SSK Industries

{{Short description|American designer and manufacturer of firearms and accessories}}

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| name = SSK Industries

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| industry = Arms industry

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| founded = {{start date and age|1977}}

| founder = J. D. Jones

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| products = Firearms, ammunition

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| website = https://www.sskfirearms.com

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SSK Industries, Inc. is an American designer and manufacturer of firearms and accessories in Wintersville, Ohio. Founded in 1977, the company is known for its custom Contender and Encore barrels.{{cite news|title=Exclusive: Popular .338′s In Handguns|url=https://americanhandgunner.com/exclusive-web-extra-popular-338s-in-handguns/|newspaper=American Handgunner|date=April 2012}}

Started by hunter and gun enthusiast J. D. Jones, SSK Industries began by manufacturing and marketing specific products related to hunting handguns{{cite web|title=About Page|url=https://www.sskfirearms.com/about-ssk|publisher=SSK Industries}} and ammunition. It has grown to a company that makes hundreds of different types of rounds.{{cite news|last=Fryxell|first=Glen E.|title=The Bullets of SSK|url=http://www.lasc.us/fryxellbulletsofssk.htm|accessdate=25 April 2014|newspaper=Sixguns.com}}

Lehigh Defense acquired SSK Industries in 2019, re-branding it SSK Firearms.{{cite journal |author1=Guy J. Sagi |title=SSK Firearms: A Pioneer In Cartridge & Arms Design |journal=American Rifleman |date=20 August 2022 |url=https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/ssk-firearms-a-pioneer-in-cartridge-arms-design/ |access-date=12 March 2024 |language=en-US}}

Notable products

SSK produced the largest center-fire rifle in history, the .950 JDJ. It is a .950 caliber which produces recoil equivalent to shooting ten .30-06 rifles at the same time.{{cite web |url=https://taskandpurpose.com/gear-tech/950-caliber-rifle-will-destroy-anything-especially-shoulder |title=This 950-Caliber Rifle Kicks Like A Beast |publisher=Task and Purpose |date=2016-10-28 |author=James Clark |accessdate=2020-11-22}} SSK manufactured three of these rifles, and no longer produces the ammunition.{{cite book|last=Barnes|first=Frank C.|title=Cartridges of the World: A Complete and Illustrated Reference for Over 1500 Cartridges|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=02CYCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA416|edition=14th|date=19 December 2014|publisher=F+W Media, Inc.|location=Iola, Wisconsin|isbn=978-1-4402-4265-6|page=416}}{{cite book|last=Rottman|first=Gordon L.|title=The Big Book of Gun Trivia: Everything you want to know, don't want to know, and don't know you need to know|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wZ0eDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT288|year=2013|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-78200-950-4|page=288}}

The Whisper family of firearm cartridges were developed in the early 1990s as a line of accurate, multi-purpose cartridges using relatively heavy rifle bullets for a given caliber in subsonic loads.{{cite journal |title=Loading the .300 Whisper |journal=American Rifleman |date=May 11, 2009 |url=https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/loading-the-300-whisper/ |language=en-us |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804121250/https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/loading-the-300-whisper/ |archive-date=August 4, 2021 |url-status=dead}} The intention was to create an extremely accurate cartridge family for military, police, competition and specialized hunting markets that could also be easily sound-suppressed. While initially a group of wildcat cartridges, many of them now have SAAMI and C.I.P. specifications.

References

Category:Ammunition designers

Category:Firearm manufacturers of the United States