Federal Premium's Custom Shop: Best Hunting Ammo You Can Get

Historically, shooters have had two ammunition options: mass-produced factory loads and carefully crafted handloads. The former didn’t require any precious time to obtain but were generally less accurate. The latter took time and attention to work up and create, but were usually very accurate. But now there’s a relatively new dynamic at play. Barnes and Federal and perhaps one or two other ammo companies have introduced “custom shop” ammunition. I’ve test-fired and hunted with ammo from both sources, and it’s great stuff. Recently, I had the pleasure of touring Federal’s custom-loading facility, and it was impressive, to say the least. I’ve been handloading for 35 years, and in the one morning I spent watching and interviewing the technicians at Federal, I learned several significant things about the art of crafting cartridges as perfect as human hands can make them. As I entered the Custom Shop, escorted by Federal’s Director of Media Brian Kelvington and Custom Shop Chief Engineer Paul Furrier, the first thing I was struck by is the fact that the expert loaders inside were wearing dust-free smocks or jumpsuits and lint-free, static-eliminating gloves. That’s a bit overboard, I mused, but as I watched and learned, I realized it’s an important part of the ethos of perfection the shop maintains. The specialized clothing has the added benefit of reducing potential toxic lead exposure.

Custom Shop Offerings

The Custom Shop has two primary areas—one for loading centerfire rifle ammunition and one for loading shotshells. I was interested to find that the shop loads a lot of specialty shot, such as tungsten and bismuth. I’m no shotshell expert, but I was fascinated by the boundaries Federal’s specialists are pushing. “We have customers shooting 3.5-inch 10-gauge turkey loads and routinely dropping gobblers out to 100 yards,” Quality Assurance Technician Trevor Alt told me. On the rifle side, the Custom Shop not only creates an elevated level of quality, but it also loads obscure cartridges. If brass cases are available for a cartridge, they can load it. Whether it’s an uncommon but cult-favorite modern precision cartridge like the 7mm RSAUM or a century-old classic big-bore metric thumper like the 9.3x62, the Custom Shop can load it. And within reason, you can have your choice of projectiles, too.

“Within reason” means a couple of things. First, any given projectile must meet the Custom Shop’s rigorous quality and performance standards, or they won’t use it. Second, the bullets have to be in stock or readily available. Now, that latter stipulation is less challenging than you might think. Even—or perhaps I should say especially—during the COVID pandemic, Federal’s Custom Shop had ready stock of most premium projectiles, from most top-shelf brands, on hand for all the common calibers. Plus, thanks to Federal’s excellent working relationships with nearly all the best bulletmakers—including Barnes, Berger, Hornady, Nosler, Swift, and so forth—the Custom Shop can generally requisition a box of component bullets from the main assembly line. Since Federal buys by the pallet, there are generally component bullets—even the ones scarce as hen’s teeth—in the plant. And let us not forget that Federal makes some of the best projectiles on the planet right there in-house. I refer particularly to the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw family of bullets, including the Terminal Ascent and Trophy Bonded Tip. As a result, if you need ammo for, say, your favorite custom 7mm STW and really want to shoot 155-grain Terminal Ascent bullets for an upcoming wild sheep hunt you finally drew after applying for 30 years, the Custom Shop can help you out—even if no other place in America has 7mm Terminal Ascent bullets in stock. The ammo is expensive, but in addition to their “We can provide it when no one else can,” advantage, its quality does justify the cost.

The Loading Processes

After my tour through the Custom Shop, I persuaded Alt to walk me through the step-by-step process it uses to load rifle cartridges. Here’s a recap. With a massive box of shiny nickel-plated cases at hand, Alt showed me the Custom Shop’s brass selection process. Visual and instrumental inspections deem any case with any flaw—no matter how superfluous, tiny scratches, dings, burrs, anything—unfit. I was at first appalled, then impressed, at the high number of discards. Roughly estimated, 40 to 60 percent of those brand-new cases ended up in the recycle bin. Once past initial selection, rigorous case mouth prep is performed on each case. After trimming to perfect, square-mouthed length, the outside rim of the case mouth is deburred gently, and the inside edge is deeply chamfered with a low-drag chamfer tool. Surprised at how much material the technician removed during the chamfering process, I had to ask: “Is there a reason you cut so much off the inside?” Eyes twinkling in a sideways glance, Alt responded, “That’s one of the things we’ve found that’s really important to accuracy. Most folks,” he added, “don’t chamfer nearly enough. “Without enough chamfer, you introduce a lot of potential issues. Case mouths peel shavings off the bullet sides. Hard edges inside the mouth can ding or scratch the boattail as you begin seating the bullet.” He shrugged. “And so on.” I watched his technique. Even though he was removing a lot of material, he used a very light touch against the cutter, and he kept each case in position for quite a long time. “You’re cutting pretty slowly,” I observed. “Why?”

“Yeah, that’s important,” Alt responded. “You can cause problems if you cut too fast.” He didn’t really elaborate, but my mind filled in the blanks—distorted case mouths, tooling scratches in the bevel, uneven depth. After being primed with Federal Gold Medal primers—a relatively straightforward operation with simple attention to primer depth in the pocket and seating pressure—the cases were ready to be charged. Custom Shop lead Paul Furrier is also Federal’s primary specialist on gunpowders. This lends the shop an undeniable advantage: No one understands how to achieve optimal burn-rate compatibility, and best-possible consistency and velocity, better than Furrier. A row of A&D FX-120i lab-grade scales with linked powder dribblers dispenses charges. The FX-120i is debatably the most accurate instrument of its type—generally more of a commercial-grade charge dispenser than a consumer product. Rhythm and a consistent motion were employed for each charge dumped into a machined-aluminum funnel with small flutes on the inner surface.

Bullet selection is dictated by the customer. Custom Shop techs can offer experience-based perspective on accuracy potential, and in some cases, if necessary, accuracy potential rightly takes a back seat to terminal performance—such as when loading big-bore cartridges for dangerous game. Always curious about projectile performance—on every level (accuracy, aerodynamics, and terminal)—I inquired what hunting bullets the Custom Shop finds to be most consistently accurate. “Bergers, of course,” chimed in Furrier. “They always shoot great. And we get really good results out of Hornady’s ELD-X bullets. They’re consistent and very easy to work up a good load with. “Nosler AccuBonds…Barnes TTSXs…we get them to shoot great too. And of course, we’ve really got our Terminal Ascent bullet figured out. If you know how to load it, that’s a fantastic-shooting bullet.” It’s worth noting that although it certainly could craft target ammunition, Federal’s Custom Shop rarely does. Nearly everything it builds is for hunting. As I perused the iron shelves deeply laden with boxes of component bullets, I was impressed to see painstaking charts that recorded each lot’s measurements and consistency, with particular emphasis on base-to-ogive dimensions. It was startling to see vast discrepancies in standard deviations in some of the most popular bullets on the market, and others, less known, with consistency that some match bullets would envy. Bullets are seated into selected, prepped, primed, and charged cases using massive, incredibly rigid and stable RCBS Summit presses. “Watch,” Alt advised as the white-smocked tech seated at the press slipped a charged case into the shellholder. Paying close attention, I noted that he gently started just the base of the bullet into the case mouth, then rotated the cartridge with the partially seated projectile a third of a turn, and bumped it a bit deeper. Once more he repeated the movement and finally seated the bullet to full depth.

“Why?” I had to inquire, turning to face my host. “We’ve found that we just get better bullet concentricity with that method,” he explained, motioning me to another bench topped with a sophisticated concentricity gauge. “We hold to pretty rigorous standards.” Inserting a freshly loaded round, he demonstrated where he places the probe against the ogive of the newly seated bullet, and rotated the case slowly, scrutinizing the microsensitive dial for movement. The needle quivered but didn’t move appreciably. “This is the worst step to have fail,” he said as he placed the cartridge in the pass rack. “After all the other work we’ve gone through, we’ll do whatever it takes to seat bullets straight.” It sure isn’t time-effective, I mulled to myself, as I watched the tech at the seating press methodically and slowly seat another bullet. But then, fast production isn’t what the Custom Shop is all about. All else takes a back seat to perfection.

In the Field

In recent years I used two different Federal Custom Shop loads for very significant hunts. The first was on a 2021 Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep hunt, the first and likely only of my life. For the hunt, I borrowed my wife’s Gunwerks ClymR mountain rifle chambered in 6.5 PRC. I’m a huge fan of Federal’s Terminal Ascent bullet, and Senior Media Relations Manager J.J. Reich had just informed me that Federal was about to launch a 6.5 PRC load with the 130-grain Terminal Ascent. Production ammo was not available, so J.J. kindly expedited an order through the Custom Shop for me. Within a week I was shooting 0.60-inch groups on a 100-yard target. Before departing for my hunt, I validated trajectory out to 600 yards. The load provided stellar ballistics and accuracy in the Gunwerks rifle. Just a few days later, I lay in the rocks at 12,200 feet elevation, aiming downward at a 35-degree angle, and shot a 14-year-old ram standing 591 yards distant. It was the oldest bighorn sheep taken on that mountain range in recorded history.

My other hunt with Federal Custom Shop ammo was more recent. In December 2022, I was fortunate enough to pursue desert mule deer deep in West Texas. This time, the Custom Shop loaded 155-grain Terminal Ascent bullets in 7mm RSAUM ammo. Before hunting, I validated the load’s trajectory out to 800 yards. I sure didn’t want to shoot that far on a deer, but it was fun knowing that the rifle and load were capable. A day or two into the hunt, another hunter’s guide showed up with fresh footage of a truly unique buck. It had a tremendous 4-point main-frame right side with a long drop tine off the main beam and a broken-off brow. His left side was stunted, gnarly, and blessed with a heavy club-like drop tine off the antler base. It wrapped around in front of the buck’s left eye. For whatever reason, that guide’s hunter hadn’t shot the buck. “I’m not even a mule deer fanatic, and this old buck had me shaking!” the guide told me. “Let’s try and find him tomorrow,” I said without hesitation. My guide was already nodding in agreement. Not long after dawn the next day, I got lucky and spotted two deer moving far away, just about to vanish over a distant ocotillo-covered desert ridge. We got the spotting scope on them just in time; it was the nontypical buck, tending what appeared to be a hot doe. Moving fast, we closed the distance, prowling through cactus patches and attempting to maintain a visual on the area the buck had faded into. It proved impossible. I dialed my Leupold 3-18X 44mm VX-6HD scope down to minimum power as the brush and ocotillo closed in around us. So much for long-range shooting. We were close, nearly too close, when we caught a glimpse of the buck. He passed through a gap in the cactus, skylined, striding with slow purposeful steps after his doe. I could only see his deep-forked 4-point side, with the long drop tine. Breath gone, heart racing, my brain registering that if he’d had two similar antlers, he’d be a solid 200-inch buck, I crept forward with my guide.

We must have made enough sound to distract the buck from the receptive doe. The next time I saw him he was standing 90 yards distant, glaring a hole in me, quartering away. I glued the crosshairs to the rear of his ribs and pressed the trigger. One-hundred fifty-five grains of bonded lead and copper impacted with a welcome wallop. The buck kick-leaped and was gone. Seconds later, the tips of a gigantic yucca plant quivered and shook for several seconds, even though there was little wind. I rightly figured the buck had fallen against the yucca cactus. We found him against it, his gnarled, stunted antler wedged deep into the rocks and dirt beneath. Later, the buck’s age was estimated at nine years or more—a rarely old mule deer. Since the Custom Shop ammo is built to order, not pulled from a shelf and shipped the same day, you can plan on a couple weeks’ wait for the shop to create and ship your cartridges. Federal’s Custom Shop website lists popular loads by caliber, bullet style, and so forth. If you don’t see the cartridge you want, call the shop at (800) 648-9624, and if cases are on hand or can be found, the shop will load your ammo if possible. Such was the case with my 7mm RSAUM load, which isn’t listed on the site. Any time you need a special load but can’t find the bullets you want, or need tuned handloads but don’t have the time to create them yourself, or simply want the best professionally created ammunition available, turn your mind to Federal’s Custom Shop. As the shop’s saying goes, “Handcrafted ammunition, built just for you.”

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