Creedmore, but you're now making your system a little more efficient by running that. Powder up to 80,000 psi. So when it comes to ⁓ recoil, when it comes to barrel life, when it comes to you know those types of things, it's it's not just the velocity of the bullet, it's also the amount of powder you use to make that happen. By making your creed mower now a little more efficient, it's still going to recoil in family with what a 6.5 Creedmoor does today, but you're going to be getting that 6.5. PRC plus type performance. Yeah. So the the if you so let's say you get a 6.5 PRC or and compare that to your 6.5 Creedmore, but you're using this plus peak ammo, you're going to get similar velocities, actually a little bit more in general from the plus peak, right? It seems like in most most of the loadings that I was looking at in numbers, it's maybe just a little bit faster than most 6.5 PRCs of the same bullet weight. Yeah, if you have the same bullet. In the same barrel, six five Creedmore plus peak is getting you 50 to 100 feet per second more performance than you can get with a 6'5 PRC in a same platform. ⁓ but we're able to do that with

less powder, which is where some of the magic is. Yeah, and I it is kind of magic because I think most people don't realize, you know, they think, well, the velocity of the bullet times the weight of the bullet, that's how we're gonna figure out the recoil. And there's something missing from that equation. And so it you could you could see why somebody would say, well, that's that's bull. There's no way this is gonna have less recoil than the six five PRC if it's shooting the same bullet at the at the same speed. And the missing part of the equation is you also have to take into account the weight of the powder, which is significant. You know, if you have a hundred and forty grain projectile, you might have whatever, forty-one grains of powder in in your six five Creedmore. ⁓ whereas the six five PRC, you know, you might have whatever, another whatever, seven, eight, eight, ten grains of powder in there. I'd have to look at the numbers. Yeah. Yep. ⁓ but when you put that part into the equation, it may total out to about ten percent less recoil than what you would have accomplished by going with the with the p with the PRC. Is that making sense how I'm explaining it? Maybe I'm not doing the best job explaining that. Yeah. I mean that that's that's really what it is. So You know, there is some physics, right? The bullet is going a little bit faster in the same distance. So you're you're gonna have a little bit more recoil from the extra veloc or the extra acceleration on that bullet. But the total charge mass, the total ejecta that you have is gonna be on par less than what you'd see, in in a a six five PRC system, ⁓ closer to what you get in a six five Creedmoor, which is where that recoil calculation really comes from. And one of the tests we love to do is, you know, just take ⁓ any six five rifle you have, any six five creedmore rifle you have, and now you can just shoot back to back brass and peak, brass is at standard brass pressure and peak at elevated pressure in the same gun and and you can feel it yourself. And on a traditional hunting rifle, ⁓ in a you know normal setup, and most people without a Garmin or some other chronograph Telling them was a velocity, it it's kind of hard to tell the difference between them until you actually get on the gun and shoot it and and see that yourself. Yeah, it it's it's pretty awesome. So we got to shoot the plus peak last week and it was fun. I I could I could feel the slight difference in in the recoil of the six of the six five plus peak compared to a PRC. I could feel the the tiny reduction and the velocities we were getting were awesome. Yeah, it was unreal. I think we were ⁓ let's see, was it twenty two inch barrel and we were shooting the one thirty at thirty seventy five something. Yeah, think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Phenomenal. ⁓ that's that's gonna be an absolute laser beam. ⁓ so I I'm excited about the versatility and the promise that it has. I we want to address some of the questions

that that the public has about these. ⁓ and you know things that just I don't know haven't haven't been totally clear, at least to me. So The the first one that I that I wonder about is, okay, we take all these actions and you know, they're rated to to whatever, sixty-two thousand psi, sixty five, whatever the the cartridge is. And, you know, each of the manufacturers is is proofing it with a, you know, a proofload that, you know, maybe 80,000 PSI, but that's their proofload, right? ⁓ you know, that's that's they're testing it up to that. And now that's gonna be the standard. So how do we know it's gonna be safe in every action? Yeah, that's that's really the the meat and potatoes behind the peak alloy cartridge. So if you go back about eight years, ⁓ you get to really the origin of peak. And it started with the ⁓ the US Army doing an open solicitation to the industry for the next generation of ammo. And they didn't specifically ask for a, you know, hardened steel case at elevated pressures, but what they asked for was a performance window that you just weren't gonna be able to hit with standard brass. And one of the reasons is with brass, regardless of you know the head stamp, ⁓ if you run over those sixty-five thousand PSI limits that we've set in place, brass is in some regard brass and it's all going to yield and that extra energy is going back into that action, which is what's going to give you premature wear, faster than what that ⁓ that action was designed for. So we knew that. Bolt thrust specifically was one of the the first failure points on a a modern action ⁓ it it that you would pump that pressure up on. So we knew bolt thrust was one of the primary design considerations we had to keep in mind when we were selecting a material and what this package would look like. ⁓ so we built a bolt thrust fixture where we can actually measure how much bolt thrust, which is the amount of force coming straight back into the face of that bolt. ⁓ the lugs are what's keeping that bolt from moving backwards. ⁓ how much force is actually going back ⁓ into the action? And we know what it is with brass. We shot, you know, t every cartridge under the sun you could think of that ⁓ was relevant here. And we compiled a ton of data from, you know, small diameter, you know, little six five creep more up to three thirty-eight Lapua's and bigger and all your mags and everything in between. And we kind of built a ⁓ a performance window that you know brass would expect to live in. And then we started working within that. So we were able to select ⁓ through multiple different materials, we down selected to what the peak alloy is today and the the final conditions it is today that's going to replicate what that brass case at standard brass pressure is doing to that action right now. So that's one point where our peak alloy case when it comes to high pressure ammunition is is unique in that the rifle is not going to see a difference from a bolt thrust standpoint if you're shooting brass at standard pressure or our peak case at elevated pressures. So one one question ⁓ I wanna press a little bit on that because I'm just trying to understand it. When seven backcountry came out, we heard from a couple different manufacturers. that we're beefing up different parts of the action in order to take that higher pressure to make it ready for it. But now and so that makes sense. You know, it's a new cartridge and okay, we got to change our action so it's ready. So then every seven back country has that action that's ready for it. This is a little bit different than now we're taking an action that's already been created in the past before this was a requirement for it, but we're putting the ammo in it into those actions that potentially have not been beefed up in those ways that they thought. ⁓ how would you respond to that? Yeah, so we've worked with, you know, basically every major firearm manufacturer to test both backcountry and six five peak. and i again it gets down to the science of the case itself is what is the hardened steel case is what is holding that extra pressure to the point that the the action itself is going to see you know, similar performance to brass. ⁓ where we talk to a lot of these gun companies and they and they're looking forward, it's not just to seven millimeter backcountry. It's not just to six five Creedmoor plus peak. You know, when we talk to the army and what they have their plans going forward, this is not, these are not unique cartridges. This is not a little blip on the map and this is going to be gone in three years. This is absolutely the direction that the industry is is telling us they want to go. And we are on the forefront of that with the launch of our peak alloy case. And firearm manufacturers absolutely want to be on the forefront of that to go not just here, but well into the future and start planning for that today. Yeah, absolutely. I I definitely think everybody has the feeling that this is you know, the direction we're going. It for somebody that is ⁓ looking for maximum accuracy, ⁓ you know what what we saw with seven backcountry and so our early, early testing with six five plus peak was good accuracy, but we never we never saw the quite the you know the supreme accuracy that we might like to see. And and it could just be that we haven't tested enough. w do we need to make changes to the rifle platform itself, ⁓ or barrel thickness or other things in order to pull out more of that accuracy from it. You know, that's a great question. ⁓ when it comes to the accuracy of our commercial products, the the bullets that we launch, and you know, we're we're keeping them in our premium categories and then our fusion tip ⁓ categories. ⁓ the one thing I would start to say is we did not change the accuracy standard of what you would expect on those bullets. So the accuracy, you know, factory loaded ammo, what you would expect with the Terminal Ascent, what you would expect with

the Barnes LRX. ⁓ we didn't have to change that accuracy spec internally here to load this ammo in seven backcountry or six five plus peak than you would in brass case. so we are able to maintain still that accuracy. And I think ⁓ a part of it is, you know, we are building hunting ammo. And ⁓ could you hand load this to better tolerances, to better specs? Could you build a load specifically to your firearm? Absolutely. And I think that's where you can really harness some some supreme accuracy. ⁓ but what we're trying to do is build factory loaded hunting ammo, which is going to work in you know, any firearm you pull off the shelf and you're going to have more than adequate ⁓ group sizes. And I think that's that's what we're seeing today. That's awesome. What what ⁓ what what are some rifles you've shot in that you see have seen the best results in? Anything specific or unique there? man, we've I mean we've we've shot a bunch of tried everything. Yeah. I mean we ⁓ first and foremost, before we get too far down, like you know, when you when you're talking about, you know, gun manufacturers, we've had all the gun companies that we've worked with have been absolutely fantastic. And you know, we have a running list on our website if you go to like the six five Creamore Plus Peak homepage. of all like the, you know, gun manufacturers and industry partners that are endorsing this technology. I know it gets asked quite often, you know, is it safe in X firearm or this one? ⁓ but the the easy answer for us is go check our homepage to see the kind of the running list of gun manufacturers out there to ⁓ to see who's endorsing this technology right now. ⁓ but I'd have to say to go back to your accuracy thing, I mean, Seekins proof, you know, Bergara, ⁓ Weatherby, I mean Dre there's just been a pile of guns that we've got in. Runs the gamut. Yeah, that we've seen sh have shot, you know, pretty exceptionally. That's awesome. I'm glad to see that. I'm really excited about plus peak. I l I love the versatility. I love the reduction in recoil with with getting the extra performance. I I'm excited about it. I think it's really cool. The ⁓ if you were building a rifle specifically for six five plus peak, what might be some things that you would specifically want to look for. For you know, an example. ⁓ you know, how how heavier of a rifle would you put it in? You know, generally I like a six five PRC, you know, just the bigger cartridges to have a little bit more meat, or what barrel length do you like? What are some things that you've found to be just especially well matched to a six five plus peak? That ⁓ you know, that that's a it's a good segue ⁓ into kind of maybe what the intentions of like seven millimeter backcountry and even s what six five cream or plus peak have to offer, right? Like the current market trend, if you're looking across the board, at least in the hunting spaces, lighter chassis rifles, shorter barrels, suppressed. And so anytime you go to a

shorter barrel, what are you giving up? You're giving up velocity and and energy, right? And so that's where it kind of plus peak really shines is that you're able to get some of that back in a more shorter compact hunting rig for your backcountry hunts, right? ⁓ so out the gate for me, you know, it's gonna be you know, I'm big on chassis rifles right now, so I'd say some kind of chassis at a moderate weight. Like I'm not a super ultra lightweight necessarily ⁓ guy. But certainly I'd be looking at a eighteen or twenty inch barrel. Like that's kind of the sweet spot that I'd be looking if I'm gonna be building one. That's so cool. I can't remember Maybe it was Area four nineteen that I saw in their videos with the plus peak. They were shooting an eighteen inch barrel. I can't remember what the velocity was, but it was awesome. Yeah. D do you do you recall what kind of velocity you might see out of an eighteen inch barrel? I I would even say eighteen to twenty is is gonna s I don't wanna get too crazy here, but that's gonna start to sound pretty long. that's so cool. I think where this really shines is in short barrels. It really excels in ⁓ short compact systems, just the efficiency you get with that powder burn and just the lack of velocity loss as you as you cut the barrel down. ⁓ you see less loss in with a with a plus peak case that you do with a traditional brass case. ⁓ so like for we have a handful of 16 inch barrel guns here at work that we test. And ⁓ I'm getting I'm Comfortably with our 130 grain terminal ascent, I'm comfortably getting 2900 feet per second in a 16-inch barrel. Dang, that's so cool. That's amazing. Yeah, that bullet and brass case in a standard ⁓ Creedmore 24-inch test barrel is 2,800 feet per second. So with plus peak, eight inches less barrel, and I'm still a hundred feet per second faster. So that's unreal. 18 is honestly Almost as long as I would go if I was gonna build something. Dang. That's pretty cool. I guess the Sig Cross, that's an 18-inch 6-5 Creed that I have already. I should try that one. I haven't shot that one yet. And you if you look at factory rifles, what's out there for six five Creedmore? I mean, almost nobody makes a twenty-four-inch barrel anymore. Everyone's teen to twenties already. But you do that with brass and you're just giving up a ton of performance. Right. So you can You can already go to your favorite gun store right now, pick up a short barrel 65 Creedmore standard off the shelf product. And you're not not only are you not giving up that performance from a brass case, you're actually exceeding what you could have done in a full length system. And you know, not that's pretty awesome. ⁓ sorry, Jim, but like it also allows us to go to more of the heavy for caliber 264 bullets, right? So Like we'll we'll have the 155 fusion tip, the one fifty six, which you typically aren't seeing in standard brass six five Creed more. Yeah. Yeah, that that's true. ⁓ six five Creed shooting ⁓ burger one fifty six would be pretty cool. Yeah. That'd be pretty slow. But with this, it'd be perfect. And then you're getting insane BCs. Yep. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, so after we've like gone over all this, just briefly to go over because six five PRC has been my favorite cartridge forever. ⁓ But with all of this said, I know you guys said the intent wasn't necessarily to kill the six five PRC, but does it kind of kill the six five PRC? Like what's the point of it? I mean, this is coming from like the biggest six five PRC fan there is, but after all this is said, like if you can accomplish the same thing with a tiny bit less less ⁓ velocity and shorter barrels, I I don't know. I don't see I don't see the reason someone like like For example, one of my questions I had up here was, why should someone choose plus peak over six five PRC? But I think it's more like why should somebody suit choose a six five PRC over a plus peak? Right. Because there's just better to make Yeah, it just seems better. I mean y it's ⁓ I guess the one question I have is what would barrel life look like? Well bear yeah, how would barrel life differ between a six five PRC and a plus peak? That's a good question. Yeah. So so similar to the recoil side, ⁓ you know, the the the amount of powder in the case is a is a major contributing factor that a lot of people don't think about. ⁓ when it comes to barrel life, pressure, chamber pressure isn't really what wears out a barrel. I mean the amount of powder and the ⁓ that's getting burned out in the throat is is a major contributing factor. And you know, to look at that, you can take a six five Kriegmore, you can take a six five PRC, you can take a twenty six Nozzler. You can shoot the same bullet in all three of them getting you know, very different velocities. Well, how are you doing that? In brass case right now, you're doing that by just dumping a bunch more powder behind it. And a twenty six nozzler, I mean, what's barrel life on a twenty six nozzler? It's measured in the hundreds of rounds, right? It's yeah, it's a real short rounds and and you basically got a smooth bore. You take a a six five PRC, it's still pretty good on barrel life, but you're going to get better barrel life in a six five Creed more. That's just ⁓ you know, if you treat ⁓ the same, that's what's gonna happen. Because we are more in line with 6.5 Creedmoor powder weights, we're gonna be you're gonna be in between Creedmore and PRC for barrel life, but you're gonna be more favoring that Creedmore than PRC when it comes to barrel life and when it comes to recoil. So you said, you know, is powder more than pressure. Is that because the actual temperature is more controlled by the the amount of powder? Or why is that? Yeah, so it it's it's flame temperature and again ejecta and you know powder g burning gunpowder is very abrasive. so when you have very, very hot abrasives being forced down a metal barrel, that's that's where you're starting to see that fire

cracking and you're starting to see the the ⁓ the throat of that chamber just start to wear out. So some of it does come down to cartridge design. And, you know, overboard cartridges and shoulder angles and powder column heights and ⁓ there's some of that there, but total powder is is a pretty major factor when it comes to barrel life. ⁓ that well that makes sense. Huh. That's pretty cool. And I you know, the the timing of this plus peak coming out at the same time that proof is, you know, pushing the ⁓ proof exponential twist or whatever they're calling it. ⁓ is You know, people have used gain twist for a long time and and different versions of gain twist, ⁓ you know, a lot of different ways to to do that. But the timing of that right now, ⁓ for barrel manufacturers to go into something like that to give much more barrel life could couldn't have been better with this high pressure ammo coming at the same time. Yeah, it's it it's again, it's gun companies and barrel manufacturers looking at the future and I mean, within the industry it's it's pretty clear this is this is not a fad. This is here to stay. And with I mean with the PXT, you know, Proof has PXT, which we've shot. It's it's it's fantastic. It does everything they say it's gonna do. ⁓ there's other ones out there too. There's some other companies making some ⁓ some gain twist barrels and and you're seeing that performance, but ⁓ it is a part of it. And I mean just to talk to the the proof side and the ⁓ the barrel life side, proof actually did some testing last year with seven millimeter backcountry and they took I mean they did a firing cadence that was ⁓ aggressive for sure. It was abusive to that barrel really. ⁓ and they were able to take a backcountry gun to three thousand rounds before they had a velocity and an accuracy drop off that was outside of their standards. Well they did a similar test with PXT, but they ended up just running out of ammo before the barrel. That's really cool. Like three thousand rounds is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. That's that's really cool. And that's I heard performance in the in the thousands of round marrow life. That's really cool. I think a lot of people aren't gonna shoot that that many rounds in their life. No. And I bet it's one in two hundred customers that actually shoots that much. Yeah. Right. So yeah, and I heard I can't remember what podcast I was listening to. I'd love to give them credit. ⁓ but I heard Seekins saying that they they were like, We can't talk about it because it's not here yet. But then they kept like saying little hints and stuff. It sounds like maybe at SHOT Show they're gonna be coming with ⁓ ⁓ lifetime barrel guarantee and sounds like they're doing some game twist stuff too. So we'll see what exactly the details are of that. But they were there they were teasing something to that to that sound. It's cool. So obviously you guys are gonna you know want to move this to other cartridges and stuff. A question that I've had is

there are some cartridges that I can see natural extensions of Plus Peak going to. For example, one that just seems like a no-brainer to me is a 25 Creed. Because you know, it's a modern cartridge, so we already have the faster twist. You guys already have, you know, your your your manufacturing tooling set up for, you know, a Creedmoor size case. Like that one just seems like a natural extension to me. And when I look at the numbers of what a a twenty five plus peak, you know, that kind of extra velocity in a twenty five could look like. Whoa, that that one could look cool. But there are others that I wonder about, like ⁓ you know, obviously I ⁓ A 308, a 30 aught six would be they'd be big hits, right? Because there are just so many of them out there. But those cartridges have much slower twist rates. Are we gonna see kind of limits to what we can create plus peak versions of because of twist rates? Yeah. I mean, you know, we're we're looking at all things and there's a lot of criteria that go into, you know, the selection process of what cartridges that we wanna you know, utilize the peak alloy technology in. So, I mean, barrel twist rate is first certainly one of those, right? Cause when you're talking about, you know, modern cartridges, modern hunting trends in the marketplace, you know, long range shooting, like there's twist rate is certainly a factor of that in like what bullets are you going to shoot and like what kind of y versatility is it going to give you in a cartridge, right? Like we talked about in six five cream or plus peak. You can shoot your con you know, conventional brass case, 'cause if you got a sweet load, whether it's You know, shooting NRL, PRS, whatever you might be using it for, varmint hunting. Like we're not telling you to drop that and and just go right over to peak because that's kind of part of the joys of it is the versatility of what it peak alloy can do for a cartridge. Right. ⁓ so ⁓ d are there are there any that you could can rule out that just wouldn't work with with plus peak? You I don't know if we'd say there'd be anything that we would outright rule out right away. I think there's gonna be some that have a better use case, ⁓ have a better business case for them that we'll prioritize on top of course. Yeah, ⁓ that's that's awesome. I I a three ⁓ eight plus P could be pretty sweet. I I just wonder I guess if you you're if you're using the you know, unlike the six five Creed where you can use, you know. heavy bullet 'cause it has a fast twist rate. Maybe on some of the cartridges you'd have to just use lighter bullets that wouldn't require as much twist. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And and then, you know, obviously the How long their tenure is in the marketplace too is is something that we definitely factor in in the amount of rifles that are old and versus new. And so, you know, th those are all good factors that we're that we're, you know, looking at. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. I I want to ask you guys just, you know, you guys are obviously avid hunters and shooters and all the rest. So I got a couple of questions just ⁓ you know, coming from people that are doing this every day, kind of what your preferences end up being. If I just tell you you got a hunt coming up. What what cartridge are you picking? You know, like what's your just go to hunting rifle, right? Ob obviously the question's too broad, but if you you got one, like what's your just hey, you gotta hunt, you gotta go run in and grab a rifle. What are you likely going to? ⁓ I I'll start off, ⁓ you know, being the lead engineer launching seven backcountry, am I biased? Hard to say. maybe, maybe not. ⁓ I got a Montana Elkunt coming up here in a couple of weeks. ⁓ I've got a eighteen inch ⁓ proof barrel carbon barrel backcountry gun ⁓ that I'll be bringing on that. I'm gonna be running our hundred and seventy grain terminal ascent. ⁓ I mean, again, we we believe our terminal ascent is, you know, pound for pound the best all range hunting bullet that's gonna be out there. ⁓ It's also cool because I I mean that was that was my bullet that I launched to market. So to be able to take a bullet that you launch and a cartridge that you launched and a rifle that you built is ⁓ just absolutely rewarding to to a whole nother level. But ⁓ we have, you know, it let's let's say six five plus peak is coming up. I mean, if it was something a h a hunt I can use that on. Being able to take a six five Creedmoor and run these heavy free caliber bullets. I mean, yes, I can run a ninety grain varmint bullet. I could run a hundred and twenty grain, you know, FM J, something like that. I can also go run our new hundred and fifty five grain fusion tip that is going to absolutely hang with the mags on ⁓ a a performance window, especially when you start to step it out to range. And what that fusion tip bullet does, ⁓ man, it's it's ⁓ that's a sleeper, I think. I think ⁓ the fusion tip probably could ⁓ if more people shot it, I think it would be talked about quite a bit. Yeah, that's awesome. I you know, I've never actually killed an animal with a terminal ascent or a fusion tipped, and so I that is on my bucket list for this fall that is absolutely going to be happening. ⁓ I just haven't. I I haven't experimented nearly as much with bullets in general ⁓ as I should. ⁓ so I'd I'm I'm very excited to shoot those. Did we shoot it into ballistics gel, Garrett? Yes, we did. ⁓ yeah, yeah. ⁓ it was awesome. Very impressive. The terminal ascent was very. Awesome. Yeah, that's right. I remember we just did that last week. And it the I was surprised how wide the wound channel was on that thing. Me too. It looked better than a six five PRC. Like, yeah. It was very impressive. Very good. I I'd say it was maybe twenty percent wider of a wound channel than what I'm used to shooting. We shoot a lot of ballistics gel. And that was really good performance. What really impressed me was like how long it held that width of a wound channel.

Yes. It was like almost the entire gel block. Yeah, because sometimes you'll see, you know, a bullet penetrated a full block, but the the real width is only, you know, maybe three inches. Yeah. And it it remained wide for eighty percent of that block. Yeah. It was very impressive. Yeah. I mean, w we could have a whole podcast on just bullet selection and bullet construction and terminal performance and and what happens there. But You know, when you when you look at our our premium hunting lines, I mean what you're what you're looking at in the premium category is just absolute repeat performance. I mean, just automatic performance. You know what you're gonna get. When you go to a terminal send bullet, you have the best of both worlds where you have that lead front that's gonna give you just that rapid expansion, massive dump of energy, but you have a solid copper shank and that that lead is bonded to that bullet. So you're gonna maintain your weight and you're not just gonna fragment out. I mean, the it the force to do that is literally mass times acceleration. So if you lose that that mass, if that bullet just comes apart, you lose all the mass, you lose your ability to just drive into those deep, wide wound channels. ⁓ this bullet gives you that deep, wide wound channel that's gonna penetrate. The number of times someone will shoot a big aim animal and they can just see that upset poking into the backside hide. Is it just dumped a hundred percent in exactly that width? I mean, that is that's that's what you get more times than not with a terminal ascent. So if somebody this fall is looking at two boxes of federal ammo and they see a fusion tipped and a a terminal ascent, walk them through how you might just select between those two bullets. Yeah. So our ⁓ I mean I kind of talked about a terminal ascent construction, our fusion tip bullets a little bit different. It's ⁓ it's a plated bullet. Which a lot of guys are familiar with from a maybe a pistol target side, you know, th like a thin plated pistol bullet. This is not quite that. This is a much thicker plated jacket ⁓ that just allows us to ⁓ get really, again, really consistent ⁓ expansion and terminal performance. It's not gonna be quite the same weight retention you see on a true bonded bullet being a plated bullet. But with fusion tip, you're still gonna be in that eighty plus percent weight retention range. but a little softer, ⁓ a little more forgiving, if you will, just just based on the the jacket construction and and the shape of that bullet just makes it a little more forgiving platform to platform. so, you know, ⁓ if if you were if you were looking for just, man, I need a I need a good option. And I I really don't have time to play around with a bunch of bullet options. I mean, a fusion tip is gonna be a really hard one to pass up. If you were saying I have a I'm I'm doing one Yukon moose hunt in my life, this is a true once in a lifetime thing, and I just cannot leave anything to

chance. I mean, it's it's terminal scent, hands down. If you just want the best of the best. ⁓ is the BC of the fusion tip tire being ⁓ cup and core? ⁓ so it's not a tr it's not truly a cup and core, it is plated. So we start with a formed core and then we we actually plate that jacket on molecule by molecule. ⁓ interesting. Okay. So it is quote unquote technically bonded to the lead core. ⁓ okay. I didn't realize that. Not a traditional bond like you would expect with a terminal scent or a nozzle or accubond or something like that. But yeah, it's it's plated, so it is molecularly bonded to that core. ⁓ but ⁓ no, just with with ⁓ Trying to make it as I guess forgiving of a bullet as you can. ⁓ it's not as high of a B C as you'd s as like the one hundred fifty six Burger Elite, for example. Sure. That bullet that G's more about penetration. I mean, this is this is built to be really good at absolutely everything. Gotcha. And what do what I I'm assuming both of you have shot the both of both the terminal ascent and ⁓ ⁓ fusion tipped out of several different guns and a a lot of it. Does one seem to be more accurate than the other? Just in general? ⁓ I wouldn't say one is inherently more accurate than the other. ⁓ I think they're both held to very high accuracy standards here. I mean, the the amount of testing we do in process from our bullet manufacturing process is I mean, literally every step of the way, we are we are shooting a lot of rounds ⁓ from a quality control standpoint. ⁓ so from an accuracy side, they're both gonna be very good. ⁓ but like I said earlier, I think the fusion tip just based on construction is a little more forgiving of a profile. It does absolutely everything very, very good. the TAs, I mean terminal ascent is gonna be again, it's gonna be held to a very high accuracy standard. ⁓ it just gives you a a little bit higher weight retentions in those ⁓ final upsets. Makes sense. If you were hand loading both of those bullets, w I mean obviously it depends on the cartridge and the gun and everything, but is there a a general jump that you'd kind of default to as a starting point? Yeah, with both of ⁓ we kind of hang out around that fifty thou jump. ⁓ depending on the cartridge, depending on the gun, depending on how hard you want to load it, it may be a little a little less, a little more, but ⁓ that's a a fairly safe starting point. Okay, so pretty standard. They don't need like a ton of jump or anything. Nope. Yep. That's that's fairly standard there. Okay, that makes sense. what's the furthest you guys have shot big game animals? ⁓ you wanna take this one or you want me to? y I have not I'm not usually one to go launch longer shots. ⁓ I mean in the two hundreds ⁓ is is really where I've kept it. ⁓ not that there hasn't been opportunity, but just ⁓ that's that's where I've kept all my shots. Okay. I respect that. I respect that a lot more to personally than a guy's like, ⁓ yeah, I I shot a deer at twelve hundred yards. You know, 'cause that's just like that's just so unethical, you know? I mean, even if you see just this absolute monster buck, like, come on, to take that shot is just crazy. I mean you got to so much confidence in yourself and your system and everything. But I have a lot of respect for the people that are like, ⁓ you know, I I stick around 250 to 350, you know. No, that's great. I don't shoot past that. I have a lot of respect for that. Well, the reason I keep asking everybody when we have guests on the podcast is I like hearing the variation in in just experience that that people have. Like I love that. You know, somebody, hey, I hunt I hunt 200 and N, awesome. Yeah. But also I think it's good to hear somebody that says, Hey, you know, ⁓ and sometimes I've shot at 750. And it's like, you know. Hey, that that's crazy far. We all know the the risk that it's being run. But I think also if we never talk about it, it just makes it seem unrealistic because sometimes you're in Idaho and you got a huge buck. It's a cross canyon shot. It could take an hour to get over there and that buck's gone. That's your opportunity. And so I wanna know how often people are needing to to press the shot. So I I don't know. I think it's just fascinating to ask people. Yeah, and I mean I've I've been getting into some NRL matches here ⁓ in the last year or so and boy, you wanna you wanna test your ability, really, you know, go to an NRL match and ⁓ be on the clock and and have to set up in an odd position and you know yeah, it could be a eight hundred yard, you know, kneeling off a tripod shot and sure you you can make first round impacts, but ⁓ and I've I've made those impacts. I've also missed and ⁓ so it's it's not that I can't hit it. at farther distance, but opportunities that I've had, I've just been able to move closer and I'm kinda always taking advantage of that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. ⁓ so i we t we talked about, you know, kind of the the bullets and cartridges. We talked about barrel lengths getting getting a lot shorter as as things are changing. Any other trends you're seeing i in the industry that are interesting to you? You know, I I was a big fan of the ultra light rifle for a minute there, and I th as I think the whole industry was, and I think it's already kinda slinging back the other way. You know, I re Yeah, I've ⁓ who was it? Just came out with a four and a half pound gun. Weatherby has a crazy light one this time. Yeah, weather's that's really cool. Yeah, and and cool. It is a good it's I still kinda want one. But ⁓ you know, guys were trying to build the, you know, five, six pound complete rifle. And now I think it's kind of bounced back a little bit and people are kind of seeing that, you know, hey, maybe a nine, ten, maybe even eleven pound rifle is fine. I can still carry that because I know I can shoot it really, really well. And I'd like to shoot it and I want to shoot it more, and that just makes you better. So I think I've seen the

industry kind of go ultra light to, well, maybe that was too far. Let's bring it back a little bit. Yeah, I agree with that. And I've certainly seen that in my own shooting. I I got a couple rifles that were just insanely light on every single part. And you know, you lay down prone to shoot that thing, and it takes you about five seconds to realize why this was a terrible idea. Because like every heartbeat, you see your reticle just bouncing like a trampoline. You just can't get it to sit steady on bags and you're just like, How in the world am I gonna execute a shot here? But I also feel like it really depends on the hunt. You know, if you're in a tree stand ⁓ somewhere and you you know you're only gonna be shooting twenty yards and you got this light little convenient little sword, that is phenomenal. ⁓ but if you're trying to take that same rifle on a different mission that needs a, you know, six hundred yard cross canyon shot, ooh, it's probably not gonna be my first pick. Yeah, I I think another one too that, you know, comes to my mind is, you know, it seems like, you know I call them quote unquote white calibers for big game. You know, it seems like there's more and more of that ⁓ that you're starting to see out there and you know whether it's on YouTube, social media and things like that. I think that one's pretty interesting. ⁓ and, you know, it's it's part of our job here at Federal is if people are gonna be capitalizing in doing something unique and new, right? For a what a hunting application, it's our job to give them the best tool for that job. So that that that's one I think is pretty interesting as well. Yeah, so tell me more about that. Like, you know, you say your neighbor says, Hey, I got an L cunt. W but I I hate recoil. What what would you say is is the lightest cartridge that is still well suited to a bull elk hunt? Where do you kinda come on that? You guys see so much, you know, information and do so much testing. What what would you say? Yeah, I I mean I guess from from my opinion, like you're probably gonna get a bunch of haters for this because I know guys are doing it smaller than this, but I think like the you standard brass case six five Creedmore is kind of like as a whole on that teetery edge of fully capable for an elk or not, right? And I think that's kind of been the longstanding kind of pseudo debate per se. And so now I think, you know, I think, you know, especially with six five Creedmore plus peak that that's no longer the case. ⁓ so f if for my opinion, I'd say the the six five the Creedmore is kind of the low end, at least for what I would want to take. I mean I really that's just kind of another big industry trend and a big part of it is just projectile technology has been getting really, really good. So it's not just rifle. I mean you see it across the board and ⁓ in pistol now, you know, people only carry nine mils. It wasn't that long ago that you had to carry a forty or a forty five to have any type of

stopping power in ⁓ in the Shot shell world, you the how many guys are duck hunting with 20 gauges now or turkey hunting with four tens. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ that you didn't see twenty years ago because just the projectile technology wasn't good enough. And and you see that with rifles now. I mean, I think that's why the thirty cal than even bigger were so popular is we just didn't have a very good hammer for a long time. So the only option was to just carry a bigger hammer. And now we have Better hammers. You don't have to carry a four-pound wall to to frame a house. You can do that much more efficiently. And and that's what you're seeing. And that's that's why the six fives have been so popular on big game and and why the six five Creed more plus peak is really just kind of a natural fit into that that story arc. Yeah. It's cool to see how those things change. And I would agree with like, you know, going back to the six five Creed on on Elk. You know, my my kids have killed Elk with six five Creed and, you know, absolutely did the job. But I totally agree with you that for me personally, that I, you know, I don't I'm gonna do just fine with a little bit more recoil. It wouldn't be my first pick. I'd probably bring something a little bit more. ⁓ and but at the same time sometimes I felt a little bit because you got to draw a line somewhere, right? And so I sometimes I've said, you know, I feel like six five PRC is is more suitable. And the argument can easily be made. I mean, a six five Creed versus a six five PRC, you know, we're talking about the same bullet in the same weight, usually, just a tiny bit faster. ⁓ and people saying, like, come on, you're gonna you're gonna draw the line that that thin. And I think there's actually a a good good reason for that distinction there. But the six five Creed more is awesome, but rifles keep getting shorter and shorter barrels. And so a lot of people in the six five creed are already in a shorter barrel, so they're losing more velocity there. And it's again that situation, elk hunting is freaking hard. And statistically, the the hunter success rate is pretty low in a lot of places. And so I guarantee you, if you have a cross-canyon shot at that 400-inch bull elk, you're gonna do it. And if you already have a a shorter barrel on a cartridge that's already light, Now we could get ourselves in a little trouble. And so that's where I justify that like I think there actually is a pretty good distinction between the 6.5 Creedmoor and something like a 6.5 plus peak or the 6.5 PRC that does give you that that velocity to kind of prevent that situation that I think could be pretty common. Right. Yeah. So I I I I think it in any way makes sense makes sense in my mind. Yeah. I mean, I guess one of one of the things I always think about, right? And we talk about in the office is like, I kinda like to land somewhere in the middle of extremes, like kinda like that happy medium per se. You know, but it at the end of the day it goes to the shooter and, you know, your recoil management and, you know, how you shoot your own rifle, right? Like there's advantages to going lighter and smaller because I mean, your accuracy is just naturally going to improve just be from, you know, the lack of recoil from your rifle, right? ⁓ and so I know I always like to lean, you know, what kind of in the happy medium for, you know, bullet selection, recoil, velocity, you know, energy for that matter. ⁓ so that's that's kind of what I always like to recommend people, you know. Well, can you shoot adequately where you're not flinching and you can, you know, still group very well, but kind of go to the top end of that weight class. Yeah. So I I saw you guys have released your twenty two Crete more loads. That's pretty exciting. Speaking of of low recoil, that cartridge, man, that thing has really taken fire. I I'm surprised how much that has taken over the industry. Yeah. No doubt. And, you know, we wanted to try to get on that as as soon as we could. And so we've got some pretty good load offerings load offerings out there now for, you know, customers to try. That's pretty cool. I'm I'm excited to try that stuff as it as ⁓ I see that one comes out. So it looks like there's a ⁓ seventy-five grain fusion soft tip and in the American Eagle line ⁓ another seventy-five ⁓ I said another seventy five grain. Yep, TMJ. And then we'll have ⁓ Some match bullets coming as well. ⁓ very cool. That's really cool. ⁓ let's see. Are are there any competitions, you know, I guess NRL Hunter and stuff. Is there anybody that's I I guess I I'm wondering, would a lot of be people be shooting match ammo out of a twenty two creed? I guess just for shooting on the range. Yeah, I mean we see it right, like varmint hunting and and certain hunting applications where guys like like match bullets. ⁓ Yeah, varmint makes sense. Yeah. But you know, a lot of those competition guys, they're all mostly reloading for ⁓ I don't know what percentage you could say. Eighty five percent of those guys probably ⁓ are reloading. But you know, guys that just like to test their backyard shooting precision, you know, is is maybe a way to to put it. ⁓ Yeah, that makes sense. Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah, a lot of good stuff going on events, it sounds like yeah. Six five fluids plus speak is awesome. I I'm very excited to see where this thing goes. I love seeing you guys on the forefront of this and pushing it forward. I think a lot of people are excited about you I I we definitely hear the fatigue of the new cartridge fatigue from from consumers. I don't have it. I love seeing things move forward. It's just another option. You know, Ford comes out with a new truck, it's like, that doesn't hurt your truck. Like, if you don't want it, don't buy it. But there's another option out there, right? And so that's how kind of how I feel when a new cartridge comes out. I'm feel like, you know, if you don't like it, you know, don't get it. But ⁓ it's

cool that there's another option. But we hear a lot of cart of fatigue of another new cartridge coming out. And I think that's a cool thing about plus B, because this isn't a new cartridge. Yeah. This is the one the one you already have that just Now the six five creed in in your gun safe has a lot more versatility, a lot more options, and that you can get some performance out of a short barrel with a little less recoil. That's really, really cool. Yeah. And I think the reason a lot of people don't feel as fatigued with this is because I think one of the reasons they feel fatigued about the other ones is like, ⁓ well, this is just ⁓ you know, this is a money grab. They just want you to buy more guns and all that. It's just like, duh, we're it's like, yeah, it's what a business is. Like, of course. but I think a lot of people aren't vocalizing the fatigue as much because it's like, ⁓ I don't have to go get a new gun. I can just use this in my current gun. And the cool thing about the plus peak is you guys are gonna have five different loads for it. And so the odds of it, you know, somebody finding a load that their gun likes is going to be a lot more than, you know, if somebody has a 308 and, you know, that Nas three load, the ⁓ the Nas three three ⁓ eight load, their high pressure it's one bullet. Is is you know, they got one option. And so it's just it's not as feasible. And so that's honestly my favorite part about it, is just that it is really high chance that you're going to have a plus peak load that your gun likes. Yeah, and that's something I should have mentioned when we talked about accuracy earlier is I love that you guys are launching multiple different bullets that are going to be coming out. Right now you have the terminal ascent and the f and the fusion tipped, ⁓ but I I i i the plan is for six bullets in this six five plus peak. Is that correct? ⁓ yeah, five five we have five bullets. So we have our terminal hundred thirty grain terminal ascent, a hundred and twenty seven grain Barnes LRX for a lead free option, ⁓ hundred and fifty six grain burger elite hunter, and then we have our hundred our new hundred and fifty five grain fusion tip. And then for the gold metal line, we're coming out with ⁓ loading the one fifty three tip match kick. That's awesome. Yeah, see, I l I love seeing that because I mean I've ⁓ I've never seen a rifle that likes literally every load. That that's just not a thing. Yeah. Right. And so w whenever I get a new rifle, I'm always gonna try a few different loads. And so if you have a you know, if you're excited about plus peak, you know, if they're just they're they're matches between your rifle and some bullets that it's gonna like and not. Because you're gonna have multiple options of this, you can reliably say, hey, one of these is gonna probably multiple, but one of these is gonna be a winner for me. And I I think that's awesome. A hundred percent. Yeah, and I mean that's that's really the thing is i you you probably already have a gun. So if you want to try the technology, you can literally just pick up a box. And then if you find you find you like it, yeah, there's there's a couple options you can try till you find something that you really, really like. But ⁓ I mean the barrier to entry for a customer to try a plus peak cartridge now is literally just one box of ammo and the the rifle platform you already have. Yeah, we also found the the feeding of the plus pe the six five plus peak to just be smooth. We didn't have any extraction issues, no feeding issues. It flowed in and out, no issues whatsoever. No heavy bolt lift, nothing. Yeah, I mean that's what that's what we expect from our products, right? I mean that's our goal is we want our customers to experience that every single time. Yeah, very cool. Awesome. Well Well, thank you guys. Yeah, we really appreciate you guys comment. I had fun. I hope you guys did. Answered all our questions. Really appreciate it. ⁓ to all the listeners. Thanks for listening. We will see you on the third, thirteenth, and twenty-third of every month.