ELDM lot-to-lot variation

[Bevan]

I'm shooting the 108gr ELDM from a 6mmGT in a Brux barrel. I tested loads with one particular box to check if my barrel liked the bullet - shot 3x 10rd groups around 0.5-.0.6 MOA group size (0.05 - .06MRAD mean radius). Seemed all good, so I purchased 1000 bullets of a different production lot, and now I'm getting 10rd group sizes around 0.9-1+ MOA (mean radius 0.07+ MRAD) with that lot.

This is pretty frustrating, all I can pin it on is lot-to-lot variation in the bullets - the 1K I bought coming from a lot where, for whatever reason, the quality of the bullets is lower.

Anyone else seen a degree of lot-to-lot variation like this?

If that's the problem, what can be done about it? Really hard to test a production lot before buying the same lot in bulk with the market conditions these days

 

[hafejd30]

I haven’t ran the eldm. I run a ton of ELDX and they seem decent

I had a box back in the day (can’t remember if it was Amax or SST) but it had a .017” difference in a box of 100 bullets from base to ogive. It was very clear when seating before I measured them that they came off different machines even though it was a single box of 100 bullets

 

[Rocketmandb]

 

[spife7980]

Did you adjust your load to accommodate the new bullets?

 

[hafejd30]

I wouldn’t say variations are a bad thing just fyi. Obviously my example above was a bit extreme. A box of 175 smk was .003” compared to the .017” of the hornady

Generally if I’m running a bullet .020 off the lands. When I switch lots I remeasure the new lot to seat the same .020 off the lands.

Variation in a single lot is not good. But some variations lot to lot is expected

 

[stello1001]

It's a hornady, what did you expect? Yes there's gonna be lot to lot variation. ESPECIALLY with hornady.

 

[ShtrRdy]

Do you have a comparison of velocity? And a comparison of physical dimensions?

 

[JR1200W3]

Hornady would tell you that your first lot didn't shoot 0.5" because you were fooling yourself with small sample sizes. If you would have shot 30rd groups you would have seen their true inside-one-lot variation and would now understand there is no lot-to-lot variation. Just their normal variation.

 

[JB.IC]

There’s likely no lot to lot variation or if there is, then it’s minor and dwarfed by the within lot variation.

 

[Holliday]

Yeah the weight differences within a box of 100, shocked me. The term “match” is used very loosely with them.

 

[03machstock]

I came across this with the 75gr eldm’s. I had a load that hammered at a decent speed in my .223 so I bought 1000 more when I ran out. New lot had Terrible accuracy, I tried all different seating depths, powders, Hornady even had me send them some but the came back and said they tested fine for them. The bto measurements on the old lot to new lot were significant when measuring just the bullet. I ended up finding a charge that shot around .5-.6 moa but I had to slow them down to 2550 fps. It got me through an event I needed to shoot but I simply gave up on them (for this gun atleast).