New ammunition from the Barnaul Cartridge Plant. Part 1 of 2

Marco Vorobiev was a member of the elite Soviet Spetsnaz in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He's a U.S. citizen now and conducts training courses that draw on his special forces training. He'll have a new installment every Wednesday.

We are freshly back from our most recent trip to Mother Russia where we had a chance to visit famous Barnaul Cartridge Plant. The city of Barnaul is right in the middle of Russia's infamous Siberian region. In fact, it marks the geographical center of Eurasia.

In spite of what you may think, I did not need my goosedown coat this time. On the contrary, the entire time we were there it was 100 degrees F. And don't blame it on global warming: it is always this hot there in the summer.

The Barnual Cartridge Plant, one of the largest in Russia, constantly strives to expand its current product portfolio by introducing new cartridges that aren't traditionally Russian. Unlike other Russian ammo plants that pin all of their development to Russian government programs, Barnaul is looking to expand into other markets. And they certainly have the U.S. market in their sights.

This time we had a chance to test-fire Barnaul's new steel-cased 230-grain .45 ACP cartridges. These are available in two types: polymer and zinc coated. Both performed very well, both in operation and accuracy. In fact my traveling companion and Shotgun News Field Editor David Fortier put on a master class clinic for our Russian hosts by scoring a tight group from the distance of 25 meters.

So, before we know it, both of these reasonably priced cartridges will be available from Wolf Performance Ammunition here in the States.