I had a few boxes of ammo that doesn’t do very well in my rifle, so I decided to pull the bullets and save the primed brass for my reloads.
For kicks I weighed each charge from the first box of 20. I had 10 different charge weights in a box of 20 rounds! I mean I knew factory ammo wasn’t great, but man this was kind of an eye opener.
60.6
62.1
62.7
62.8
62.9
63.1
63.2
63.3
63.6
64.1
Wow! I know Jim has mentioned that he found factory ammo way off, but your numbers above…?? 3.5 grains difference in one box of ammo? That seems downright scary.
Yikes. What factory load was this?
These were Winchester Copper Impact 162 Grain
Winchester, go figure!
Personally, I’m guessing that factory ammo QC is way down because everything that is released will eventually get bought regardless since component prices are still up and availability is sporadic for many loadings. I think pre-2021 ammo seemed a lot more consistent but with a shortage, factories getting more components than handloaders from what I can tell, and the introduction of a handful of new cartridges I think the quality is all over the place short of going the boutique ammo loader route if you aren’t a handloader.
If you want to get the best from your rifle reload your own ammo and learn to reduce your Standard Deviation to sub ten feet per second. If you run factory ammo you are not getting anywhere close to this.
Jim please run factory ammo thew a chronograph so everyone can see why they are getting larger groups. Question why do bech rest shooter reload their own ammo. It so achieve a better S.D. then factor ammo.
Just another reason to relaod!
This causes me to consider pulling bullets on two boxes of factory ammo I bought… take the average & reload 'em back with the average weight.
I bought Hornady American Whitetail in a 129gr Interlock, and then Hornady Precision Hunter with the 143 gr ELD-X.
Spread on the 129 was about 2". The 143gr came in right close to an inch.
Did the rifle really not “like” the lighter bullet, or was it the quality/consistency of the charge weights?
Your experience is interesting enough for me to try one of the two remaining boxes I have of the 129s.