Nosler Custom Ammunition????

[TheHardWay]

Just wondering about other member's experience with Nosler's custom ammunition. I recently purchased a 264 Win Mag just prior to a mule deer hunt. Naturally, having a new gun, I wanted to try it out on my hunt. I was crunched for time, so I didn't have time to develop a load of my own. I broke the barrel in with some cheap Remington ammo. For hunting, I decided to buy a couple of boxes of the Nosler Custom ammo with 130gr Accubonds loaded into them from Cabela's, with the idea that I would have some "premium" ammo to hunt with, and quality brass to work with in my load development in the future.

To my surprise, when I opened the two boxes, each box used different primers. Odd, I thought. Then I checked the OAL of the shells from each box as I could see with the naked eye that they were obviously different. The difference was .034".

I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill, as I realize these shells were produced in different lots, but geez, when Nosler states that it uses strict standards, you would at least think that you would get a similar result from lot to lot. When they say "Custom", do they mean that each box (lot) is a custom one-off product

Anyone else ever notice this?

 

[Greyfox]

I have always hand loaded but about four years ago I was given a few boxes of Nosler Custom 308's loaded to 2800 FPS with 165 Ballistic Tips. This was the same bullet and velocity of my hand loads which I used Lapua brass and 45.3 grains of Varget. To my surprise they grouped sub .5MOA,with the same POI, velocity, and ES as my hand loads. Accuracy was similiar. I ended up giving the rifle to my son in law. Since he doesn't reload, I advised him to use the Custom Noslers which he did. The later purchase of the same ammo looked pretty consistent with the original ammo I used. From that experience, it looks like pretty good ammo.

 

[TheHardWay]

That's what I've always heard too...that it was pretty good stuff. That's why I was surprised by the differences.