A number of you have seen my posting all over the T1X forum. I recently bought a Tikka T1x and promptly tricked it out with a KRG Bravo, an Area 419 Rail, Vortex 1.26” height 30MM rings and a Vortex Viper PST Gen2 3-15x44, I have a can on the end of it and have been pretty tickled with my new toy.
Over the last three days I have been at the range twice testing ammo. A lot of ammo. 1275 rounds over 21 manufacturers. I figure some of you may find this interesting so I will post my results.
My testing was shoot one ten round fouler group, shoot 4 ten round groups with the remaining ammo, then boresnake the gun. Repeat for the next ammo. Before you crucify me, I wanted each ammo to have a similar starting point, plus rack grade rifles get rack grade treatment. All shooting was done at 50 yards, outdoor, in ambient temps between 50 and 65.
I will have a few questions at the end of if you read all this, and have some insights chime in. otherwise, sorry for the long post!
To make it easier to digest below is a list of the ammo fired, in order of firing. Then (-) followed by the size of a coin corresponding to the size of the groups and another (-) if there are any notes. Remember 10 round groups at 50 yards. Shooting 600 rounds over 3 hours, even with all the boresnaking by the end the rifle was warm.
American Eagle HV – Quarter - super sonic – really dirty
Winchester Super Suppressed – Quarter
Remington Subsonic – quarter
CCI Green Tag – Nickel
CCI Subsonic – Nickel
CCI Clean Long Rifle – Quarter
CCI Pistol Match – Nickel – Super sonic – clean
CCI Quiet 22 – COMICALLY Bad groups, like more than a 50 cent piece - comically quiet, hitting the paper at 50 yards was louder, not joking.
CCI Standard Velocity – Penny
Aguila Super Estra – quarter – fliers lot of them.
Federal Gold Medal Target – Dime – as it got colder this started to crackle at supersonic
Federal Hunter Match – Penny – super sonic
Eley Club – Dime
SK Flatnose Match – Penny
SK Standard Plus – Penny
SK Rifle Match – Dime
SK Long Range Match – Penny - Super Sonic
SK Biathlon – Penny
Lapua Pistol King – Dime
Lapua Pistol OSP – Quarter
Lapua CenterX – Dime
Wolf – Dime
I intend to test a lot of the Eley flavors of ammo shortly. Also given how good it shoots I might try some of the Gucci ammo like R50, Midas and Tenex. I intend to shoot a match or two this weekend with the federal ammo this weekend. I also intend to do further test the CCI standard velocity, Federal Match, SK Rifle Match, Lapua Pistol King and CenterX. I intend to temp test the ammo. I have the Federal and CCI on hand so some of that is in the freezer waiting for the next range day. If anything stands out I will post it here.I intend to test it the ammos that prove to be the best at 100, just to see groups. I have been told that lot testing is best done at 100 since a dime size ten round group at 50 can mean a ½” gun at 100 or a 1” gun at 100 you won’t know until you try. Is this true?
I did notice groups open up slightly after each boresnaking, unclear if that was the “clean” bore or the change in ammo. However by 10 rounds it did settle in. I also noticed that colder bores (cease fires to change targets) the first round was more likely to be a flier, by how much varied.
This makes me pretty happy, I feel like with many varieties of ammo I can be pretty confident that it will be NRL22 accurate enough. However I have a few questions:
Over the last three days I have been at the range twice testing ammo. A lot of ammo. 1275 rounds over 21 manufacturers. I figure some of you may find this interesting so I will post my results.
My testing was shoot one ten round fouler group, shoot 4 ten round groups with the remaining ammo, then boresnake the gun. Repeat for the next ammo. Before you crucify me, I wanted each ammo to have a similar starting point, plus rack grade rifles get rack grade treatment. All shooting was done at 50 yards, outdoor, in ambient temps between 50 and 65.
I will have a few questions at the end of if you read all this, and have some insights chime in. otherwise, sorry for the long post!
To make it easier to digest below is a list of the ammo fired, in order of firing. Then (-) followed by the size of a coin corresponding to the size of the groups and another (-) if there are any notes. Remember 10 round groups at 50 yards. Shooting 600 rounds over 3 hours, even with all the boresnaking by the end the rifle was warm.
American Eagle HV – Quarter - super sonic – really dirty
Winchester Super Suppressed – Quarter
Remington Subsonic – quarter
CCI Green Tag – Nickel
CCI Subsonic – Nickel
CCI Clean Long Rifle – Quarter
CCI Pistol Match – Nickel – Super sonic – clean
CCI Quiet 22 – COMICALLY Bad groups, like more than a 50 cent piece - comically quiet, hitting the paper at 50 yards was louder, not joking.
CCI Standard Velocity – Penny
Aguila Super Estra – quarter – fliers lot of them.
Federal Gold Medal Target – Dime – as it got colder this started to crackle at supersonic
Federal Hunter Match – Penny – super sonic
Eley Club – Dime
SK Flatnose Match – Penny
SK Standard Plus – Penny
SK Rifle Match – Dime
SK Long Range Match – Penny - Super Sonic
SK Biathlon – Penny
Lapua Pistol King – Dime
Lapua Pistol OSP – Quarter
Lapua CenterX – Dime
Wolf – Dime
I intend to test a lot of the Eley flavors of ammo shortly. Also given how good it shoots I might try some of the Gucci ammo like R50, Midas and Tenex. I intend to shoot a match or two this weekend with the federal ammo this weekend. I also intend to do further test the CCI standard velocity, Federal Match, SK Rifle Match, Lapua Pistol King and CenterX. I intend to temp test the ammo. I have the Federal and CCI on hand so some of that is in the freezer waiting for the next range day. If anything stands out I will post it here.I intend to test it the ammos that prove to be the best at 100, just to see groups. I have been told that lot testing is best done at 100 since a dime size ten round group at 50 can mean a ½” gun at 100 or a 1” gun at 100 you won’t know until you try. Is this true?
I did notice groups open up slightly after each boresnaking, unclear if that was the “clean” bore or the change in ammo. However by 10 rounds it did settle in. I also noticed that colder bores (cease fires to change targets) the first round was more likely to be a flier, by how much varied.
This makes me pretty happy, I feel like with many varieties of ammo I can be pretty confident that it will be NRL22 accurate enough. However I have a few questions:
- What can be extrapolated from the data above?
- What else should I be testing? (Ammo variables…)
- How should I do lot testing? The same, different? Why? If the manufacture is the same but the lot isn’t, don’t boresnake or ? (mostly for the sake of time more than anything)
- How different will the lots really shoot? I can’t imagine its that different lot to lot, POI, group size and MV but I guess I have to test it.
- Can I get lucky and find that it shoots most lots of a certain ammo well? Is it worth trying to find out? How many lots would I need to test to safely say “all Lapua pistol king shoots dime size group out of the gun”? IE if I test 5 lots of federal and they all shoot the same should I not worry about buying 10K of one lot and just buy what I can/need when its in stock at Academy, or if it gets used as a loaner NRL rifle and I say buy Federal match at Academy to the loanee, can I be confident that they aren’t getting set up for failure because the ammo they bought sucks… My real goal with this is does lot testing matter? I have a lot of HV 22 on hand and want a lot of subs, however I don’t really want to repeat this test annually as I shoot through a particular lot, I want to be able to just order a few thousand and call it a plan without worrying that I am going to be wasting my money.