Is this Ammo Worth Getting?

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grauhanen

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Here's the question. For the rifle used, would it be a good idea to get more of this ammo? (I don't know if this particular ammo is still available, so this is a hypothetical question.)

I bought a half-dozen lots of Lapua Center X in March and recently began testing it. I've been testing with ten-shot groups at 100 yards . I hope to eventually get all lots chronographed.

Yesterday it was pretty calm so I thought it would be a good opportunity to test.

Here are two ten-shot groups from the same lot shot back-to-back. When ten-shot groups are less than an inch, that's usually a good sign -- and the signs were good with two consecutive sub-inch groups.





Deducting .21" from the outside-edge sizes, the groups are, left to right, .875 and .702". Were it not for the one apparently errant shot outside the group on the left, the results would have been even better. Of course each shot counts, even when it screws up what would have been a very good group.

Nevertheless, twenty consecutive shots produced two groups that together have a sub-.800" average. That's good by most accounts.

The chronograph indicates that each group had good ES. The left group had an ES of 34 fps, the right 31 fps.

To return to the question. Based on the information here, would it be a good idea to get more of this ammo (if it's available)?

Note: This is a hypothetical exercise for me. Unless I win the lottery my ammo purchases for this year have already been made.
 
I think you should use next years ammo purchase to get more NOW. It will likely be more next year anyway so you’re actually saving money. Who knows, that lot will be gone and you’re back to purchasing an unknown. (Just my opinion).
 
grauhanen said:
Here's the question. For the rifle used, would it be a good idea to get more of this ammo? (I don't know if this particular ammo is still available, so this is a hypothetical question.)

I bought a half-dozen lots of Lapua Center X in March and recently began testing it. I've been testing with ten-shot groups at 100 yards . I hope to eventually get all lots chronographed.

Yesterday it was pretty calm so I thought it would be a good opportunity to test.

Here are two ten-shot groups from the same lot shot back-to-back. When ten-shot groups are less than an inch, that's usually a good sign -- and the signs were good with two consecutive sub-inch groups.





Deducting .21" from the outside-edge sizes, the groups are, left to right, .875 and .702". Were it not for the one apparently errant shot outside the group on the left, the results would have been even better. Of course each shot counts, even when it screws up what would have been a very good group.

Nevertheless, twenty consecutive shots produced two groups that together have a sub-.800" average. That's good by most accounts.

The chronograph indicates that each group had good ES. The left group had an ES of 34 fps, the right 31 fps.

To return to the question. Based on the information here, would it be a good idea to get more of this ammo (if it's available)?

Note: This is a hypothetical exercise for me. Unless I win the lottery my ammo purchases for this year have already been made.
Click to expand...

I would spend $$ on that performance if the budget allowed it.
 
A couple groups are a good indicator, you should shoot a whole box to determine if it's consistent. 20 shots is a good start but not conclusive. If more of that lot is avail you should then get all you can - it prob won't be there when you're ready. Unless you want to start all over 'next year'.
BTW - How does it do at 50 - if that matters ?
 
What rifle are you using?

That said, if this was indeed the ammo and not the rifle, I may have a closer look at that Lapuas myself (whenever I go to the LGS and see the price of those things, I scoff...but if it yields this performance, may be worth another look).

Have you tried other ammo in the same rifle to see what the disparities are?
 
I can honestly say I don't know how I shoot .22LR @ 100 yards. Been years since I even tried, and I wasn't as well equipped when I did. lol

If those are indeed, 100 yard 22LR groups, I'd say buying a bunch of the stuff wouldn't be a bad idea. I'd echo thegazelle's question, what rifle were you using?
 
I have a CZ At-One and it really likes that ammo as well. It really likes Eley Team though and it is a little less expensive. To answer your question though, yes I would buy that ammo again, in fact I'm planning on it. Unfortunately North Sylva is out at the moment (I'm in the biz so I check it often). They do have Team in stock though and I ordered some for myself. TC
 
Without an agreement with your supplier, testing ammunition should be done quickly while there is a reasonable chance the lots you want will still be available.
Ammunition has been running off the shelves and to think that lot will still be available under current demands might be unrealistic.

I am currently testing lots of Remington Eley Match that was picked up on Tuesday and hopefully by Monday I will know whether an order is in order.
I am testing sporter weight rifles and while 1.1" groups would be nice to keep them in the 10-ring, that may be a pipe dream so the 1.25" might suffice.
Using the same target as shown in the original post.
 
Buy more ammo ?

Glenn:
Having read and sometimes enjoyed any number of your previous posts, I expect this "hypothetical exercise" has been posted for the readers benefit rather than yours. I believe YOU already know the answer"s". First, I believe that there is not enough information for a valid answer. The groups pictured while excellent by some standards using some equipment are not representative of what YOU would consider exceptional out of the equipment that YOU have access to . YOU and anyone else who has been at this rimfire game long enough have seen similar groups many times very often with ammo of questionable quality. Good results with poor quality ammo is a result of the unknown. Perhaps planetary alignment or divine intervention ??? It is rarely repeatable. ( I'm being generous with "rarely )

To me the answer to your "hypothetical" question requires a very detailed answer such as the ones you often provide to other inquiries. It cannot be intelligently answered with a yes or a no as requested.

If you are for whatever your reasons trying to assemble a simple poll of results my vote is NO do not buy any more based on those two groups !

If you had shot those groups with your "favourite" CCI Std or any other label that commonly sells for $700 per case I'd say load up. To invest in a bunch of ammo that sells for nearly three times that based on those two groups would be unwise in my opinion.

Regards,
dgb
 
Daniel G. Banting said:
Glenn:
Having read and sometimes enjoyed any number of your previous posts, I expect this "hypothetical exercise" has been posted for the readers benefit rather than yours. I believe YOU already know the answer"s". First, I believe that there is not enough information for a valid answer. The groups pictured while excellent by some standards using some equipment are not representative of what YOU would consider exceptional out of the equipment that YOU have access to . YOU and anyone else who has been at this rimfire game long enough have seen similar groups many times very often with ammo of questionable quality. Good results with poor quality ammo is a result of the unknown. Perhaps planetary alignment or divine intervention ??? It is rarely repeatable. ( I'm being generous with "rarely )

To me the answer to your "hypothetical" question requires a very detailed answer such as the ones you often provide to other inquiries. It cannot be intelligently answered with a yes or a no as requested.

If you are for whatever your reasons trying to assemble a simple poll of results my vote is NO do not buy any more based on those two groups !

If you had shot those groups with your "favourite" CCI Std or any other label that commonly sells for $700 per case I'd say load up. To invest in a bunch of ammo that sells for nearly three times that based on those two groups would be unwise in my opinion.

Regards,
dgb
Click to expand...

^good point Daniel. I was whipping through CGN when I saw/commented on this post, only this morning noticed who the OP was. Gonna be a nice gun, and grauhanen likely has his answer! :)

100 yard/22LR shooting-based on my 75 yard results, I'm not interested in seeing how bad I am @ 100. lol At least not at this point. I'm confident in my shooting abilities, and don't tend to have difficulty printing tight groups @ 100 with a centerfire. Leads me to believe 2 things-100+ is not the domain of 22LR, and I might be too lazy to do the hard work of proving to myself tight groups are possible with 22LR. lol Maybe this fall, but I (Currently) refuse to buy ammo in lots, pay more than about $14/50, use a barrel tuner, buy/use a rim thickness gauge, etc. Odds are definitely against me, but I'm always interested in seeing how successful these attempts are, how people pursue their sport with 22, etc. My favorite caliber!
 
Based on the limited information provided I would not be interested in purchasing this ammo. I would need to see 3 or 4 more 10 shot groups and what the average was for all groups combined. It appears that the ammo in question is throwing a substantial number of flyers. The question is, how many, and could I live with those.
I don't see any SD numbers reported, so I can't make a proper call in any event.
 
As I noted above, this is a hypothetical exercise. Had I planned to test and buy more, it would have been attempted by now. The dealer assured me when I ordered that he'd hold on to any lot I requested. But as I told him my ammo budget doesn't allow for buying quantities of any of the ammo I test. Excepting unexpected good fortune, this season's shooting will be testing the ammo I bought in March. I consider myself fortunate to still have one brick of the best CX I had last season, a brick that I had somehow overlooked last fall.

In any event, before elaborating on the ammo shown in the first post, allow me to begin with a little story from 2020. As many readers may know, I had been trying for the 1/4" club on the 1/2" at 50 yard challenge thread. Obviously without a decent rifle and good ammo success is not likely. I came close a few times but never as close as I did with some X-Act ammo that was gifted to me by a generous dealer, who sent a box of X-Act along with a box of Tenex along with an order.

By September 2020 I had run out of my better performing ammo. Not knowing how the X-Act might shoot, I thought I'd try the box. The first half-box was uninspiring, giving a five five-shot group average of .395" at 57 yards. I thought it was disappointing for such expensive ammo. Then I shot the second 25 rounds. Below is the target. With the subtraction error taken into account, the five group average was .203". At .254" the second group closed the door to the 1/4" club.



Needless to say, I asked the dealer that provided that box of X-Act if he had more. He did and I ordered a couple bricks at over $300 each. I shot some of it later that fall but it never gave me the kind of results I saw with the second half of my gratis X-Act. Unfortunately, I seemed to forget the results with the first half of that box. It's shown below.



While it's likely that back in 2020 I didn't shoot as consistently as I like to think I like to think I may do now, this was nevertheless a lesson that it's all too easy to focus on good results and ignore the bad. All results must be considered.

This applies to the results shown above. They are only a snapshot of how those 20 rounds performed. Like the X-Act example shown above, while the second half of the box did very well, the rest of the ammo was not so consistent.

Below are all the targets from last Tuesday for the two boxes of that lot of CX .




Taken together, there are ten 10-shot groups. They averaged 1.103". While not necessarily disappointing, there is considerable variation in group sizes. This may not be a good sign.

I tested the same lot of CX on May 25, shooting another 100 rounds. See the results below.




The ten groups averaged 1.074" and there were some good groups in the ten. But again group size varied quite a bit and that's a concern. Especially troublesome are the shots that seem like "flyers", those one or two shots that spoil an otherwise very promising group.

Before ending this discussion, it may be instructive to examine the chronograph results. But that will be for another post.
 
Chronographing .22LR ammo can provide some good information but doesn't replace shooting on the target.

Consider the ES of each ten shot group. (Note the ten shot SD is included.) The ten shot ES ranged from a low of 28 to a high of 40 fps, both coincidentally on the same target. That in itself is revealing. The average ES was 35.4 fps.




Overall, the first box of this lot had an ES of 46 fps and an SD of 11. The second box from the same lot had an ES of 48 and an SD of 13. Neither box can be said to have good chrony figures.

But do better chrony numbers guarantee better results on the target?
 
I tested a second lot on Tuesday this week. The chronograph figures are similar to those of the first lot. The first box of the second lot had an ES of 44 and an SD of 11. The second box's ES was 37 with an SD of 8.






For what it's worth, ES figures in the 30's or less with a sub-10 SD are encouraging.

The ES for the ten-shot groups averaged 26.8 fps. Looking at the last five ten-shot groups (the bottom bulls on the second target and the entire third target), there were some good ten-shot spreads, at 12, 20, 37, 26, and 20 fps, for an average of 23 fps.

These figures suggest that this lot ought to produce better groups by virtue of their more consistent muzzle velocities for each ten-shot group. Do they?

The ten groups have an average group size of 1.375" -- which is not as good as the first lot.

Even the second box with its better chrony figures had a five ten-shot group average of 1.211". That's a larger size than the other lot despite better chrony numbers.

The question arises as to what explains why a box of ammo that has better chronograph stats is outperformed by ammo with lesser chrony numbers. Obviously muzzle velocity in itself doesn't explain results on the target. Individual rounds sometimes do the unexpected, something that the MV alone doesn't predict.
 
Of course a small sample size of data should never be considered conclusive. (In the targets shown above, the variation in SD from group-to-group ought to reveal why ten-shot strings over the chronograph aren't very helpful.)

In addition to the ten groups from the second lot shown in the previous post, there are some targets that were shot on May 24 last month. It wasn't chronographed.




The ten groups averaged 0.960". The results are better but again there was considerable group size variation. The largest group was almost twice the size of the smallest.

It's possible that something else is at play, something that might explain why these May results were better than those from Tuesday this week. Did wind screw up the results of the second lot last Tuesday, helping to make them significantly better at .960" v. 1.375"?
 
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