The Nordic Ammunition Company, or Nammo, is a familiar name in the defense industry, and their products are well known to the insiders- but might be unfamiliar to some end users. Try to recall the name of any air-to-air missile you’ve seen in the field or heard named in a movie and the common answers are the likes of “Sidewinder” or “AMRAAM.” Nammo is behind those – they make the propulsion systems. Ever hear of the M72 LAW? Nammo makes that. Nammo makes top secret hyper-velocity rocket propulsion systems and orbital launch vehicles for satellite delivery. Nammo makes large caliber ammunition for military applications, from the .50 BMG up to the 120mm tank gun and even artillery shells larger than that. Nammo knows ammunition.
It should be our privilege then to have Nammo’s expertise and skill made available to the “smaller” market. Nammo has long been invested in the manufacture of small arms ammunition. Their offering to the market includes ammunition for the industry professional as well as the citizen and sportsman.
.22 Long rifle, 9mm luger, .222 Remington, 5.56 NATO, 7.62×39, 7.62x54R, 7.62×51 NATO, .30-06, 6mm BR, 6.5×55 Swedish, 6.5×47 Lapua, and .338 Lapua Magnum are basic offering from Nammo. Newly announced this year are the .300 Blackout, 7mm-08 and 8×57 Mauser. All calibers are available in numerous variations in bullet weight, type, and application. The most recent, and of most interest to us here at SADJ is the new .338 PS.
The PS stands for “Precision Sniper.” This cartridge is built on a drawn and annealed Lapua shell casing. Any serious competitor or professional will agree, Lapua brass is among the best there is. The bullet seated atop the casing is also from Lapua: the Scenar. The myth and legend of the Scenar projectile is transcendent. Anyone who has hand loaded ammunition from Lapua components will attest to a certain “magic” that comes from using the absolute best. Lapua components make a shooter better. There is empirical science behind Lapua’s success, but many still choose to believe in the magic. Many of the records earned while using Lapua ammo were, and are still thought to have been impossible. This is what is expected of Lapua: unabashed over-the-top perfection. The final assembly of Lapua brass and Scenar bullet is perfect. There are no burrs, no scratches, no marks or scars anywhere. It’s hard to believe this ammunition comes from an automated machine.
This ammunition is loaded with the 250 grain Scenar OTM, up to a velocity of 2,885 feet per second. Lapua makes a 300 grain Scenar bullet, but it sacrifices velocity, distance, and trajectory for only slight gains in energy delivery. The 250 grain OTM bullet is optimal. For our testing and evaluation, we need not make demonstration of the lethality or on-target effect of the Lapua Magnum. It is enough to say the power and effect of the .338 is sufficient. But indeed, we had to prove the accuracy and precision of this ammunition.
Our test rifle is an expertly crafted custom rifle built on a Stiller Action with a Schneider barrel. The trigger is a Timney Calvin Elite. The stock is the McRee’s G5 chassis. The suppressor comes from Elite Iron and the optic is a Nightforce. For our field test we located some steel targets spread out between 200 and 1,000 yards, just up the hill from Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, Nevada. Once we had made a slight adjustment to the Nightforce to compensate for zero with this new ammunition, we set off to ring the steel. This was entirely uneventful. Our test rifle connected on every shot: 40 rounds fired from 600 to 1,000 yards, and 40 hits. We set up a paper target to capture a shot group at 300 yards. Nammo advertises that this ammo will maintain at least 1 minute-of-angle accuracy so we would expect a 3-inch group. We would have been thrilled with a 2-inch group but we were shown just how good Lapua ammo can be by the 3/4-inch group we produced. 10 rounds were fired from a hot barrel, and maintained one quarter of a minute precision. We had ideal conditions while shooting; no wind and cloud cover to minimize mirage.
Without further embellishment or spin, we can say authoritatively that this ammunition is superb and flawless. If a shooter and his rifle are prepared and willing, Nammo ammunition will support any effort with superlative performance and reliability.
Nammo Tactical Ammunition Co LLC
PO Box 22807
Mesa, AZ 85215 USA
(480) 626-4634
www.nammo.com
