Ammo Question/Tuner Question

[Doc22]

OK,,, let me preface this by saying that I am a new shooter.
So I am burning the midnight oil on these threads and forums soaking up all the info I can. So here is my question, when it comes to competition shooting, (I shoot benchrest and F Class} Ammo is arguably the most important component. However when it comes to tuning your gun different ammos require different tunes. So theoretically wouldnt it be possible to get a less expensive ammo and tune it to shoot just as well or better in my gun than a more expensive ammo.
I have a Annie 54 with a tuner.

Does this mean I need to get a few boxes of different ammo and tune the rifle to each ammo and then see which one shoots the best?

 

[Williwaw]

Keep burning that midnight oil Doc. You are right where I was several years back and it has been very satisfying to pursue the holy grail of RIMFIRE TRUTH.

To your question ... there are two schools of thought regarding different tunes for different ammo lots. One says retune, the other says don't touch it you fool. BUT neither contends that a tuner can fix inconsistent ammo.

Good luck, best of the season.

 

[TRSR8]

You play with less expensive ammo you’re wasting time and money.
It’s less expensive for a reason, shoot the best you can afford.
As a new guy, you start screwing with your tuner with every box of ammo, you’re headed down a dirt road.

 

[mudduck]

Junk ammo is junk ammo.

 

[Straightshooter1]

OK,,, let me preface this by saying that I am a new shooter.
So I am burning the midnight oil on these threads and forums soaking up all the info I can. So here is my question, when it comes to competition shooting, (I shoot benchrest and F Class} Ammo is arguably the most important component. However when it comes to tuning your gun different ammos require different tunes. So theoretically wouldnt it be possible to get a less expensive ammo and tune it to shoot just as well or better in my gun than a more expensive ammo.
I have a Annie 54 with a tuner.

Does this mean I need to get a few boxes of different ammo and tune the rifle to each ammo and then see which one shoots the best?

A tuner will make some difference with "less expensive ammo", but the difference is so small with any ammo it'd be really hard to see any difference with being made with the cheaper ammo. It's not going to make ammo that shoots .75 MOA shoot .5 MOA. Tuners make small improvements that can bests be seen when a rifle is already shooting small bug holes.

<snip>

 

[Doc22]

Keep burning that midnight oil Doc. You are right where I was several years back and it has been very satisfying to pursue the holy grail of RIMFIRE TRUTH.

To your question ... there are two schools of thought regarding different tunes for different ammo lots. One says retune, the other says don't touch it you fool. BUT neither contends that a tuner can fix inconsistent ammo.

Good luck, best of the season.

Thanks, you and @TRSR8 , refer to junk ammo or inconsistent ammo. Where does that line start. I am sure it is subjective and per rifle right. I had a few guys at the range give me a few boxes of Eley match because they said their guns didnt like it. I heard a few other guys rave about SK auto.
When I say cheaper ammo, I dont mean Federal or even CCI standard Velocity.
Sk is about half the price of Eley match thats what I mean in reference to cheaper ammo.
It is also hard to seperate the wheat from the chaffe ( I have always wanted to use that saying.)
How do I determine what is considered cheap/junk ammo. Is the price point a determining factor. I am certain if I ask 20 different shooters I will get 20 different responses.
@Straightshooter1 I shoot rimfire so reloading isnt an option. Would it be worth it to get a brick of ammo and weigh each individual cartridge?

 

[Doc22]

I pulled this from shooting sports website. (its online so it must be true) Just so you guys know where I am getting these questions from.
RWS
With nine .22 LR choices among its Premium Line and three in its Professional Line, RWS ranks up there with Eley in both selection and reputation, and it’s worthwhile to visit the RWS website to get full information. In my Bergara BMR, RWS R50 (about $22 per box) shoots one-holers at 50 yards and about two MOA at 100 yards; RWS Rifle Match (about $10 per box) does the same at 50 yards and holds one MOA at 100—which illustrates that the most expensive ammo isn’t always what shoots best in a particular rifle. https://www.ssusa.org/content/match-grade-22-lr-ammo-roundup-for-2023/

 

[10XSHOOTER]

Set your tuner at zero. go get as many different Good brands of match ammo. shoot each one of the brands. Clean before changing brands. then go get as much of the best ammo your rifle shot. and then start to play with your tuner.

 

[MUP]

As to the line where junk ammo starts, for me it's just below the line of where my best ammo stands. I have a couple or 3 types of ammo that I could shoot, and likely do well with, but when I need to do my very best(generally in competition) I have one goto ammo, and that ammo has been tested and found to perform better than all the others at that point in time. Imo testing is the never ending game to find the best ammo, lot #, that your rifle will shoot, bc even different lot #s of the same ammo will perform differently at times. Ymmv

 

[CharlieNC]

A tuner helps by changing the time a bullet exits the barrel to a more favorable point of the barrels harmonics, which also depends on nominal velocity. As a result, small differences in velocity variability are minimized. The variability of cheap ammo can exceed this capability, and you can often hear the flyer is different.

Google Geoff Kolbe vibrations for an excellent test concerning vibration and tuners.

 

[grauhanen]

refer to junk ammo or inconsistent ammo. Where does that line start. I am sure it is subjective and per rifle right. I had a few guys at the range give me a few boxes of Eley match because they said their guns didnt like it. I heard a few other guys rave about SK auto.
When I say cheaper ammo, I dont mean Federal or even CCI standard Velocity.
Sk is about half the price of Eley match thats what I mean in reference to cheaper ammo.
It is also hard to seperate the wheat from the chaffe ( I have always wanted to use that saying.)
How do I determine what is considered cheap/junk ammo. Is the price point a determining factor. I am certain if I ask 20 different shooters I will get 20 different responses.

When it comes to tuning, junk ammo is not only inexpensive ammo, it is inconsistent ammo. Consistent ammo regularly and consistently shoots well. It's not the name on the box because all varieties of ammo -- whether it's the top tier or not -- will have some lots that are inconsistent.

Consistent ammo will produce consistent results across a good size sample of testing results. For example, if you shoot ten five-shot or five ten-shot groups, the resulting groups should all be relatively consistent in size and all relatively small in diameter. For ten shot groups at 50 a sign of ammo that is tunable are consistent groups that are under 13mm outside-to-outside in diameter. That's about .5" oto or under .3" center-to-center.

Entry level match ammos such as SK products or non-EPS Eley are often too inconsistent with which to reliably tune a rifle.

 

[TRSR8]

A tuner will make some difference with "less expensive ammo", but the difference is so small with any ammo it'd be really hard to see any difference with being made with the cheaper ammo. It's not going to make ammo that shoots .75 MOA shoot .5 MOA. Tuners make small improvements that can bests be seen when a rifle is already shooting small bug holes.

In an experiment I did with "less expensive ammo" (like, ammo from a factory), I wanted to see how they compare to my precision hand loads. So, I took them apart and measured everything, and to no surprise, there was a lot of inconsistency . . . particularly with the powder loads. When I removed the powder to weigh, I not only weighed the individual powder loads, but weighed all of it, then divided that total weight by the number of cases and put that amount of powder back in each case so that each had exactly the same powder charge. Seating depth was also something I improved on since that too was pretty inconsistent. After putting the cartridges back together, I fired them and got a really good improvement on paper. Doing this makes a much bigger improvement that I could ever have gotten with just the tuner.

You are on a RIMFIRE forum.

 

[dgeesaman]

You will find varying philosophies about this. I’m speaking as a shooter who spent 2023 learning and experiencing this stuff for myself. While I don’t have the deep experience of the other shooters here I do offer I’ve spent a lot of time taking in a variety of angles on this problem.

Among rimfire benchrest types, where pure accuracy is at the highest levels, the prevailing practice is to take the best shooting ammo you have for the gun, tune to make it the very best, and leave that tuner setting alone on that gun and barrel. This then makes other ammo lots shoot their best too. That said, this crowd doesn’t have much use for second-rate ammo and although wind effects are essential and critical, being 50y it’s less about wind than smallbore F-class that reaches to 100y.

My first attempts at tuning led me to a tune setting that varied a few clicks per each lot. I was warned by some who didn’t consider that to be a proper tune. I think they were right because the next week it didn’t seem to repeat. It is important to tune thoroughly and get to that one reliable all-ammo tune.

I also attempted to develop tunes using a few ammo lots I had on hand. I was unsuccessful at developing a tune to specifically make my mid rate ammo perform significantly better. I think part of the problem is less-than-excellent-shooting ammo makes the tuning process itself far more guesswork than progress. In theory that should be overcome if you shoot more shots during each step of the tuning process. I think the other part of the problem is that inaccuracy of lower performing ammo mostly comes down to things unrelated to tuning. It seems to me that tuning (50y, ten-shot groups) can take a 1/4” ctc group and make is 3/16” ctc, but it can’t take a 1/2” group and make it 1/4” or even 3/8”. So at the top end of accuracy that’s awesome but at the bottom end it’s hard to even detect. (The part I can’t reconcile about this, then, is why the wrong tuner setting can shoot much worse.)

There is always the underlying question of whether sorting ammo will improve its performance. Weight, runout, rim thickness, base to ogive, etc tools exist and the only way to know if they help is to do it and see. That said I don’t think most competitors do this most of the time. Again, your mileage will differ from anyone else’s. I just took delivery of a new lot of CenterX last weekend that I had a glorious weather opportunity to test yesterday, and it showed signs of brilliance (8-9 shots really tight and 1-2 shots that opened the group about 50%). Including the fliers it still shot good but I may do some serious sorting work on it to see if I can make it go from good to great.

 

[TRSR8]

Thanks, you and @TRSR8 , refer to junk ammo or inconsistent ammo. Where does that line start. I am sure it is subjective and per rifle right. I had a few guys at the range give me a few boxes of Eley match because they said their guns didnt like it. I heard a few other guys rave about SK auto.
When I say cheaper ammo, I dont mean Federal or even CCI standard Velocity.
Sk is about half the price of Eley match thats what I mean in reference to cheaper ammo.
It is also hard to seperate the wheat from the chaffe ( I have always wanted to use that saying.)
How do I determine what is considered cheap/junk ammo. Is the price point a determining factor. I am certain if I ask 20 different shooters I will get 20 different responses.
@Straightshooter1 I shoot rimfire so reloading isnt an option. Would it be worth it to get a brick of ammo and weigh each individual cartridge?

No it is not subjective, it is reality.
Read any match reports. I you plan on sanctioned match shooting, well over 90% of all shooters are using the top 3 grades of Lapua or top 2 grades of ELEY.
The major dilemma currently is sourcing Lapua is tough, As a new guy get some lots of ELEY black box, generally, it is better than you are likely to be and it’s available without going nuts.

 

[dgeesaman]

No it is not subjective, it is reality.
Read any match reports. I you plan on sanctioned match shooting, well over 90% of all shooters are using the top 3 grades of Lapua or top 2 grades of ELEY.
The major dilemma currently is sourcing Lapua is tough, As a new guy get some lots of ELEY black box, generally, it is better than you are likely to be and it’s available without going nuts.

That and get on the wait list for one of the Lapua test centers.

 

[Straightshooter1]

Thanks, you and @TRSR8 , refer to junk ammo or inconsistent ammo. Where does that line start. I am sure it is subjective and per rifle right. I had a few guys at the range give me a few boxes of Eley match because they said their guns didnt like it. I heard a few other guys rave about SK auto.
When I say cheaper ammo, I dont mean Federal or even CCI standard Velocity.
Sk is about half the price of Eley match thats what I mean in reference to cheaper ammo.
It is also hard to seperate the wheat from the chaffe ( I have always wanted to use that saying.)
How do I determine what is considered cheap/junk ammo. Is the price point a determining factor. I am certain if I ask 20 different shooters I will get 20 different responses.
@Straightshooter1 I shoot rimfire so reloading isnt an option. Would it be worth it to get a brick of ammo and weigh each individual cartridge?

A couple years ago a shooter did an experiment pulling some 22LR's apart and weighing each component, including the primer material (not an easy process). His findings were that there was significant differences in each component that when you weight whole cartridges, you can't differentiate what is effecting differences one gets on paper. So, sorting the cartridges by weight is pointless.

The best thing one can do is sort the cartridges by how uniform the bullet is shaped. For example, dents and variations in the drive bands are the main cause for dispersions we see on paper. With the high end ammo (like Eley Tenex & Match or Lapua Midas+ & X-Act) for target shooting, inspecting and removing cartridges with flaws that can be seen can help reduce dispersion. This can help with cheap ammo, but they tend to have a lot of deformities making it hard to get good improved results.

 

[TRSR8]

A couple years ago a shooter did an experiment pulling some 22LR's apart and weighing each component, including the primer material (not an easy process). His findings were that there was significant differences in each component that when you weight whole cartridges, you can't differentiate what is effecting differences one gets on paper. So, sorting the cartridges by weight is pointless.

The best thing one can do is sort the cartridges by how uniform the bullet is shaped. For example, dents and variations in the drive bands are the main cause for dispersions we see on paper. With the high end ammo (like Eley Tenex & Match or Lapua Midas+ & X-Act) for target shooting, inspecting and removing cartridges with flaws that can be seen can help reduce dispersion. This can help with cheap ammo, but they tend to have a lot of deformities making it hard to get good improved results.

Absolute waste of time with match ammo, your supposition is flat wrong. Zero match winning shooters do this. Again cheap ammo will always be cheap, you can sort until you die it will never win a match of any quality.
The OP stated up front his interest is RFBR.

 

[Doc22]

No it is not subjective, it is reality.
Read any match reports. I you plan on sanctioned match shooting, well over 90% of all shooters are using the top 3 grades of Lapua or top 2 grades of ELEY.
The major dilemma currently is sourcing Lapua is tough, As a new guy get some lots of ELEY black box, generally, it is better than you are likely to be and it’s available without going nuts.

The reason I sumise that it is subjective is everyone says different rifles shoot better with different ammos. I agree the reports I have seen the top two performers are always Lupua and Eley.
I guess the issue for me is the term cheap. I have seen a few boxes out there that cost $25 a box, so by strict definition that would make my black box cheap at$15, you see what Im saying.
I am currently using Black Box at $15 a box if I can find a comparable ammo at $10 that is a tremendous savings.
Best advice I have gotten so far. "don't get into benchrest you will go broke"

 

[Doc22]

That and get on the wait list for one of the Lapua test centers.

I was told by the guy that I bought my gun from that it doesnt like Lupua

 

[Doc22]

When it comes to tuning, junk ammo is not only inexpensive ammo, it is inconsistent ammo. That means it regularly and consistently shoots well. It's not the name on the box because all varieties of ammo -- whether it's the top tier or not -- will have some lots that are inconsistent.

Consistent ammo will produce consistent results across a good size sample of testing results. For example, if you shoot ten five-shot or five ten-shot groups, the resulting groups should all be relatively consistent in size and all relatively small in diameter. For ten shot groups at 50 a sign of ammo that is tunable are consistent groups that are under 13mm outside-to-outside in diameter. That's about .5" oto or under .3" center-to-center.

Entry level match ammos such as SK products or non-EPS Eley are often too inconsistent with which to reliably tune a rifle.

Yea there are so many different terms being tossed around that it is hard to get an exact spin on it. Junk ammo, Cheap ammo, Inconsistent ammo, Consistent ammo, Ammo my gun likes ammo my gun doesnt like. Where does it end.
I would consider CCI SV cheap ammo but some guys swear by it