FederalPD_01
As a cast-bullet shooter for more than 30 years, I’ve found myself shooting nothing but powder coated loads in recent years. A baked-on polymer coating, powder coating acts as lubricant for the projectile, allowing softer alloys to be driven faster and more accurately without leading a barrel. The concept and technology isn’t new, but it’s grown in popularity since Federal introduced the Syntech line of ammunition in 2017.
Combining a polymer synthetic jacket with clean-burning powders, the original lineup consisted of a trio of loads, including 115-gr. 9mm, 165-gr. 40 S&W and 230-gr. 45 Auto, followed by a 124-gr. 9mm option in 2018. The same year, Federal also introduced Syntech Action Pistol for competition — featuring heavier, flat-nose projectiles for knocking down steel targets.
In 2019, the lineup expanded again with Syntech Pistol Caliber Carbine (PCC), Syntech Training Match and Syntech Defense, each wearing a different color synthetic jacket. The inventors of the shotshell color code, Federal chose red for its Syntech Range, PCC and Action Pistol loads; purple for Training Match; and blue for Defense.
With Syntech growing in popularity for all applications of shooting, Federal had the brilliant idea to pair it with one of its other popular ammunition lines for 2020.
Practice & Defend
Anyone who carries a gun for self-defense knows the importance of shooting their chosen defense load in their gun to confirm function and accuracy. Defense rounds can be expensive, though, and difficult to find, so shooting them regularly at the range often doesn’t make sense. However, when training, it also doesn’t make sense to shoot range ammo that doesn’t match the performance of your defense rounds.
Realizing this, Federal has combined its Syntech Training Match with Personal Defense HST into a single 100-round pack — 50 rounds of each — available in 124-gr. and 147-gr. 9mm, 180-gr. .40 S&W and 230-gr. .45 Auto.
With matching grain weight projectiles and powder, both Syntech and HST rounds produce identical velocities, trajectories and point of impact for the most realistic training experience all in one convenient package. After all, if practice isn’t realistic, it’s not really practice.
Prices range from $60.99 to $73.99, depending on caliber. It may seem high at first, but if you do the math by combining one 50-round box of Syntech Training Match and two 20-round boxes of HST, it’s really one hell of a deal. You basically get the Syntech box for free! If that’s not an incentive to get to the range to practice and defend, I don’t know what is!
For more info: www.federalpremium.com, Ph: (800) 379-1732
