Quote:
Originally Posted by elkhunter11
Just trying to see if anyone else is seeing 400fps to 500fps variations from shot to shot within the same box of factory loads. From what I have seen, factory loads have been a great deal more consistent than that, and even 100fps is not common.
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After our back and forth yesterday it got me thinking about the 500 fps wing I saw. While the ammo was stored correctly, shells from that box had seen significant bush time and given this guys hunting habits most certainly saw significant rain or moisture contact. Ammo from that box had seen a few seasons. Makes me wonder if those shells sucked in some moisture. They were factory Nosler partition tipped ammo.
The second instance was factory 58gn Vmax loaded shells. I bought a pile for my brother at a store closing at $8 a box. I can’t buy brass that cheap. The box and a half put by the Labradar was the limit off that testing that day so it is conceivable that they were two different lots. I think he has seven boxes of this stuff left so we will give it another try if he hasn’t got rid of them already. Even if it is lot to lot, that swing is pretty stinky.
Since owning the Labradar it gets set up every time. Due to its novelty, it seen probably close to a thousand factory rounds. Everybody wants to try it out and coupled with a pile of that factory ammo we picked up dirt cheap we have seen lots run by this unit. Handloads it’s seen far more. Before that I owned three other shooting chronies that saw a lot less use.
Lots of swings around 200fps with factory stuff. I had 280 rounds of factory 17 hornet which held interesting swings as well. It is a small capacity case where a little powder change makes big differences.
We just don’t typically see the same swings with handloads. I think you would see much less swings with match grade factory ammo but I’m not buying any just to test.
The other thing we noticed was some interesting variations between sabot slug ammo. Sabot slugs are a real PIA to get to read on the Labradar but it can be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LongBomber
I ran some nosler trophy match 6.5CM past the labradar, 6 shots varied from 2631 to 2704. Thats a decent swing, although 100 yard groups still hovered around .6" decent but significantly worse than what the rifle can do with handloads.
I think thats likely in line with what some guys get with handloads. I know several guys that do very basic reloading, the accuracy meets their needs and its mostly about cheap ammo. I would bet they have swings at least that big.
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That is a fair statement. It reminds me of this one time at the range. It was busy as hell and there were two of us that had two of the three 300 yard benches tied up. The third was tied up by another fellow so basically it was plugged.
I was catching the guy beside me when he was shooting his ammo out of a trg42.
He had almost 400fps swings in his handloads and was pretty upset by his 300 yard results. I let him run a few right by the unit and it showed him what was going on.