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HSM’s Magnuforce For Sound-Suppressed Handheld Howitzers
Magnuforce ammunition from Hunting Shack Munitions is specifically designed
to yield subsonic velocities, even in massive straight-walled cartridges.
Hunting Shack Munitions is a family-owned precision ammunition manufacturing business located in Stevensville, Montana. The CEO, Bill Campbell, got his start as a compulsive handloader who eventually began producing precision ammunition commercially. Over the last half-century, HSM has provided ammunition to military, Law Enforcement, and civilian customers around the world. Theirs is a well-earned reputation for both superlative quality and cutting-edge innovation.
HSM’s new line of Magnuforce ammunition spans the spectrum from 9mm Para up through .500 S&W. This stuff is all custom-crafted for use in sound-suppressed weapons. Each load remains subsonic down to zero degrees F by using heavy-for-caliber projectiles and carefully-selected high-volume powder. The wide, flat-nose, hard-cast bullets used in this Magnuforce ammunition pack more energy than a toddler on Twinkies. How they do that is simply mesmerizing.
A Wee Spot of Science
Nowadays, it’s tough to retain much self-esteem if you don’t have a sound suppressor hanging off of your favorite smoke pole. Suppressors were once exotic, mysterious, and rare. Now they are ubiquitous. Running a nice suppressed weapon will absolutely ruin you to noisy guns.
The entire universe is physics. Kinetic energy equals ½ mass times velocity squared. However, to be truly stealthy, a sound-suppressed firearm needs to fire a bullet that travels slower than the speed of sound. Anything faster than about 1,125 feet per second, and the sonic crack from the supersonic bullet is going to be noisy, no matter how effective your sound suppressor might be. With the velocity therefore fixed, downrange thump becomes a function of bullet weight. In keeping with that mantra, HSM’s new subsonic .44 Magnum Magnuforce is a freaking ox of a cartridge.
A typical .44 Magnum round pushes a 240-grain bullet to around 1,300 feet per second. The bullet loaded into the .44 Magnum Magnuforce round from HSM weighs 400 grains. That’s about 2/3rd the mass of a .50 BMG machinegun slug. That’s the mass equivalent of more than seven M193 5.56mm rounds with each trigger pull. Wow…
Wren Metal Works starts with sturdy lever actions, then ports barrels and adds
permanent baffles to meet minimum length requirements.
Details
These .44 Magnum Magnuforce rounds start with virgin Starline premium brass. Bullets are Hi-Tek-coated lead flat-nose solids. They are designed to move at around 1,000 feet per second. This renders them reliably subsonic.
The Hi-Tek coating minimizes barrel fouling and enhances reliability in repeating weapons. The flat-nose bullet design means consistent accuracy. The frankly enormous mass of the projectile equates to penetration on a whole new scale. 400 grains of solid hard-cast lead mean not having to say you’re sorry in any of the world’s recognized languages.
Despite the truly massive projectile, the .44 Magnum Magnuforce rounds still meet SAAMI pressure specifications. Because this is an HSM product, it is also unnaturally consistent and straight-shooting. You can run these rounds in any standard .44 Magnum rifle or pistol. However, to really wring these things out, you need a particularly stealthy launch platform.
44 Magnum HSM Magnuforce is shown on left, .45-70 on right. These enormous cartridges push some unnaturally massive bullets.
Oh, Heck Yeah …
I don’t think it’s out of line to say that Wren Metal Works makes the most extraordinary integrally suppressed firearms on Planet Earth. Their guns are optimized for HSM Magnuforce ammunition. They include a box with each new gun.
David Wren’s merry mob of maniacs takes stock lever-action rifles from Henry, Marlin, and S&W, strips them down to bare receivers, and rebuilds them into something so much cooler. Through some profoundly out-of-the-box engineering and the judicious use of titanium and aluminum, they create stealthy guns firing serious straight-walled cartridges that pack enough horsepower to bag truly serious game.
Big bore cartridges are notoriously difficult to suppress effectively. Wren pulls it off by means of carefully ported barrels and extremely high-volume suppressors. Permanently-attached baffle stacks keep the guns out of registerable short-barreled rifle territory despite their sub-16-inch tubes. Carefully-orchestrated porting bleeds pressure in stages to ensure that these rounds remain subsonic across any conceivable environmental conditions. The synergistic result of this extraordinary custom ammunition through these radically advanced suppressed rifles will make you rethink suppressed rifle performance. No kidding, I shot this .44 Magnum all afternoon without ear muffs and remained completely comfortable. I had not previously believed that possible.
Half a dozen Magnuforce .44 Magnum rounds will drop most anything that walks.
Trigger Time
We used the Wren Metal Works demo rifle chambered in .44 Magnum. This gun has had more than 20,000 rounds through it already. Despite all that, the action remains tight. This thing has to be heard to be believed.
Despite the gun’s bulk and mass, it is nonetheless exceptionally well-balanced. However, what really knocks your socks off is the acoustic performance of this rifle shooting these loads. The sharp ballistic crack is gone in favor of a deep, pleasant thump. I’d try to paint you an accurate word picture, but I have no frame of reference. I’ve never fired a big round like this before that was so easy on the ears. When fired outdoors, HSM Magnuforce ammo through this gun really is completely hearing safe without muffs. I was gobsmacked. Additionally, everything about the weapon, including the tooling that created it, was made in the USA.
HSM Magnuforce subsonic ammo will run in any appropriate guns.
If rabid polar bears are a scourge in your neighborhood, this is your ammunition.
Ruminations
Meplat is a French geometry term referring to the flat surface of a cylinder. In ballistics, this is the technical appellation for the flat tip of a bullet. HSM casts their bullets with meplats that approach 70% of the bore diameter. Their hard cast alloys retain a slight malleable edge to allow these beastly projectiles to punch just super deep while retaining their weight. If you live someplace with an unfortunate polar bear infestation, these are your bullets.
9mm and .357 Magnuforce loads are optimized for varmints and modest hogs out to around 75 yards. .44 Magnum and .45 Colt service big hogs and whitetails. One of the HSM wizards regularly bags elk with the 400-grain .44 Magnum Magnuforce rounds we reviewed here. The massive .45-70 and .500 S&W loads are powerful enough to reliably shatter heavy shoulder structures.
I get to do this a lot. However, this project really was different. This extraordinary gun was designed for this specific ammunition, and it shows. Keeping these large-bore rounds reliably subsonic frees up the sound suppressor to do what it is supposed to do. These massive coated HSM hard-cast bullets transmit game-killing energy like a thermonuclear bomb, yet the shooting experience remains both placid and pleasant.
HSM is utterly compulsive about quality control. They chronograph each and every lot of ammunition across a broad temperature range to ensure reliable performance round after round. Bullet length, geometry, and weight are meticulously optimized for common barrel twists to ensure reliable stability even at these relatively slow velocities. The end result will up your shooting game no matter your starting point.
Hunting Shack Munitions and Wren Metal Works are like Bonnie and Clyde, Holmes and Watson, Kirk and Spock, and Ernie and Bert. They just naturally go together. Each component brings out the best in the other. The end result is even better than the sum of the individual parts. Wow, just wow.
Learn more: HSMAmmunition.com, WrenMetalWorks.com
