224 Valkyrie SAAMI “Blueprint” Now Available Online
Plan to buy or build a 224 Valkyrie rifle this year? Well now you can get the official specifications for the new 224 Valkyrie cartridge and chamber. The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI), has released its official 224 Valkyrie “blueprint” which you can now download for your records. SAAMI approved the Federal Premium 224 Valkyrie as an official new cartridge this past January. The 224 Valkyrie’s SAAMI standards documents are now published and available to the industry as a whole, as well as to the public.
VIEW SAAMI 224 Valkyrie Cartridge Spec and Chamber Spec PDF
SAAMI allows free access to technical data and drawings for cartridge and chamber designs, which are posted in the Specifications section of SAAMI’s website. All cartridge and chamber drawing documents are contained within the ANSI/SAAMI Standards and can be found on www.saami.org. The New SAAMI Cartridge Cartridge/Chamber Designs for 224 Valkyrie can be viewed here: http://www.saami.org/PDF/224-Valkyrie-Introduction.pdf.
About the 224 Valkyrie Cartridge
Federal Premium’s 224 Valkyrie is based on a 6.8 SPC case necked down to 22 caliber. The Valkyrie has a shorter case than the .223 Remington (and 5.56×45 NATO). This allows you to load the longest, heaviest .224-caliber bullets and still feed reliably from an AR15-type magazine. The 224 Valkyrie offers flatter trajectories than other AR15 mag-friendly cartridges, including the 22 Nosler, .223 Rem, and 6.5 Grendel. With heavy projectiles, the 224 Valkyrie boasts impressive ballistics — it can stay supersonic past 1,300 yards. Plus it has roughly half the recoil of larger cartridges offering comparable ballistics, such as the 6.5 Creedmoor (see chart below).
SAAMI’s work creates standards for the cartridge, increasing safety, interchangeability, reliability, and quality for firearm manufacturers building rifles chambered for the 224 Valkyrie. Federal Premium Ammunition President Jason Vanderbrink notes: “SAAMI’s approval of the cartridge was a crucial step in legitimizing [the 224 Valkyrie] within the industry”.
The Role of SAAMI in Creating Uniform Ammunition Standards
SAAMI was founded in 1926 at the request of the federal government and tasked with creating and publishing industry standards for safety, interchangeability, reliability and quality, as well as coordinating technical data. SAAMI’s Technical Committee, which consists of firearm and ammunition industry experts, reviewed the 224 Valkyrie submission over a period of about six months. The official cartridge name, maximum cartridge and minimum chamber dimensions, pressure limits, test equipment, and other characteristics are all considered and scrutinized during the process.
