Furthering this analysis of factory ammo…I've rarely purchased or shot "premium" factory ammo at all, just various budget soft point loads before I got into handloading when I was 18. But I still had a fair bit of factory ammo left when I got into it, and decided to test what I had over the chronograph and on targets just for curiosity's sake.
Where I live, at the time, the big three budget soft point lines were Winchester Super X power points, Federal blue box power shock, and Remington corlokt. Nowadays add hornady American whitetail with interlock bullets to that mix, we sell a ton of it and in some cases it's cheaper than the others even.
My findings from all four of those lines were that
1. Winchester ammo was consistently the truest to advertised velocity, no contest, even exceeding it in more than one loading. I chronographed their 150 grain .300 win mag soft point at 3330 feet per second out of a 24 inch vanguard barrel. The .270 loads were almost exactly what the box said out of a 22 inch savage. The .243 load was over 2900 fps in the 22 inch savage 99 that is admittedly shot out a bit. Same gun that the Remington ammo was under 2700 in. Same bullet weight and advertised velocity. Winchester is loaded hottest and the power point bullet, regardless of bc and concentricity or lack thereof, hits very hard and holds together well enough.
Federal blue box - without question these have been the most accurate rounds in multiple rifles out of any factory ammo. Consistently right at or under 1 inch with a cheap early 2000s savage 111 package gun in .270 win with the 130 grain load. Chrono said 3000 fps. Box said 3060. When I consider that my gun is a 22 inch barrel, there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's about right. Very consistent velocity too. The downside of this ammo for me is the brass haha, but if you're not a handloader it don't matter. But federal brass in my experience has less internal volume WHILE being some of the softest brass out there. Fine for target loads, junk to the would-be hot-rodder
Hornady - my experience was not so good, this was back when it was called "custom"
And not "American whitetail" but it was the 140 grain interlock 270 load. It shot decently enough, had the tightest es numbers of any of these…it was notably slower than advertised but within the range of forgiveability I suppose. But the brass itself caused problems, it's the only time I've had factory ammo be so tight to chamber that it was hard
To close the bolt, and even after resizing spent cases, they were snug in a way that is no good for real world hunting when you want to count on being able to make as fast a follow up as possible should you need to.
Remington! Ahhhh, the bottom of the barrel. In multiple guns and chamberings, I have NEVER seen it get within 200 feet per second of what the box says it should. With ES numbers all over the place, and sub par accuracy to boot. My uncle experienced a total bullet failure with the cor lokt bullet as well (I know there's thousands of success stories, not saying otherwise), and not with a high speed light bullet - a 180 grain out of a .308 win. On a spike buck. Shoulder hit somehow caused it to fragment so violently that the majority of the bullet didn't get past the shoulder joint, just a few fragments managing to pop a lung and they did find it and finish the job after tracking over a mile. The whole front end was a mess of copper and led fragments in hamburger. Not good. Has since switched to Winchester super x and never had a problem since.
Some notable mentions; federal fusion: this ammo was about 150 feet per second slower than advertised, but very accurate and consistent and that bullets performance in water jug testing (not live game I know) was just amazing to be honest. Really opens up. Really holds together.
Finally, the federal "trophy copper" load. Against all expectations this is actually the single most accurate factory load i have ever tried in that old shot out savage 99 243. 85 grain trophy copper. Just dead nuts accurate, right under an inch which is impressive out of that pencil barreled throat-shot-out two piece stock rear locking lever action haha. Better than it does with anything else except one handload it still likes, with the cheap 100 grain Speer btsp of all things.
