It's Day Three at SHOT Show in Las Vegas, and today we are highlighting our big bore calibers set to release in the next few months.
Palmetto State Armory is working to deliver the following calibers on the AR-10 platform:
The .338 Federal is a rifle cartridge based on the .308 Winchester case necked up to .33 caliber. It was created by Federal Cartridge and Sako in 2006 and intended as a big game cartridge with reasonable recoil for lightweight rifles.
The .260 Remington (also known as 6.5-08 A-Square) cartridge was introduced by Remington in 1997. Many wildcat cartridges based on the .308 Winchester case had existed for years before Remington standardized this round. Although loaded to higher pressures, the ballistics of this cartridge are basically similar to the 6.5'55mm when bullet weights do not exceed 140 grains. When loaded with heavier bullets, the 6.5'55mm is capable of greater velocity.[1] Due to its shorter overall length the .260 Remington can be chambered in a shorter length action than the 6.5'55mm.
Because 6.5 mm (.264") bullets have relatively high ballistic coefficients, the .260 Remington has seen success in rifle competition including bench rest, metallic silhouette, and long range. It is capable of duplicating the trajectory of the .300 Winchester Magnum, while generating significantly lower recoil.[2] Also, converting a rifle chambered for the .308 Winchester (or any of its offspring, such as the .243 Winchester, 7mm-08 Remington, .358 Winchester or .338 Federal) to .260 Remington generally requires little more than a simple barrel change.
The .243 Winchester (6'52mm) is a popular sporting rifle cartridge. Initially designed as a target/varmint round, it may be used for animals such as coyotes, blacktail deer, whitetail deer, mule deer, pronghorns, and wild hogs. Rounds of at least 90 grains are better suited for hunting the larger of those while rounds less than 90 grains are more suitable for varmints.[3] The .243 is based on a necked down .308 cartridge case. It is very popular with target shooters, metallic silhouette, and long range shooters, because of its accuracy and low recoil.
The 7mm-08 Remington is a rifle cartridge that is almost a direct copy of a wildcat cartridge developed around 1958 known as the 7mm/308. As these names would suggest, it is the .308 Winchester case necked down to accept 7 mm (.284) bullets with a small increase in case length. Of cartridges based upon the .308, it is the second most popular behind only the .243 Winchester. However, the .308 is more popular than both.[1] In 1980, the Remington Arms company popularized the cartridge by applying its own name and offering it as a chambering for their Model 788 and Model 700 rifles.
We are also happy to say that we are hard at work on researching and designing AR-15 platform rifles in .450 Bushmaster and .458 SOCOM.