Range Report horrible ammo

[rbstokes22]

i just bought a 700 SPS tactical .308 so i bought some cheap ammo to break in the barrel which is some radway looks like its created in the 90's and has been shipped all over the world to wither away. The projectiles in the brass dont even seem to be seated correctly. Well anyway i couldnt hold a group under 2 inches at 100 and barely hit the target at 200. My aiming is on point and the rifle is good. To test that i went in to buy some hornady 168gr match grade and i shot at different points of the target holding groups of .75 inch-1 inch at 100, so i could be content with my shooting haha. So does cheap ammo make that much of a difference in accuracy with this weapon and what is some fairly priced ammo that will not give me this problem, or should i just start reloading?

 

[The_Hoff]

Re: horrible ammo

match ammo for decent results (EXPENSIVE),

or start reloading,

I would go the 2nd choice thats what I ended up doing

 

[LongRangeDDS]

Re: horrible ammo

There is most certainly a difference. Only last weekend I took some junky Winchester .308 147gr out for my 700 LTR. I struggled to get anything better than 4MOA out of it at just 100 yards!! It was so bad, I thought there was something wrong with my scope. Alas everything was still tight. I threw some Wolf in, and BAM! back down to 1.5" or so. Yes, Wolf! Had a couple boxes of match ammo I brought to zero my new REPR's iron sights with and that went even better.

I brought the various junk that day to get rid of it once and for all and I'm glad I did. It also made for much less guilt while dumping several full magazines thru the REPR in rapid succession.

From now on it's only going to be quality ammo unless I'm doing carbine-style drills with the REPR, for which Wolf-grade would seem ok. I may look into reloading at some point but I might not have the patience to do it!

 

[vman]

Re: horrible ammo

manufacturing processes have certainly gotten better with time thats for sure.

I had a mate open up a stack of unopened boxes of .30-30 lever action ammo. These boxes were old, but unopened Federal ammo.

The necks of the brass werent even square... they looked horrible.

This whole lot of brass caused a rediculous amount of jams in his rifle as well.

Fast forward to some new hornady leverevolution ammo... not a single issue.

So ya, old old ammo can sometimes be crappy however sometimes with rarer cartridges especially that brass may be all thats available at certain times.

A friend of mine holds onto all of his hard to find stuff for future handloads... anneal the necks and they are good to go.

 

[azimutha]

Re: horrible ammo

I haven't had results that bad with the Winchester out of my LTR. I had a bunch along with an assortment of other .308 147-150 gr. given to me by an LEO friend when his agency switched to M4 carbines. But none of it ever shot reliably sub-MOA. Last 8 rounds I had, I used on a dot drill and the first six rounds went great. The last two were an inch away - one right and one left from the edge of the dot.

All my stuff that counts I handload and, yes, it does take patience. But it's rewarding and usually a relaxing, assembly-line process.

 

[KHOOKS]

Re: horrible ammo

I ran the Hornady 168gr bthp match stuff out of my stock LTR right beside the FGGM 168gr bthp stuff. Icouldn't see the difference in the groups to make the 15$ more per box of the FGGM vs the Hornady stuff. So I bought a 1000 rounds of the Hornady and saved all the brass. Now I have a stock pile of brass and good dope on that ammo. I also have began to reload the Hornady brass with there 178gr amax and rl-15 over a br2 primer. The LTR really like the handrolled ammo. I shoot it out to 1000y also. I don't got the wind reading skills down yet. But my load will hold a MOA at 500y when I do my part.

 

[Hook Creek]

Re: horrible ammo

I bought some PMC ammo when I first got my sps tac in .308, and I couldnt hold 5MOA at 100.

 

[Grump]

Re: horrible ammo

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: rbstokes22</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i just bought a 700 SPS tactical .308 so i bought some cheap ammo to break in the barrel
snip
Well anyway i couldnt hold a group under 2 inches at 100 and barely hit the target at 200. </div></div>

Welcome to the clue bus. Glad it didn't run you over.

There's a REASON why it's so cheap. Only the desirability of the waterproofing (primer AND case neck) and the cachet of "mil-spec" in a time of high demand have loosely justified the high(er) prices of milsurp ammo in recent years.

In the bad old days, good compared to now only in the realm of ammo prices, we bought that stuff to blast with, as a much higher-value option to just buying overpriced brass. $25 a hundred and you got to go BANG and empty the brass before loading it up with your match bullets.