Bad Hornady ammo 300PRC, 1/2 MOA to 6 MOA based on lot number.

tangosierra19 · May 8, 2024

If anyone has insight it would be appreciated! I'm hoping this is the appropriate forum, reloaders would know more about this than anyone.

I bought 1200 rounds of Hornady factory 300PRC 225ELDM with the plan to shoot it over the next couple years and then reload those casings to as long as possible.

I went through 200 rounds of factory Hornady 300 PRC 225 ELDM and got sub MOA accuracy, immediately upon switching to a new lot number the group at 100yds is about 6 MOA. Switching to the old lot I'm getting sub MOA again. It's definitely the ammo(manufacturer checked the gun because that was my first thought). Hornady said they won't do anything about the ammo because the lot number meets there "minimum requirements" when it was tested and "every lot number is different so it's just the luck of the draw, you should have shot it before you bought that lot number". The really interesting thing is that the carbon marks around the casing neck are completely different. The good lot number has very minimal carbon at the base of the neck. The bad lot has a very dark carbon wavy pattern that goes all the way around. After checking all my lot numbers I have 500rds of this lot and another 200 from a different lot with the same wavy carbon marks and that group 4-6MOA in random directions at 100yds. Any insight on a solution or how to deal with Hornady would be much appreciated. If it's a brass issue I'm assuming I wouldn't want to reload these casings either.

Evintos · May 8, 2024

Compare powder (pull bullet, dump powder, weigh and examine)
Compare bullet (pull bullets, compare length and bullet base to ogive)

Could be poor quality bullets that should've been rejected but were used. Could've been a switch in powder. Could've been a change in amount of powder.

Sell the lot that doesn't work for your rifle or try to make it work by recycling components.

rustyinbend · May 8, 2024

I would take 10 of those spent cases, and run them through proper reloading processes (clean, anneal, FL size, etc.) and then shoot 'em. That'll tell you if the lot has a "case" problem, or something else.

ShtrRdy · May 8, 2024

I recently went through a similar exercise with Hornady Match ammo for the 6mm Creedmoor. Not as bad as your seeing but bad enough for me to get upset about it. I pulled the bullet on one cartridge from each lot and the powder was obviously different.

If you look at the lot number the first digit indicates product type. A '3' indicates loaded ammunition. The next two digits indicate the year of manufacture. The remaining digits identify lot number. In my case I had a lot from 2021 and a lot from 2023.

Kickin45 · May 8, 2024

I just got 100 rounds of factory Hornady 225
I also had a new FX120 scale, so I had a little fun.
Weighed about 50 rounds, all the same lot.

Long story short, they were off by up to 6 grains. Whether that is powder, bullet, case, or all of the above I don’t know. I did pull 2 of the pills to measure the powder. It was a difference of 2gns. But that is only checking 2
Basically, factory ammo is a crapshoot

ShtrRdy · May 8, 2024

Kickin45 said:
I just got 100 rounds of factory Hornady 225
I also had a new FX120 scale, so I had a little fun.
Weighed about 50 rounds, all the same lot.

Long story short, they were off by up to 6 grains. Whether that is powder, bullet, case, or all of the above I don’t know. I did pull 2 of the pills to measure the powder. It was a difference of 2gns. But that is only checking 2
Basically, factory ammo is a crapshoot

Which product line were you working with?

Kickin45 · May 8, 2024

ShtrRdy said:
Which product line were you working with?

I just got 100 rounds of factory Hornady 225

tangosierra19 · May 8, 2024

Evintos said:
Compare powder (pull bullet, dump powder, weigh and examine)
Compare bullet (pull bullets, compare length and bullet base to ogive)

Could be poor quality bullets that should've been rejected but were used. Could've been a switch in powder. Could've been a change in amount of powder.

Sell the lot that doesn't work for your rifle or try to make it work by recycling components.

Thanks! I'll try this first.

ShtrRdy said:
I recently went through a similar exercise with Hornady Match ammo for the 6mm Creedmoor. Not as bad as your seeing but bad enough for me to get upset about it. I pulled the bullet on one cartridge from each lot and the powder was obviously different.

If you look at the lot number the first digit indicates product type. A '3' indicates loaded ammunition. The next two digits indicate the year of manufacture. The remaining digits identify lot number. In my case I had a lot from 2021 and a lot from 2023.

Good to know! In. That case I have a total of 5 lots. The 3 oldest are 2020-2022 , they shot good, the 2 that are bad are the newest, late 2022 and 2023 production. I had a friend run the bad lots in his new gun, custom cut bartlein barrel etc. he couldn't get better than 1.5 moa. All his other groups were sub 1/2 with factory.

918v · May 8, 2024

Don’t mix the cases from the different lots.

You could pull the bullets from the bad lot, weigh the powder charges, and reassemble using consistent batches of three to see which charge is accurate. Then fix the rest of the lot.

tangosierra19 · May 9, 2024

918v said:
Don’t mix the cases from the different lots.

You could pull the bullets from the bad lot, weigh the powder charges, and reassemble using consistent batches of three to see which charge is accurate. Then fix the rest of the lot.

I've got them all in their original boxes. I can tell which ones they are too just because of the funky carbon burn in the necks. Ide really like to know why all the bad lots are making that wave pattern on the necks, I'm assuming it's lower pressure?

rustyinbend said:
I would take 10 of those spent cases, and run them through proper reloading processes (clean, anneal, FL size, etc.) and then shoot 'em. That'll tell you if the lot has a "case" problem, or something else.

I don't have a load built out yet, but I'll try brass from both good and bad and track it. Thanks!

Mavrykk · May 9, 2024

So far I've got about 860 rounds of factory 300prc eldx rounds that look exactly like all your supposed bad rounds on the right. With those odd shaped carbon marks.
Literally all of them look like that.
I always figured it was from my chamber.. I guess not after seeing your post.
I haven't had a single complaint with any of these rounds..
If I do my part some days I'll get 3" to 9" groups at 700.
5" to 11" groups at 1k.
recently starting hitting 15x 20 plates at 1650 with it.
I can also atest that my fundamentals still need a lot of work to stay consistent.
But the 212eldx has shot so well for me and exceeded so many expectations that I questioned my sanity once I started to get into reloading.
I absolutely hate reloading. But it gives me something to do all winter now.

tangosierra19 · May 9, 2024

Mavrykk said:
So far I've got about 860 rounds of factory 300prc eldx rounds that look exactly like all your supposed bad rounds on the right. With those odd shaped carbon marks.
Literally all of them look like that.
I always figured it was from my chamber.. I guess not after seeing your post.
I haven't had a single complaint with any of these rounds..
If I do my part some days I'll get 3" to 9" groups at 700.
5" to 11" groups at 1k.
recently starting hitting 15x 20 plates at 1650 with it.
I can also atest that my fundamentals still need a lot of work to stay consistent.
But the 212eldx has shot so well for me and exceeded so many expectations that I questioned my sanity once I started to get into reloading.
I absolutely hate reloading. But it gives me something to do all winter now.

That's interesting, I've done a lot of looking around and there's quite a number of people that get those marks on the casing with no issue. But it's not from different lot numbers on factory ammo. Most people get great groups regardless of the wavy carbon marks(like yourself) and it's not a deciding factor. But if you were to mix different lot numbers and let me shoot them I can literally tell you what the carbon burn mark on the neck will look like before I eject the casing, just based on where the shot landed. It's frustrating that it makes that big of a difference.

vh20 · May 9, 2024

I've put about 800 rds of the factory 300PRC 225 ELD Match through my AI AXSR. In the beginning I was getting typical ELD Match results - 0.5 MOA, ES mid-40s, SD mid-teens. Not "good", but serviceable. After 2 cases of that lot, the next lot gave me an ES of over 100 in the first 15 rd string. I sent Hornady the rest of that box plus another full box from that lot for testing. In the meantime, I had another case from yet another lot that I began shooting while I waited to hear back from Hornady. It seemed to average anywhere from 60-80 ES, 20-25 SD. It shoots 0.5-0.7 MOA at 100, but terrible at distance because of the ES/SD. When I heard back from Hornady, they agreed to replace the case from the lot I sent them. They said they got an ES of 60 on the rounds I sent them, and anything over 40 was out-of-spec. I said, "Thanks," but laughed at the idea of their ammo maintaining an ES of even 40, as I have shot a ton of it and have never seen it that good (sometimes the 6.5CM 140 ELD will do that, but it's usually mid-40s). Looking at lot numbers and dates, I have noted that anything manufactured up to around early 2021 is "fair", but late 2021-present is awful. I have experienced similar findings with Berger 300NM ammo as well (but not quite as bad as Hornady). My conclusion is that the high demand on manufacturers after Covid finally put too much strain on their QC measures sometime around 2021 and they haven't done anything to fix it. They're just cranking it out to meet demand and not worrying about quality. I also can understand that they may be having trouble sourcing the same quality of materials that they have been able to acquire in the past (reps from both companies have said that). Anyway, the end result is that I have quit buying factory ammo for the time being, and gone back to spending more time at the loading bench.

Northman623 · May 9, 2024

Sounds like there is a variance in the neck. The advise above 100%, Decap,Anneal,FL resize is spot on. Take 10 peices from each lot and mark them and go through your prep process side by side. When those 20 peices are preppped get the calipers out and measure everything. Essentially making a blueprint in your load notes. Then figure out how to get rid of the variance. Whether your getting more spring back or a more obvious change in neck thickness , shoulder height or length variance you will have to address it. Brass is so expensive you can't afford to not know how to massage it into your required spec. I shoot 416 so the above is just a peak at the struggles. Good luck

918v · May 9, 2024

No need to anneal an unfired case, just neck size.

FredHammer · May 9, 2024

Oh, I just read on here there is no such thing as load development and nothing matters except velocity and buying a match grade barrel...oh, and if you keep shooting that sub-MOA lot enough you will get to 6MOA because of stats n shit...

Rio Precision Gunworks · May 9, 2024

FredHammer said:
Oh, I just read on here there is no such thing as load development and nothing matters except velocity and buying a match grade barrel...oh, and if you keep shooting that sub-MOA lot enough you will get to 6MOA because of stats n shit...

That's definitely not what you read. That's what you incorrectly interpreted.

Malum Prohibitum · May 9, 2024

Kickin45 said:
I just got 100 rounds of factory Hornady 225
I also had a new FX120 scale, so I had a little fun.
Weighed about 50 rounds, all the same lot.

Long story short, they were off by up to 6 grains. Whether that is powder, bullet, case, or all of the above I don’t know. I did pull 2 of the pills to measure the powder. It was a difference of 2gns. But that is only checking 2
Basically, factory ammo is a crapshoot

2 grains, or 0.2 grains? Did you mean 2 grains? Just two at random, not a whole bunch? I wonder what the variance would be if you pulled and weighed all of them. That is horrible.

Imagine reloading some bullets at 34 and some at 36 grains. Then mix them up and see about group size . . .

918v · May 9, 2024

Malum Prohibitum said:
2 grains, or 0.2 grains? Did you mean 2 grains? Just two at random, not a whole bunch? I wonder what the variance would be if you pulled and weighed all of them. That is horrible.

Imagine reloading some bullets at 34 and some at 36 grains. Then mix them up and see about group size . . .

That brass is gonna vary by 4 grains so weighing loaded ammo is unproductive.

Kickin45 · May 9, 2024

2 grains.
1 was 75.7 The other round was 77.7

FredHammer · May 9, 2024

Rio Precision Gunworks said:
That's definitely not what you read. That's what you incorrectly interpreted.

Like you incorrectly interpreted that post. It was a joke, Debbie Downer!

JR1200W3 · May 10, 2024

Hornady on a Podcast: load development is a myth and your groups are too small

Hornady producing ammo: sorry it shoots 6 MOA but it meets our criteria

Malum Prohibitum · May 10, 2024

918v said:
That brass is gonna vary by 4 grains so weighing loaded ammo is unproductive.

You are conflating two different things. He weighed loaded rounds, yes. But he also pulled two apart and weighed just the powder with a 2 grains difference on just that small sample size of two rounds pulled at random.

Kickin45 said:
2 grains.
1 was 75.7 The other round was 77.7

Wow.

New reloading procedure. Anything within 2 full grains of desired powder charge is G2G!

Rocketmandb · May 10, 2024

JR1200W3 said:
Hornady on a Podcast: load development is a myth and your groups are too small

Hornady producing ammo: sorry it shoots 6 MOA but it meets our criteria

I was thinking the exact same thing.

vh20 · May 10, 2024

Literally was told by their tech rep over the phone last week: "If you're getting the group size you want, don't worry about SD."
He didn't seem to have a clue that what gets by at 100 won't work at a mile.

Rocketmandb · May 10, 2024

vh20 said:
He didn't seem to have a clue that what gets by at 100 won't work at a mile.

They're not alone - there are plenty of people on this site who don't realize the same thing.

kthomas · May 10, 2024

@Ledzep

CaptNemo · May 10, 2024

Apparently Hornady is having a tough time with component shortages / availability since the first of the year.
I was listening to the "Big Game Hunting Podcast" and Hornady's current production 7mm PRC 175 ammo has had issues with being 100-200 FPS below Advertised Velocity on the ammo box compared to last years ammo production.
Pulling bullets and checking powder revealed a change in propellant from extruded to spherical depending on the Lot #'s.

It looks like a question of selling ammo that doesn't make velocity or not supporting the new cartridge that you just introduced a year or two ago ( Cough - Remington ) and watching it die on the vine.

kthomas · May 10, 2024

CaptNemo said:
Apparently Hornady is having a tough time with component shortages / availability since the first of the year.
I was listening to the "Big Game Hunting Podcast" and Hornady's current production 7mm PRC 175 ammo has had issues with being 100-200 FPS below Advertised Velocity on the ammo box compared to last years ammo production.
Pulling bullets and checking powder revealed a change in propellant from extruded to spherical depending on the Lot #'s.

It looks like a question of selling ammo that doesn't make velocity or not supporting the new cartridge that you just introduced a year or two ago ( Cough - Remington ) and watching it die on the vine.

This may be the best argument for reloading.

It's the only way that you can control what is going in your rifle and your anmo's performance.

Using factory ammo, you are subjected to the whims of what the suits and bean counters want to accomplish with their product - and typically, it's maximizing value and profit while sacrificing quality. Especially when market conditions are tough.

918v · May 10, 2024

Malum Prohibitum said:
You are conflating two different things. He weighed loaded rounds, yes. But he also pulled two apart and weighed just the powder with a 2 grains difference on just that small sample size of two rounds pulled at random.

Wow.

New reloading procedure. Anything within 2 full grains of desired powder charge is G2G!

I’m not conflating anything. My statement is correct.

Marine52 · May 10, 2024

The “wavy marks“ that you describe on the case neck (many experienced comp reloaders refer to this as a carbon sine wave pattern) are normal and show that you have good clearance between the case neck and chamber. The sine wave shows that some of the gases escape into the chamber before the neck actually expands completely, sealing the chamber. This proves that you are getting a good bullet release. Tony Boyer describes this in his book, ”The Book of Rifle Accuracy,” on page 149:

Too much clearance between the case neck and chamber will show the black smudge line further down the neck all the way around and even as far down as the shoulder.

Marine52 · May 10, 2024

Jack Neary describes the wave pattern you are experiencing at the 13:50 min mark in this video:

Malum Prohibitum · May 10, 2024

918v said:
I’m not conflating anything. My statement is correct.

Ok, then I must have completely missed your point. I thought you were quoting my post, about powder weights, but posted about weighing loaded rounds. Could you please explain what you meant in a different or simpler manner so that I can follow along?

CaptNemo · May 10, 2024

kthomas said:
This may be the best argument for reloading.

It's the only way that you can control what is going in your rifle and your anmo's performance.

Using factory ammo, you are subjected to the whims of what the suits and bean counters want to accomplish with their product - and typically, it's maximizing value and profit while sacrificing quality. Especially when market conditions are tough.

ETA: I'm not crapping on Hornady, it's a sign of the times and as much as we handloaders bitch about component availability, it's going all the way up the food chain.

kthomas · May 10, 2024

CaptNemo said:
ETA: I'm not crapping on Hornady, it's a sign of the times and as much as we handloaders bitch about component availability, it's going all the way up the food chain.

I agree.

I don't mean to crap on Hornady either. No matter how they decide to face external issues in the industry, they have to make compromises that would negatively impact the consumer. There's no great options when the supplies required to make your product are scarce.

Malum Prohibitum · May 10, 2024

I wish I had the technical capability to make any of the supplies. There has probably been no better time to wade into the market.

JR1200W3 · May 10, 2024

Malum Prohibitum said:
I wish I had the technical capability to make any of the supplies. There has probably been no better time to wade into the market.

Powder valley was selling primer reloading kits a couple months ago. Bruno's I think still sells j4 jackets so you can buy some dyes and make your own bullets. I saw a post a couple months ago about someone trying to make their own powder. I think it was generally black powder level but If you want to get frisky, take your life into your own hand the world is your oyster

918v · May 10, 2024

Marine52 said:
Jack Neary describes the wave pattern you are experiencing at the 13:50 min mark in this video:

I’m sorry but what he said is bullshit. I have had necks seal in a way where the carbon only went down half the neck and the clearance was .007”

Also, the carbon pattern does not reflect whether you have a two, three, or six lug bolt.

918v · May 10, 2024

Malum Prohibitum said:
Ok, then I must have completely missed your point. I thought you were quoting my post, about powder weights, but posted about weighing loaded rounds. Could you please explain what you meant in a different or simpler manner so that I can follow along?

I wasn’t criticizing you. I was just saying. I should have replied differently. Sorry.

kthomas · May 10, 2024

918v said:
I’m sorry but what he said is bullshit. I have had necks seal in a way where the carbon only went down half the neck and the clearance was .007”

Also, the carbon pattern does not reflect whether you have a two, three, or six lug bolt.

Good example that demonstrates that just because you are a great shooter, that doesn't mean you have a perfect understanding of internal ballistics.

And that's not a knock on EC or Neary - none of us do. But it's all too common to draw dispositive conclusions where they don't actually exist.

Ledzep · May 10, 2024

OP, Most likely what's happening is two different powders between the two lots. I'd guess if you pull the early lots it was when we had more ready access to RL-26 or RL-25, and the newer lot is a ball powder.

JR1200W3 said:
Hornady on a Podcast: load development is a myth and your groups are too small

Hornady producing ammo: sorry it shoots 6 MOA but it meets our criteria

Yeah, no. What we said is that the fastest way to get the bulk of the precision potential is to make swaps of components or big changes in powder charge because it's primarily driven by a combination of barrel, bullets, and powder. What happened to the OP was a change in components and a large change in performance.

Barrels are included in that trio and all of our bullets and ammo are accuracy tested before they turn on the machine to run. Two things can be true at the same time. It can pass spec (shoot well) in our barrel and shoot poorly in a customer barrel. There are likely hundreds/thousands of shooters out there with the same lot that the OP has that are not experiencing problems (And likely many that are seeing similar performance to the OP, unfortunately). That doesn't necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with the customer's barrel, nor the ammo. That combination of powder, bullet, and barrel just doesn't work at all in the OP's barrel. It's a risk that is there every time you buy any factory loaded ammo. You don't know what powder is in it and/or how it's going to perform in your barrel until you test it. We have tested this internally ad nauseum and I would be overjoyed to eventually find out the secret to making our ammo shoot knotholes in everyone's barrel every time.

CaptNemo said:
Apparently Hornady is having a tough time with component shortages / availability since the first of the year.
I was listening to the "Big Game Hunting Podcast" and Hornady's current production 7mm PRC 175 ammo has had issues with being 100-200 FPS below Advertised Velocity on the ammo box compared to last years ammo production.
Pulling bullets and checking powder revealed a change in propellant from extruded to spherical depending on the Lot #'s.

It looks like a question of selling ammo that doesn't make velocity or not supporting the new cartridge that you just introduced a year or two ago ( Cough - Remington ) and watching it die on the vine.

Powder is the one thing we don't make in house. 4-5 years ago we were swimming in Hodgdon Extreme and temp-stable Alliant powders. That's not the case anymore. When our ammo plant chews through thousands of pounds of powder a day to keep ammo on the shelves and the world being the way it is today, there are compromises. This family of powders is more "bipolar" than the Hodgdon/Alliant offerings. If it shoots well, it's very indifferent from the Hodgdon/Alliant stuff, but if it doesn't, it sometimes doesn't in a big way (see OP). We've seen it happen, but there's really nothing we can do for the OP until the supply of overseas powders gets better. The alternative to these compromises are that the OP only had the chance to buy half of the ammo and the 2nd lot never got made, and was never available to anyone regardless of if it worked well or not.

JR1200W3 · May 10, 2024

Ledzep said:
OP, Most likely what's happening is two different powders between the two lots. I'd guess if you pull the early lots it was when we had more ready access to RL-26 or RL-25, and the newer lot is a ball powder.

Yeah, no. What we said is that the fastest way to get the bulk of the precision potential is to make swaps of components or big changes in powder charge because it's primarily driven by a combination of barrel, bullets, and powder. What happened to the OP was a change in components and a large change in performance.

Barrels are included in that trio and all of our bullets and ammo are accuracy tested before they turn on the machine to run. Two things can be true at the same time. It can pass spec (shoot well) in our barrel and shoot poorly in a customer barrel. There are likely hundreds/thousands of shooters out there with the same lot that the OP has that are not experiencing problems (And likely many that are seeing similar performance to the OP, unfortunately). That doesn't necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with the customer's barrel, nor the ammo. That combination of powder, bullet, and barrel just doesn't work at all in the OP's barrel. It's a risk that is there every time you buy any factory loaded ammo. You don't know what powder is in it and/or how it's going to perform in your barrel until you test it. We have tested this internally ad nauseum and I would be overjoyed to eventually find out the secret to making our ammo shoot knotholes in everyone's barrel every time.

Powder is the one thing we don't make in house. 4-5 years ago we were swimming in Hodgdon Extreme and temp-stable Alliant powders. That's not the case anymore. When our ammo plant chews through thousands of pounds of powder a day to keep ammo on the shelves and the world being the way it is today, there are compromises. This family of powders is more "bipolar" than the Hodgdon/Alliant offerings. If it shoots well, it's very indifferent from the Hodgdon/Alliant stuff, but if it doesn't, it sometimes doesn't in a big way (see OP). We've seen it happen, but there's really nothing we can do for the OP until the supply of overseas powders gets better. The alternative to these compromises are that the OP only had the chance to buy half of the ammo and the 2nd lot never got made, and was never available to anyone regardless of if it worked well or not.

I can't hear you over the sound of a 6 moa group

Marine52 · May 10, 2024

918v said:
I’m sorry but what he said is bullshit. I have had necks seal in a way where the carbon only went down half the neck and the clearance was .007”

Also, the carbon pattern does not reflect whether you have a two, three, or six lug bolt.

You missed the obvious point of my post. The OP was concerned that the wave patterns on his case necks may be responsible for his groups opening up. However, most experienced shooters know that this sine wave pattern on the necks indicates that you are getting a good bullet release. So that is not the issue causing his problem.

Now you may have results that are fine for you with .007“ neck clearance or a carbon ring on the neck but Neary and Boyer are describing the optimal case. A group that goes to shit for them is one that opens up from 0.10“ to 0.15.”

Regarding the issue of bolt lugs and the shape of the sine pattern on the neck, to me that is a minor issue for you to be pissing about. I can’t see a reason for the number of lugs to change the wave pattern but two BR Hall-of-Fame shooters agree there is a connection.

FredHammer · May 12, 2024

I see the sine wave on my 708AI Lapua brass I neck turn to get good clearance. I didn't know that was a good thing till this thread. Cool!

mrcheesemoose · May 12, 2024

Ledzep said:
OP, Most likely what's happening is two different powders between the two lots. I'd guess if you pull the early lots it was when we had more ready access to RL-26 or RL-25, and the newer lot is a ball powder.

Yeah, no. What we said is that the fastest way to get the bulk of the precision potential is to make swaps of components or big changes in powder charge because it's primarily driven by a combination of barrel, bullets, and powder. What happened to the OP was a change in components and a large change in performance.

Barrels are included in that trio and all of our bullets and ammo are accuracy tested before they turn on the machine to run. Two things can be true at the same time. It can pass spec (shoot well) in our barrel and shoot poorly in a customer barrel. There are likely hundreds/thousands of shooters out there with the same lot that the OP has that are not experiencing problems (And likely many that are seeing similar performance to the OP, unfortunately). That doesn't necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with the customer's barrel, nor the ammo. That combination of powder, bullet, and barrel just doesn't work at all in the OP's barrel. It's a risk that is there every time you buy any factory loaded ammo. You don't know what powder is in it and/or how it's going to perform in your barrel until you test it. We have tested this internally ad nauseum and I would be overjoyed to eventually find out the secret to making our ammo shoot knotholes in everyone's barrel every time.

Powder is the one thing we don't make in house. 4-5 years ago we were swimming in Hodgdon Extreme and temp-stable Alliant powders. That's not the case anymore. When our ammo plant chews through thousands of pounds of powder a day to keep ammo on the shelves and the world being the way it is today, there are compromises. This family of powders is more "bipolar" than the Hodgdon/Alliant offerings. If it shoots well, it's very indifferent from the Hodgdon/Alliant stuff, but if it doesn't, it sometimes doesn't in a big way (see OP). We've seen it happen, but there's really nothing we can do for the OP until the supply of overseas powders gets better. The alternative to these compromises are that the OP only had the chance to buy half of the ammo and the 2nd lot never got made, and was never available to anyone regardless of if it worked well or not.

Curious if you guys would ever get into powder manufacturing. Would be nice to have another manufacturer ease the shortage.

Ledzep · May 12, 2024

mrcheesemoose said:
Curious if you guys would ever get into powder manufacturing. Would be nice to have another manufacturer ease the shortage.

I wouldn't get your hopes up. Not any time soon, anyway. I don't think it's that we're against it, but that's a heavy undertaking in cost, knowledge, red tape...

It definitely wouldn't hurt my feelings, and is probably a good idea for the country to have more domestic producers.

Ronws · May 12, 2024

I have the 7 PRC and a few hundred rounds of 175 gr ELD-X, primarily to hunt. I know others prefer the monolithic CX Outfitter because it is, in fact, lead free and likely to produce an exit wound, more so than the cup and core style, evidently.

Anyway, I have not chrono'd my factory ammo. I could take the easy way and just adjust calculations to 2800 fps. Granted, my limit of impact velocity may shorten my range of target but that is okay, too. I like the round for the impact performance and BC performance, so far.

I am the least knowledgeable guy here but even I know from one of old hunting friends that you are going to greater consistency and accuracy from handloading. It is painstaking to weigh slugs match them, the precise pouring of charge to match weight, and yes, of course, getting all 1 lot number. Adjusting seating depth, etcetera.

At the factory, they need some free bore flexibility because they cannot predict what rifle this will go in. From a Mossberg Patriot Predator to a hand-built rig with a Bartlein lapped barrel, etcetera.

I have read that Federal 175 gr ELD-X is getting closer to 3000 fps. And that is probably due to the powder. What happens when Federal has a problem, even with their proprietary powder that is not available to reloaders?

CaptNemo · May 12, 2024

Ronws said:
I have the 7 PRC and a few hundred rounds of 175 gr ELD-X, primarily to hunt. I know others prefer the monolithic CX Outfitter because it is, in fact, lead free and likely to produce an exit wound, more so than the cup and core style, evidently.

Anyway, I have not chrono'd my factory ammo. I could take the easy way and just adjust calculations to 2800 fps. Granted, my limit of impact velocity may shorten my range of target but that is okay, too. I like the round for the impact performance and BC performance, so far.

I am the least knowledgeable guy here but even I know from one of old hunting friends that you are going to greater consistency and accuracy from handloading. It is painstaking to weigh slugs match them, the precise pouring of charge to match weight, and yes, of course, getting all 1 lot number. Adjusting seating depth, etcetera.

At the factory, they need some free bore flexibility because they cannot predict what rifle this will go in. From a Mossberg Patriot Predator to a hand-built rig with a Bartlein lapped barrel, etcetera.

I have read that Federal 175 gr ELD-X is getting closer to 3000 fps. And that is probably due to the powder. What happens when Federal has a problem, even with their proprietary powder that is not available to reloaders?

Keep in mind that Federal Ammo and Alliant Powder are both part of Vista Outdoor. Federal gets Powder before Alliant gets it so sell to handloaders. There's a reason that none of us have seen an 8 Lbs. jug of RL 26 in a very long time, Federal is consuming all of it.

Baron23 · May 12, 2024

@Ledzep - many, many years ago I was speaking to a fella in the shotshell manf end and he told me that the powder I buy as a reloader is far more consistent than what they get for ammo manufacturing.

Basically, his point was that ammo manf have the ability to blend and adjust loads to compensate for variations in car loads of powder while the view is that the home reloader doesn’t really do this rigorously and liability is a very big concern.

Agree or BS?

moosemeat · May 12, 2024

kthomas said:
I agree.

I don't mean to crap on Hornady either. No matter how they decide to face external issues in the industry, they have to make compromises that would negatively impact the consumer. There's no great options when the supplies required to make your product are scarce.

Maybe correct the velocity on the ammo box...

Having trouble using the site?

Bad Hornady ammo 300PRC, 1/2 MOA to 6 MOA based on lot number.

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