Remington claims up to 200 fps more speed with their new Hypersonic ammo. What do you know about this product and do you have any experience or opinions in regard to it?

Jeff

I've shot some and it is faster than standard ammo. Exactly how much depends, of course, on what other load it's compared to.

Well, extending the conversion, it the Hypersonic ammo is safe to shoot in all appropriate firearms and meets SAAMI specs, why not load all factory ammo to Hypersonic specs and make everybody who feels the need, the need for speed, happy?

For example, if "they" bumped the speed of the 150 grain 30-30 by 200 fps it would become a de facto 300 Savage, a 280 would become a 7mm Rem Mag, a 30-06 would become a 300 Win Mag, a 35 Rem would become a 358 Win, etc.

Jeff

Other companies have been doing basically that for years, including Federal and Hornady. The ammo has a different name such as Superformance, but it's based on the same principle, usually a very dense, slower burning powder that results in the same peak pressure but higher velocity.

I have seen some problems with this approach. First, people who want a .300 magnum usually buy a .300 magnum, but some .30-06 ammo has resulted in .300 magnum performance, and many people don't like the increased recoil. Second, the ammo I've tested has generally been more temperature-sensitive that much standard ammo, so I'm guessing the powders aren't very temp-resistant.

Third, I've also seen such ammo result in obviously high pressures in SOME rifles. One example was the Federal High Energy loads they produced in the late 1990's. I had an FN Mauser back then that got over 3000 fps with the 180-grain .30-06 load that supposedly produced 2880 fps, and blew primers. The same thing happened with a friend's custom .30-06. We sent the ammo to Federal and they reported "normal" pressures in their test barrel. But they also discontinued the loads a couple years later.

Such ammo also often doesn't get much more velocity than can be had from safe handloads, especially in some rounds which are already somewhat underloaded, like the .30-06. I also shot that same Federal load in a Ruger 77 .30-06 and it got about 2800 fps, which can be safely achieved with several powders. Some Hornady "Light Magnum" 7x57 ammo got around 2900 with the 139-grain Spire Point boattail, from a 24-inch barrel.

The Remington Hyper-Velocity .300 Winchester Magnum load with the 180-grain Core-Lokt Ultra I recently shot in a 24" barreled Mauser Model 12 got 3052 fps. This is almost 100 fps more than the standard SAAMI 180-grain velocity of 2960 fps, hardly earth-shaking, and a velocity that, once again, can be achieved or even considerably bettered in handloads with several powders.

But such ammo obviously does appeal to some shooters.