Accurate Factory Ammo

[garandman]

That's not been my experience using high quality commercially loaded ammo. I've achieved, routinely, sub-MOA out of bolt guns, in .308, putting them nearly in the same hole at 100 yards. Ditto for 6.5 Creedmoor out of JP large frame AR-10. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding your comment?

I'll say it this way… if factory ammo were an efficient, legit and robust source of sub moa ammo, Reloading wouldn't be the massive industry that it is.

Or...

Factory ammo is more than good enough for hunting purposes. But if you want serious accuracy, you reload.

 

[Centuriator]

I'll say it this way… if factory ammo were an efficient, legit and robust source of sub moa ammo, Reloading wouldn't be the massive industry that it is.

Or...

Factory ammo is more than good enough for hunting purposes. But if you want serious accuracy, you reload.

But, that's just not true, GMan.

I've thought about reloading for the sake of saving money compared to shelling out high per round prices for the commercial stuff. But as for "serious accuracy" ... I have routinely, regularly and without fail achieved sub-MOA out of various rifles in various calibers with quality factory loads. My AI .308 put them through, as I said, nearly the same hole at 100, and sub-moa out to as far as I could shoot it using high quality commercial ammo. So have many other people.

I'm just not following your point here, which I think is simply ... wait for it ... inaccurate!

 

[garandman]

But, that's just not true, GMan.

I've thought about reloading for the sake of saving money compared to shelling out high per round prices for the commercial stuff. But as for "serious accuracy" ... I have routinely, regularly and without fail achieved sub-MOA out of various rifles in various calibers with quality factory loads. My AI .308 put them through, as I said, nearly the same hole at 100, and sub-moa out to as far as I could shoot it using high quality commercial ammo. So have many other people.

I'm just not following your point here, which I think is simply ... wait for it ... inaccurate!

That's why all the top shooters shoot factory ammo and don't reload.

 

[Knotwild]

I have a 6.5 that loved the Prime 130 gr. that they sold before the shakeup. The hard thing about using factory ammunition is getting the bullet weight that works in your rifle's twist rate. And I have had some stuff that shot good, but didn't give me the best velocity. Also - there's no guarantee that a manufacturer will continue to make what your gun likes and it may even be specific to one lot. I don't have anything that will shoot Federal's premium stuff good.

I don't shoot that great; I have good days and bad days; I have mediocre rests and bags; etc. So, the difference between 0.5" and something like 0.2" probably isn't going to be consistently noticed by me.

Just give me one good group each year so I can tell everyone that I shoot like that all day long, when I do my part, and make bug holes, and I'm good. But I will not stoop to shooting closer than the stated distance. Have to be careful of being called out you know.

So, it's about like choosing between a tailor made suit and buying one off the rack. There are some places a rack suit just won't work: and everyone will notice it too.

 

[300_whisper]

I have a 6.5CM that shoots .1s with 90 grain remington corelokt.

 

[Ned Ludd]

Precision/accuracy is merely one consideration whenever the old "commercial ammunition versus handloads" discussion rears its head. Another is consistency. I have a GAP .223 Rem bolt rifle that will honestly shoot FGMM77s at 0.25 MOA. Has anyone here besides me ever measured any of that stuff? You'd be exceedingly lucky if CBTO or COAL was consistently under .005". So the FGMM happens to shoot excellent groups in that rifle at 100 yd, but at 400 to 600 yd, it's a different story because the consistency is not nearly what you could roll on your own.

Another consideration is bullet selection (i.e. choice of reloading components). Depending on the caliber, you may not always be able to find commercial ammo that is loaded with the very best, highest BC bullets available. Some calibers will have better selection than others. For example, I shot Applied Ballistics 175 OTM rounds out of a .308 Win in F-TR matches the first couple years I competed. As commercial ammunition goes, The AB175 ammo was head and shoulders better than anything else you could buy at that time. Nonetheless, it was loaded to mag length like most commercial ammo available, and was therefore limited to mid-weight bullets with modest BCs, sunk relatively deep in the case, usually meaning mediocre velocity.

Well after I began reloading, AB (Berger Ammunition now) and a few other companies have started loading and selling commercial .308 Win rounds with Berger 185 Juggernauts and even their 200.20X bullet, which are much better BC offerings. If any of those ammo offerings happens to shoot well out of a particular rifle, you could certainly use them in matches. In my hands, the AB products were of VERY good consistency, much better than your run of the mill commercial "match" ammo. However, the longer high BC bullets are typically seated much farther down in the neck, and performance is therefore limited. I'd also add that a careful reloader an usually not only make ammo that is more consistent in virtually every parameter that can be measured, but is also optimized to a specific rifle.

With commercial ammo preps, you take what you get. If you can find one that shoots exceptionally well in a given rifle, why not? I don't see anything wrong with that at all. But the fact of the matter is you should certainly be able to prepare handloads that at the very least equal (if not surpass) the performance of some particular outstanding commercial ammo in terms of grouping/precision, and that will also generally far surpass it in consistency (i.e. charge weight, CBTO, etc.). The improvement in consistency, as well as the ability to optimize component choices and tune the load to a given rifle generally means a good handload is going to surpass most any factory load over time at long range.

 

[longtrapshootn]

129 gr sst is a fine cartridge

 

[MikeT49]

243 Winchester, Nosler Trophy Grade 85 partitions. 1.5" 3 shot groups @ 200 yards out of a 1969 BAR.

 

[longtrapshootn]

It all depends on what your barrel likes.

 

[leclairk]

My problem frequently is fliers. I shoot factory Hornady eld-x 143gr out of my Savage Model 10 in 6.5CM. I will put 3 or 4 holes touching and then have one .75” out. I don’t reload yet and I wonder if that’s me or the ammo or the gun. It’s usually always the shooter, but I wonder.

Forum Boss: If you have a factory barrel, I would say that is your problem. I had a Savage in .260 Rem that did exactly the same thing with handloads. I tried 6 different powders, many bullet types from 120-144 grains. Then finally ditched the barrel and the flyers completed disappeared.

With factory ammo, there can be other issues, such as inconsistent neck tension and run-out. But there is a very good chance the issue is your barrel.

 

[Straightshooter1]

My problem frequently is fliers. I shoot factory Hornady eld-x 143gr out of my Savage Model 10 in 6.5CM. I will put 3 or 4 holes touching and then have one .75” out. I don’t reload yet and I wonder if that’s me or the ammo or the gun.

When you don't know the precise details of each factory round(eg: amount of powder, neck tension, concentricity, etc), that's the dilemma that'll always be there. If you knew that each round was exactly loaded the same, then you could more likely attribute that deviation to the shooter.

For example, I thought I'd try some Gorilla ammo that someone was saying how well it would shoot. So, Last year I bought 40 rounds (this was for my .308) and fire 20 with results that were disappointing in that I couldn't get a 5 round group less than .615 moa (one of them way worse). I decided to measure all the specs of the remaining cartridges. The concentricity ranged from .002 to .005. Then I pulled the bullets and weight the powder in each of the remaining cartridges. There was a difference that was as much as .4 grs. Necks were typical factory measurements for Federal brass with differences in a cartridge as much as .0015. So . . . I weighed all the powder and divided that amount by the number of cartridges and reloaded where the powder was as consistent as my normal hand loads where I'm not more than one powder granule off. Also I reloaded to the same COAL, but with concentricity that was no more than .001. The result was I got all 5 round groups less than .500

It’s usually always the shooter, but I wonder.

Not when it come to factory ammo.

Some factory ammo can do very well . . . but well done precision hand loaded ammo will do better than any mass produced ammo, and you can better know when it's a shooter issue.

 

[DangerRanger]

I had a custom prc that shot PH like crap but factory eldm into .6 off a backpack. It held that out to 550 no issues. As far as I took that rifle, before moving on)

Different lots make me nervous about factory but as long as I had taken 3-5 shots out of that lot number and confirmed it I would have zero issues tossing one at an elk @600. 1k no but 600 sure

 

[Texas10]

You can always screw a tuner on the barrel and fine tune the load when using factory ammo.