FYI, check your factory ammo

[thaught]

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!!

7PRC I the worst at this

 

[GSRetrievers]

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.

If you had used the Peterson brass to break it in, you would have 50 fire-formed brass to your chamber.

 

[marksman1941]

I couldn't tell you how many people I've seen buy factory ammo, read the little chart on the box that shows drop to 300 yards with a 100 yard sight in, and they trust it implicitly. Shoot a couple to set zero and off they go. No chrono, no dope verification, just blind faith that "I'm good to at least 500 with this". Always always verify. Even with a chrono, I still verify at the range I want to shoot at. If I haven't verified to 450, then I won't make that shot in the woods.

 

[memtb]

I couldn't tell you how many people I've seen buy factory ammo, read the little chart on the box that shows drop to 300 yards with a 100 yard sight in, and they trust it implicitly. Shoot a couple to set zero and off they go. No chrono, no dope verification, just blind faith that "I'm good to at least 500 with this". Always always verify. Even with a chrono, I still verify at the range I want to shoot at. If I haven't verified to 450, then I won't make that shot in the woods.

I agree with your premise 100% ……well almost.

Shoot and verify to the maximum distance available to you……your maximum shooting distance is obviously the best method!

But if you verify to let's say 300, which coincidentally is my home range length, I think that for my self determined maximum range of 600…..I suspect that the difference will not be significant enough to miss the kill zone on a Pronghorn and larger size big game animal, using a behind the shoulder shot.

If we're talking about "threading the needle" shots…..all bets are off! memtb

 

[WA Coyote]

Just shot some Flocci 40 grain .223 blue-box ammo the other day.

Box stated 3600fps
16.5" barrel averaged 2935 with a 10-shot SD of over 50.

They shot very well at 100 yards though.

I guess you'd call that "accurate, but inconsistent."

 

[marksman1941]

I agree with your premise 100% ……well almost.

Shoot and verify to the maximum distance available to you……your maximum shooting distance is obviously the best method!

But if you verify to let's say 300, which coincidentally is my home range length, I think that for my self determined maximum range of 600…..I suspect that the difference will not be significant enough to miss the kill zone on a Pronghorn and larger size big game animal, using a behind the shoulder shot.

If we're talking about "threading the needle" shots…..all bets are off! memtb

To each their own. That's just my personal methodology.

Here's my reasoning; my .375 Jaguar shoots lights out to 330. We have steel at my local range at 330, 480, and 600. I can consistently ring a 6" steel plate at 330, which shouldn't be too difficult for any caliber. At 480, even though there's no reason I should see a difference, I can't maintain regular hits on an 8" plate. With my 6.5cm, 600 is a piece of cake down to 4" plates, so I know it's not form or ability. The .375 just seems to start wandering a bit somewhere between 330 and 480. So my self imposed limit for that particular rifle is 350. If I hadn't tested at those ranges, I would have assumed that being good at 100 and 300 would mathematically let me stretch to 500 maybe. But with that setup it doesn't work that far out.

I'm not a good enough shooter to understand what's happening there to cause the issue. So, with any load I make and intend to use for longer ranges, I want to test and verify that there's not something goofy afoot before I try it on a critter. It's not worth wounding something because I didn't do my due diligence to verify I was indeed good to that range, and instead got lazy and just relied on the math.