A line targeted at the full spectrum of lever-action aficionados, HammerDown includes not just traditional rifle calibers, like .45-70 Gov't. and .30-30 Win., but also pistol calibers, like .327 Mag., .357 Mag., .44 Mag. and .45 Colt. To design these cartridges, Federal teamed up with the lever-gun experts over at Henry Repeating arms, to determine the characteristics needed to make a cartridge load, feed and shoot reliably every time.
Cases are nickel plated to resist corrosion, and have had their case rims chamfered to reduce snags in loading and feeding; bullets are either molecularly bonded soft-points or hollow-points, depending on caliber. These feature reliable expansion and near-total weight retention, for deep and devastating wound channels. While loads for the available rifle calibers tend toward the traditional, HammerDown pistol calibers have been loaded to optimize performance out of a rifle. This means an increase in velocity of 400-to 600-fps, thanks to the longer barrel. Further, heavy-for-caliber bullet weights are used to more efficiently increase terminal performance at these velocities.
For more on how these cartridges fared at the range, join Executive Editor Jon Draper in this exclusive video, and for more on the HammerDown line, check out federalpremium.com.