Announcing (with pictures) the Sharps 25-45

This is scheduled for full release at the Shot Show, but we wanted to give the folks on AR15.com a sneak peak.

We'll save load data and all that good stuff for after a show, but these are the first pieces of brass produced under the joint partnership between Federal Cartridge and The Sharps Rifle Company.

Basic specs:
-Fits Standard AR Bolt
-Fits in Standard 556 magazine (cants slightly due to wider neck, but feeds)
-Shoots flatter than the 556/223
-Heavier loads duplicate 30/30 150-170gr class energy levels

Sharps 25-45

Enjoy,

Mike

SWEET

Load data and loaded cartridge photos will be available post Shot. Federal is working on some bullets in their lines and we are working some up in our equipment as well.

Stay tuned.....

Mike

It is tricky little issue to work with putting a new round in a pre-existing magazine and it doesn't ride out in all mags, just depends on how large the neck bolster is in the magazine or in the case of several companies the trick was getting around the center divider rib that they put in the front inside of the magazine. Troy Industries magazine is a perfect sample. Brought some prototypes over to see if we cleared it and we did, just barely, but we did and it made us very aware that we have bullet ogive limitations we have to abide by. However if they've got that rib that runs along the neck of the cartridge right out to the maximum so it actually touches the 223/5.56 neck. There is no way to avoid some tilt from contact with the neck expanded to take the .257 bullet with a standard length case.

Fortunately, as SAAMI members this will be a standardized release so it should ease adoption and distribution, plus having a partnership on it with Federal is obviously a huge plus. That more rounded weatherby style shoulder is nice, but a real frustration to mass produce. Key for us was to make sure Federal could run it straight through their current 556 production equipment with only a few die station changes. Folks like yourselves and others all the way back to Blackwell and Wooters in the 60's have been tinkering with a case of about this size with bullet in the 25 Cal arena. After playing with it for a while here, we decided to go ahead and push it through the system so everyone could get to play. Like all production items, it has a few compromises, but much of what look like compromises are retained and designed benefits for manufacturing, functioning in the rifles long term, and total ballistic performance. One example is the only way to completely circumvent the neck bolster issue entirely is to pull the case neck back pass the bolster so that the bullet contacts it directly, which since it is 0.257 and the neck on the 556 is 0.253 makes a perfect fit, however that singificantly shortens the case, levels a lot of bullet exposed and riding on the bullet leads to misallignment if its carried and banged around at all or even some variance could be seen by the bottom of the magazine if from the bench. So we played with the shoulder, neck positioning, etc., but just couldn't find a more consistent and reliable lay out that fit the widest array of currently available equipment in use by the shooters in the market place and delivered better performance.

We did tinker with the name too, 25-223 was on the list, but as that's been around for a bit and there are wildcat chambers marked that we rejected it. We finally went with the 25-45 Sharps as it was a tribute to the 5.56x45mm, plus our own name sake tradition of 40-70, 45-110 style naming convention, also its partner in process for release is the 50-70 Sharps Auto, so it made a good match for us. By no means was it an easy call, but it was the one that seemed to avoid the most confusion and in the end was the most Sharps.

RCBS is online as part of our agreement with Federal/ATK. Should be online following Shot.

Last I checked the 6.5 Grendel still hasn't been standardized as of yet, but our picture is to use what control we have to influence and enhance supply. Examples, make sure that they actually put 25-45 Sharps on the barrel if they are making it not just 25-45 S. Make sure only quality makers are churning out components, etc. We are already talking, and have been talking, major players that I'm restricted by NDA to discuss, but who make thousands of rifles a month. So we going to do everything we can to get this round out there, and to the market, with as low of a cost as possible. Our belief is we'll do the best by making this as widely available at as practical of a price as possible. Case in point, Jamison and the WSM. I don't know what the fee was/is, but it was something like $5 a box. That's 0.25 cents a round. As a manufacturer I can say that is a huge price add and a price add like that at the initial manufacturing stage gets applied as it gets multiplied by the wholesaler's mark up, dealer's mark-up etc. We won't handicap this round like that.

Very good and smart comments here.....one thing to remember is the 30/30 is also standardized on a 24" test barrel, so a lot of the 30/30's published numbers are ballistic lab only occurrences. We are going to work through it, and I know Federal is working through it on their side too, and I'll promise you we will not only publish "lab" ballistics, but also do some heads up testing out of actual firearms, so you'll get to see what the field ballistics will be. Trust me, when I was on the other side of the table it always drove me nuts when the only thing you could find from a company were 24" test barrel numbers and the longest barrel you could find in a caliber were between 16 and 20 inches, so I'll make sure we don't do that to you.