Federal’s New Cosmic Clay Target Load Glows Under Black Light

Black-light clay shoots have been quietly filling club calendars through the short months, and Federal Ammunition has now built a shotshell for them. Cosmic features a conventional 12-gauge target load in UV-fluorescent hull printing and a Podium wad that fluoresces under black light.

Underneath the fun graphics, the Cosmic target load’s 2¾-inch hull carries 1⅛ ounces of No. 8 lead at 1,145 fps.

Hull printing displays load data in UV-fluorescent ink, readable at the station without a flashlight.

Longtime readers will recognize the wad. Federal introduced the one-piece Podium design with its High Over All competition line in 2021, built around a cylindrical compression zone meant to support the payload at ignition and cut down on deformed pellets, then began selling it to handloaders as a standalone component in 2023.

Cosmic takes that geometry and makes it glow.

“We gave Cosmic creative UV printing on the shell and a Podium wad that fluoresces under black light,” said Sam Motzko, Federal senior design engineer. “The graphics and neon colors on the shell and box are fun, but the UV-powered wad allows you to track the wad as it leaves the barrel. These features combine for a truly unique shooting experience.”

Federal’s product director, Dan Compton, framed the launch around who shows up to these nighttime clay-target events.

Black-light stations turn a shooting bay into something closer to a bowling alley, which is much of the draw for clubs running these events through the winter.

“Cosmic Clays shoots are becoming increasingly popular and are taking ranges across our nation by storm,” Compton said. “The activity attracts younger shooters, or any fun-loving shooter, and serves as an entertaining way to spend time at the range during the daylight-starved days of winter. We wanted to take those nighttime black-light shoots and amplify them with fun shotshells that greatly enhance the shooting experience. And we certainly did that with this new target load.”

Federal brand ambassador and exhibition shooter Steve Gould, who appears in the company’s launch video, summed up the appeal as the sun going down normally ends the day, but it doesn’t have to.

Cosmic is packed in 25-count boxes that glow under UV along with everything else. One thing is certain: Federal’s new Cosmic clay target load can give an otherwise-ordinary February Friday night something to look at, and for clubs looking to put new faces on the line, a course full of shooters tracking their own wads into the dark is about as good an invitation as the winter calendar offers.

Federal Ammunition’s new Cosmic shotshells light up nighttime clay target courses with a UV-fluorescent Podium wad and neon colors on the shells and box that glow under black light. The new 12-gauge load features 1⅛-ounce No. 8 shot at 1,145 fps.

Federal lists the Cosmic 12-gauge, 2¾-inch, 1⅛-ounce No. 8 load as product number COS12L 8 with an MSRP of $16.99 for a 25-count box.

Cosmic 12-gauge target load boxes are shipping to dealers now. Learn more at federalpremium.com.