Last fall, I was reminded of the long history of American ingenuity and invention in arms making when I flew to Minnesota to shoot Federal’s latest step forward, the 7 mm Backcountry.
This innovative cartridge is another refutation of the thankfully now past-tense Biden administration’s attempts to turn off the creative engines of the R&D departments in American firearms and ammunition companies.
The robust American marketplace has long driven innovation to give a free people better means to defend themselves and to provide better tools for the shooting sports. These inventions have, incidentally, also long benefitted our armed forces and police departments. At the same time, as our armed citizenry uses similar guns, optics and ammo, our system produces better recruits and foments a shared spirit of liberty that cements together our citizens and citizen soldiers.
There is a lot more to say about all of that, but you need to hear about this new cartridge.
Federal wanted to make the attributes of this cartridge obvious, so they had us fire rifles chambered in 7 mm Backcountry from benches and blinds to distant steel targets before and after shooting other magnum cartridges with similar dimensions to the 7 mm Backcountry. They wanted us to see if we could feel any increase in perceived recoil from the extra 200 feet per second or so the 7 mm Backcountry generates—I could not feel the difference.
They also had us carry rifles with standard-length (24-inch) barrels with suppressors attached in the woods and into blinds before carrying rifles with 20-inch barrels chambered in 7 mm Backcountry, also with suppressors attached. They did this to show us what a big deal this new technology is, as the 7 mm Backcountry enables hunters to get the same performance from shorter-barreled rifles.
This is possible because the 7 mm Backcountry is loaded in a steel casing, not brass. Federal spent six years perfecting this casing. Like brass, it expands and contracts slightly when fired. This is critical, because if it didn’t “bounce back,” it could potentially become stuck in a rifle’s chamber. Federal is calling the secret steel formula it is using “Peak Alloy.” I enjoyed making the engineers and marketing team laugh by asking what the secret ingredient is.
Interestingly, the 7 mm Backcountry’s steel casing is lighter than brass. You can feel the weight difference in your hand.
The bullet choices already available are no different for the 7 mm Backcountry. Rifle makers—and a lot of small and major manufacturers already have models available (seven had rifles there for us to shoot)—have not even had to redesign guns to handle the increase in pressure, as the steel cartridge handles the increase.
Like many inventions, this one was born from a military contract with a private company. Perhaps even more often, private companies invent things for a robust American consumer marketplace that then finds military or police applications. This is the American free-market system at work.
This is the invention factory that those who make the false claim that the Second Amendment only protects flintlocks want to stop and to turn back the clock on. They want to disassociate government from a free market that has long kept America at the forefront of protecting our individual liberty; they want to make American civilians ignorant of the tools used to win our freedom and to keep it.
This new cartridge is but one example of the improvements to guns, ammo and related products we see each year. These steps forward don’t take them out of the reach of our Second Amendment protections from government infringement. They are in step with the nature of our freedom.
