From Curiosity to BONDSTRIKE

Jonas Hellentin joined NORMA with a mission: to set the direction for the brand's future, focusing on renewal, diversification, digitalization, and internationalization. Here he shares the story behind one of NORMA's most significant product developments – BONDSTRIKE.

A Complex Product in a Unique Industry

When Jonas started hunting in the late 90's, products like ORYX and Jaktmatch were the classic products and almost synonymous with Swedish hunting. Many years later, he found himself working at the iconic company, right in the middle of a process where NORMA was getting ready to take the next big step in its development.

"Ammunition is an incredibly complex product, operating within tight margins with stringent demands for stability and consistency," Jonas explains. "For an average person, it's hard to grasp the significance of missing a target at 500 yards with as much as an inch. For us, it is a catastrophe."

The distance between standard and premium is minimal to the eye, but worlds apart at quality level. And curiosity, Jonas emphasizes, is certainly an asset in learning about the product – along with an environment with a high technical level.

Standing Out in a Uniform Industry

Jonas points out that firearms and ammunition evoke strong emotions, and almost everyone takes a stance – either for or against. This leads to communication within the industry being confined to narrow and restricted channels, making it challenging for brands to stand out and even harder for customers to differentiate between good and poor quality.

"If you look at YouTube today, it's sometimes incredibly difficult for a non-expert to figure out which brand is behind the video clip. The problem is uniformity, which can create a false sense of security for a brand."

So what is the most significant challenge for NORMA?

"It's about daring to be unique without losing touch with the core customer. Being different is easy – the challenge is to remain relevant."

Jonas gives an example from when NORMA marketed ECOSTRIKE: "We presented it with a large image of a moose steak and a recipe to highlight the end result of a successful application of the bullet – something no ammunition company had done before."

The Birth of the STRIKE Family

BONDSTRIKE has become a particular passion for Jonas. The work began after a strategic decision to shift from creating calibers to crafting projectiles, which gave birth to the STRIKE family.

"We aimed to create the bullet family of the future, with a bullet for every application – lead-free, knock-down, and, most challenging, a long-range bullet."

The development process was iterative. Originally, the idea was to simply bond a TIPSTRIKE – NORMA's aggressive STRIKE bullet offering rapid expansion with its thin jacket wall and tip, suitable for fast hunting and quick kills. However, soft-point bullets can suffer from penetration issues.

To address this, the team added an inner lead lock to TIPSTRIKE, preventing the entire lead core from separating from the jacket at high velocities. But the lead lock is mechanical, and the team wanted to experiment with other techniques for controlling expansion.

"We decided to leverage what NORMA does best in the entire industry, which is bonding the lead core with the jacket," Jonas says. "Now we had a bullet that could achieve what TIPSTRIKE could – but unfortunately, it looked exactly like TIPSTRIKE."

Then someone on the team came up with the idea of giving it a boat-tail and see if it could work for long-range shooting. It did.

Perfect Timing

The addition of a boat-tail significantly improved the ballistic coefficient (BC), providing a bullet suitable for longer distances. The timing was perfect – long-range shooting was gaining popularity, especially in the USA.

BONDSTRIKE quickly became a highly relevant product when it was launched in 2019 in .30 caliber. Once on the market, it became apparent that the significant advantage of bonding a bullet wasn't about penetration at 500 meters. Instead, it was about the security the bullet offered in unpredictable hunting situations.

"The confidence in hitting the target at distances over 300 meters is limited not only by the shooter's skill but also by the fact that a regular bullet exhibits more variation as the distance increases. This is not the case for a BONDSTRIKE. It's incredibly stable and reliable at both short and long distances."

Bonding enables BONDSTRIKE to retain its weight remarkably well even at normal hunting ranges. When you extend the range, you still have a bullet that performs excellently in the air and expands effectively even at lower velocities.

Design Meets Production

The original .30 caliber has a distinctive rounded shape with a boat-tail and a remarkable BC. For the newer 6.5 mm and 7 mm bullets, NORMA transitioned to a classic hybrid shape closer to the traditional match bullet.

"The reason the .30 caliber looks different is that creating a hybrid design for that caliber would have resulted in an excessively long bullet," Jonas explains.

But the real challenge isn't in designing a streamlined shape with a high enough BC to achieve long flights. The true challenge lies in the production process – ensuring consistent performance from the first shot to the millionth. A boat-tail complicates this, particularly when the bullet is already bonded, demanding high standards for loading, manufacturing consistency, case quality, and more.

Born in Åmotfors, Available Worldwide

BONDSTRIKE is developed, designed, and entirely manufactured in NORMA's Åmotfors factory in Sweden – and there's a significance in that which adds extra value.

"The market for this kind of product is fiercely competitive, akin to Formula 1 in the automotive context. The technology in an F1 car influences all other developments, and a company aspiring to lead in quality needs products like these to push boundaries – especially its own."

"BONDSTRIKE is genuinely a local product, born, developed, and entirely manufactured in our Åmotfors factory. It's now available in major hunting stores in the USA. We're all proud of that at NORMA. It performs exceptionally well – and if it were up to me, the tip wouldn't just be blue but blue and yellow," Jonas adds with a twinkle in his eye.

What's Next?

The future holds an expansion of the BONDSTRIKE series with more calibers and bullet weights.

"And perhaps that blue and yellow tip," Jonas Hellentin says with a smile.