I frankly never heard of this before just now. But I think this may have answered a question that I've had pondered over for about 20 years.
In 1996 I shot in a police sniper match with my Win Mod 70 heavy varmint rifle that I personally owned and carried in the trunk of my patrol car for years. The department would not pay for my ammo but at least they paid my entry fees and lodging etc. It was a 2 day match and required about 200 rds of ammo of which we shot about 125. I did have about 20 boxes of LC white box match 173 gr FMJBT 7.62x51, dated 1972, so I used that. The rules specifically said no reloaded ammo, factory only. My ammo was older than most of the competitors. As a Sheriff's deputy in those days, we had to pay for our own ammo and weapons.
In the early 80's I was in the National Guard and we were issued ammo can after ammo can of the white box 173 stuff to use for practice in competition M14's. For serious matches we pulled the FMJ bullets and reseated Sierra 168 HPBT match. The improved accuracy was noticeable and we thought it was worth 5% or so higher scores, especially in the 600 yd slow fire prone phase of the qualification match. (same match as the NRA HP) We called this improved round Mexican Match.
As I think about this cold weld business, what we did to the LC ammo was pull the original bullet (173's) thus break any cold weld, then reseat a new bullet. And then shot that newly seated round in much less than 3 months. Thus there was no, new cold weld... or so I now think.
In the Police match mentioned above, I had several "flyers" that were high or low but not so much any problems with wind. I just chalked that up to the fact that I was older and did not have the opportunity to practice as much as I did in the military.
I have been retired from the S.O. for nearly 9 years. I still own that rifle and I now still use that LC 72 date brass but I load it with Horn 168 gr AMAX bullets. It shoots better now that it ever did with any match factory round. One odd thing about that rifle is that it seems to weigh a lot more these days than it did back then. But carrying it 50 feet or so from the pickup to the shooting bench at our range, and setting in up on a rest is still well within my capability. I have a much lighter but very accurate Browning A bolt stalker that likes the same ammo. It will reach out and bag any antelope or deer I'm likely to shoot. And that decision is made much less on how far I can hit it, as it is on how far I am willing to drag it back to the truck.
Thank you Dartonjagger for starting this thread. I think I learned something.
