FYI, check your factory ammo

[CanardNoir]

First - understand that liability concerns have affected all factory ammo producers as their lawyers have moved them to err on the side of safety.

Second - newer shooter sometimes don;t understand that on-the-box printed ballistics were the product of 24" barrels of a make and model far different from their own; and older shooters often need to be reminded.

Third - those who have been moved to reloading, now rely on actual velocities with chronographs, like the Garmin shown - plus we use powders that are not dictated by manufacturing cost (or availability, because we sometimes hoard).

And lastly - some shooters totally disregard the laws of physics and their affects on terminal ballistics.

To your point - short barrels - those less than 24' - don't produce anything near the published ballistic performance on the box! And compounding that problem is the fact that some of us still can't accurately estimate distances and often don't have the immediate-time to use a rangefinder. So our shots are not accurate, nor could they ever be.

The 100-200 yard shots we routinely make in the whitetail-deer woods are chip shots, when we venture out West. And to quote my late-guide from Wyoming, 'Wa' Dunbar - "...this is Big Country..."

And I forgot to mention a good Kestrel when trying to make a real long-range shot above sea level...

Also - the old saw: "You get what you pay for, or sometimes a little-bit less."

 

[tony d willIiams]

That is another reason I reload. I test after reloading to ensure the results follow the results from my earlier reloads.
I was trying to use factory ammo to set the scope on my last purchased rifle. I was doubting my abilities as I was lucky to consistently even hit paper at 440 yards.
Put in reloads, and 8" groups appeared.

 

[MagnumManiac]

I've never even thought about buying ammo to break in a new barrel

This was never my forte either.
Recently, this changed.
When I bought my Rem 700 SPS Stainless, no one had dies in stock and then I found a Lee set. Had all sorts of trouble, so I went to my LGS and looked for factory ammo.
They had Barnes 165g TTSX, 1 box had a different Lot#, but I grabbed all 3 boxes. I was very impressed, extremely accurate, for factory ammo, and was within 30fps of advertised. Great, hunted and ran the barrel in with that. When I went to get more, there was none, but there was Barnes 180g TTSX on the shelf, 10 boxes with all the same Lot#. I bought 5 boxes, not cheap either, over $100AUD each.
Very accurate, put 10 shots into MoA @ 100, however, the box said 3250fps, those 10 shots averaged 3030fps, these rounds were randomly taken from all 5 boxes. 2 from each.
I have not hunted with factory ammo since the 80's, this was a pleasant surprise TBH, the factory stuff I ran back then was doing good when it printed 2" groups.

Cheers.

 

[Victor3Ranger1]

Factory ammo needs to be chronographed at a minimum.
What amazes me is even if you duplicate load data and rifle for a particular load which is supposed to be xxxxfps and you run it through a chronograph and find the load is actually 200-350fps slower than the manual says
So far I have not seen a manual really close to true readings.

 

[cabelasken]

I once ordered a box of 300 WSM 180 Gr loads and one turned out to be a .284 bullet.

 

[Roadrunner2]

What is the effect on the performance when that warm ammo is placed into a rifle that may be zero F?

If the shot is taken almost immediately……likely nothing! If for whatever reason…. I see things starting to be affected! JMO. memtb

I shoot immediately after placing the warm ammo in my cold rifle (like within about 60-90 seconds). There is no affect on accuracy. But I agree that if I left the ammo in the rifle for more than a few minutes (depending upon ambient temperature) then it would be affected by the cold.

 

[lachoneus]

So hopefully many/most of you have tested your chosen factory ammo extensively and know exactly what you have. I personally never or very rarely shoot factory ammo, but did so yesterday for barrel break-in on a new rifle. Didn't want to waste my good components cleaning a barrel up, so I bought some ammo at an Academy Sports locally to do the break-in with. I set up my radar on the bench and started shooting. This was an eye-opening experience. These were Remington's Tipped Core-Lokts for the 243 Winchester. If I had bought these to hunt out to 500 yards or beyond, I would have been very angry. Check out the discrepancy between the reported velocity printed on the box and that measured by the raday. That's a LARGE discrepancy!!

I have had the opposite problem. I once bought a used rifle in 7 mm mag and bought some cheap PMC ammo to function test it. The first round I shot seemed to recoil much harder than normal. So I decided to chronograph the load. The next shot was 400+ FPS over the velocity listed on the box. I stopped shooting at that point. Moral of the story: ALWAYS check your factory ammo!

 

[.300 Dakota]

This was never my forte either.
Recently, this changed.
When I bought my Rem 700 SPS Stainless, no one had dies in stock and then I found a Lee set. Had all sorts of trouble, so I went to my LGS and looked for factory ammo.
They had Barnes 165g TTSX, 1 box had a different Lot#, but I grabbed all 3 boxes. I was very impressed, extremely accurate, for factory ammo, and was within 30fps of advertised. Great, hunted and ran the barrel in with that. When I went to get more, there was none, but there was Barnes 180g TTSX on the shelf, 10 boxes with all the same Lot#. I bought 5 boxes, not cheap either, over $100AUD each.
Very accurate, put 10 shots into MoA @ 100, however, the box said 3250fps, those 10 shots averaged 3030fps, these rounds were randomly taken from all 5 boxes. 2 from each.
I have not hunted with factory ammo since the 80's, this was a pleasant surprise TBH, the factory stuff I ran back then was doing good when it printed 2" groups.

Cheers.

Not having any .243 brass around and then receiving a 50-round box of Peterson for load work-up, buying factory ammo to perform break-in was a natural conclusion to save my new brass for real loads that I'll actually use. That said, I wanted to get some ammo as nearly suited to the 1:8 twist as I could get. Most of what they had was 90-grain. There was a 100-grain load, but was a very cheap offering with a flat base. I thought the pricier 95-grain Remington boattail would be a better fit, and likely more consistent, since as someone pointed out, "You get what you pay for..." I was hoping for a secondary endpoint of finding something I could rely on to replace my handloads in a pinch if I ran off and forgot them at home. Yes, I'd rather waste Remington's components and save mine as much as possible. If you're wondering why I only bought 1 50-round box of brass, it's because if the rifle in question doesn't "shoot," it will be promptly rebarreled to something else besides a .243. Probably a 6mm Creedmoor, .25 Creedmoor, or 7mm-08.

 

[.300 Dakota]

So I got around to contacting Remington about this tonight. We'll see when or if they'll respond. I did point out what a few of you obviously missed in my original post that this Xero has verified other factory ammo already within a very small variation of that speed claimed by the maker. I've even verified older Remington ammo.

A couple people either missed the part of the discussion or are fooling themselves into believing 2" of barrel length and a factory gun can justify 400 ft/s of discrepancy between stated and verified. This barrel has 5R rifling. There is quite a bit written about the effects of 5R rifling on velocity. Most say it helps, some say it makes no difference. Nobody says it hurts- that I've read about, anyway. None of this has ANYTHING to do with shooting acurately over a long distance. This is about 1 box of bad ammo failing miserably to live up to its promised performance. And even if there are legal concerns for running fast ammo, that certainly doesn't excuse blatantly lying about it, which would be the case if that scenario were at play. So I'm not sure what rabbit hole some are trying to go down with this, but facts are facts and in this case, they are quite simple to see and understand. So if it's my Xero that's that far off, then every other load - homemade or store bought - is about 400 ft/s faster than advertised/listed and this Remington ammo is the only one that's right. C'mon man!!

I've offered to ship the rest of the box to Remington on my dime for their independent verification, AND I offered to take any other lot of ammo they have verified and see what I get. I conceded the variables which would detract from velocity for me, such as low elevation and 22" barrel. I also conceded that the ammo grouped acceptably well with the exception of 1 flyer which was way out from the rest on the Xero, and probably was about where it should be due to my intended application and the thin jacketed, polymer-tipped bullet. But the fact it was stated to be something totally erroneous was unacceptable to Western hunters or beanfield hunters. We'll see what they say.

I also asked about the serial number nomenclature in determining how many guns were produced before mine in this model. I'm eagerly awaiting feedback. I did tell them we were kicking it around on a MAJOR national shooting forum. That should get some attention from someone if they are interested in company image and good customer service.

 

[.300 Dakota]

Received an email back from a Sandra Strickland, Senior Consumer Products Clerk. Her message line was simply "What is the actual lot number" and her message was a short description of what the lot number would look like and where it might be located.

Apparently, the tiny number above the product Model number is NOT the lot number. I have no idea. I've never had to look for one before. But the message was very short and to the point. No, "Thank you for choosing Remington products. Sorry you are having this issue. We would be happy to look into this matter for you. We pride ourselves on making great products and want you as a valuable customer to be completely satisfied!"

No, none of that. Just "What's the actual lot number".

Now Sandra may have been instructed to say nothing until more investigation is complete. Or I may have really interrupted Sandra's plans of playing Monopoly Go at her desk today. Maybe Sandra is just a lady of few words. In my opinion, it does not give me the warm and fuzzies inside.

I work out of town, so it will be tonight before I can get home and retrieve the box to reply. I can't say I see which way this is going, because I simply don't have enough information yet, but at face value, they do appear to be concerned enough to at least look into the claim. I will relay further details as they become available.

 

[haisardao]

After reading your post I took a box of 6CM Hornady ELD M 108 gr I had at home. Not as bad but I'm happy I reload all my ammo.

 

[.300 Dakota]

After reading your post I took a box of 6CM Hornady ELD M 108 gr I had at home. Not as bad but I'm happy I reload all my ammo.

What were they advertised to run?

 

[haisardao]

What were they advertised to run?

2940, I'm more bothered by the ES than the velocity.

 

[.300 Dakota]

2940, I'm more bothered by the ES than the velocity.

Still, over 100ft/s isn't anything to sneeze at. Now my 7mm PRC Hornady 175gr factory ammo was all within about 30 ft/s and within 8 - 38 ft/s with advertised spec. I had a 27" barrel, but I'm basically at sea level, so I can't complain about that 1 bit! And it grouped under 1/2".

But for those who don't know (I'm probably the only one), here's the lot# on Remington ammunition: