CANCON 2024 Interview with Badlands Munitions Co – Shell Shock 5.56 85gr

Overview:

Rob talks with Badlands Munition Co. about their new Shell Shock 5.56 round which features an 85gr Sierra Match King projectile. This ammo seems interesting, we'll put it to the test soon at the range!

Skip To Video Topic:

00:00 - Intro
00:31 - 85gr Details
01:04 - Casing
02:08 - Sierra Match King
04:36 - Quality Control

Transcript:

Hey, everybody. Rob Orgel. We're at CanCon 2024. And we're here with Luis, who has a product that I think is pretty interesting. We've all heard of subsonics. We all know why subsonics are good in our weapons, especially when you have a suppressor. Why is your ammo bringing new ingenuity to the game? Because I got a sneak peek, and I think I know. All right, so this is actually not subsonic. This is the opposite. OK. 85 grain that's going 2,750 feet per second. So I don't know if that changes anything. Uh-oh, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, we do test everything suppress. We have suppressors on every single one of our guns.

You know, sound reduction is a factor. What we're looking for is just sound suppression, flash suppression.

So yeah, this ammo is going pretty fast. It works out of AR-15 mags. We're using match burner barns projectiles.

And what makes this interesting when I saw the casing is that this is like a UTM piston-style casing. Yeah, so it looks similar, but it's not. So the cool thing about shell shock is it holds a lot more pressure just because it's made out of 3.0H statements, right? So it's going to be stronger than brass, but that's kind of irrelevant because an AR-15 only holds about 55,000 PSI, right? So we're able to keep pressures low with this round because it's got more case falling. So people are saying, hey, that's going to be over pressured. Well, no, it's not. We're getting our results back from the lab. Looking very promising. We're doing a bunch of testing in different areas of the country just to make sure that it's going to work everywhere, right? In Arizona, typically gaining speed as opposed to if you're shooting it like in New Hampshire, right? It's going to be a couple hundred feet per second for the lower elevation, temperature, all that stuff. It's a factor. Well, as soon as I saw the box, it says 85 grain and a 55-- I mean, usually we cap it like 77 because of the space we have to put that projectile inside that powder loam. Correct. So this projectile, it's officially made by barns, but the people who actually produce it is Sierra. They acquired a barn not that long ago. This is essentially an 85-grain SMK. Oh, OK. Sierra, everybody loves Sierra. Yes, exactly. So the profile of the bullet is why the way Sierra Matchking performs. But yeah, we're getting really good results. A BC on a 77 grain is like 3, 8 something. The BC on this is 4-- or 0.41, right? So max effective range is going to be a lot further out. We make 1,000 yard shot with this ammo consistently. I mean, we're getting nine impacts at a 10 at 960 yards. So fortunately, I have access to that 1,000 yard range. And I do long range precision. I'm here five days a week. And if you're like me, when a new guy comes in town, especially an ammo, you go, hold on. I already got my loads. I already got my test. I don't need to switch. But we're going to test this. We're going to put it to the burner and see how it performs. And then we'll have quantifiable information for you to decide if this is the ammo you want in your precision rifle. We can get some of these for testing, yeah? Yeah, well, we'd be happy to give you about 100 rounds so you can get the data with it.

It's not for sale yet. We're offering it here as a sneak peek. It'll be on our website soon.

But yeah, we're still working. We just want to make sure it's going to work everywhere. We know it works in Arizona. We know it performs. We've shot a lot of rounds. There's no added wear and tear. This is like shooting a 77 grain SMK out of brass, essentially, as far as pressures and performance. Quality control is kind of important in ammunition that kind of explodes. Yes, yes. So the cool thing about us is we're interested in quality, not quantity, although we do have the capacity to produce 600,000 rounds a month. Wow. Yeah, we're using industrial machines. Our QC process is a little bit better than most people because every single round is inspected individually, right? Industry standard for inspection is 10%. They're using machinery and stuff like that. We're inspecting every single thing by hand. Everything is case-gaged. We're looking at primers. We're checking primer depths. We're checking deck tension. It is as good as you can get. It's damn near a hand load, but it's in good power. It sounds very promising. If people want to get their hands on this, how do they find you? So you can find it on our website. It's not there yet just because a lot of our customers are from other states. And like I said, we're waiting for results from different areas to get back just to make sure everything's good.

But BadlandsMunitionsCo.com is our website. The best way to keep up with us is via Instagram, which is BadlandsMco. Give us a follow.

We do a lot of back behind the scenes stuff there. You can see our process. This stuff is made by Americans in America, using American components.

Love it. Looking forward to it. We'll get some rounds. We'll do some testing. And we'll see how it measures up, but it's got some serious promise. Luis, great chat with you. Looking forward to much more. Yeah, let me send you home with a couple of these boxes. Sounds perfect. Thank you.