Lapua X-Act
- Thread starter grauhanen
- Start date
Is there any evidence that shows that some rifles/barrels correct ammo defects? Is there any evidence that some barrels are immune to the potential consequences of wide ES and high SD values? Is there any evidence that ammo that shoots poorly in one good rifle shoots incredibly well in another?
Please share any reliable evidence of which you are aware, either online or in print, that shows poorly performing ammo in one rifle will shoot well in another. Further information based on sufficient testing would be very helpful and very welcome.
With regard to the testing referred to above, keep in mind the X-Act testing was with three different rifles. In none did the X-Act perform consistently. It did, however, perform well in all rifles some of the time. This seems to indicates inconsistent ammo performance regardless of the rifle.
I'm leaning to the idea that good ammo is good ammo and bad ammo is bad.
Below are some more Tenex results taken from the Eley Lot Analyser, now unavailable for several years. The images below show six different lots of Tenex shot with four different barrels in ten shot groups at 50 meters. Each column shows five ten shot groups for one of four barrels used.
What's especially an eye-opener is the amount of variation in group sizes with each barrel.
It seems clear that some lots are better than others, but with the variation in group sizes it's not so clear that the barrels performed very differently with any lot.
For your two first questions: of course not ! I obviously have no logical explanation for what I'm saying.
For your third question, it depends on how you define ''poorly'' and ''incredibly well''
. And I'm not saying that it's possible for a batch to always end up giving terrific accuracy in a given barrel. What I am saying is that it sometimes happens that a batch of match ammunition is very good in one barrel and performs poorly in another. Here are just a few examples of major discrepancies I've observed over the years with Eley. I'm sure similar examples with Lapua or RWS could be found. They are all 40 shots consolidated groups at 50 meter.
Eley Tenex lot #02030: 18.3mm in an Anschütz/Hart and 27.3mm in a factory Anschütz 1913 barrel
Eley Tenex lot #01038: 16.9mm in an Anschütz/Hart and 21.8mm in a factory Feinwerkbau 2602
Eley Tenex lot#06045: 13.9mm in an Anschütz/Benchmark and 22.6mm in a factory Anschütz 2013
Eley Tenex lot #06145: 13.9mm in an Anschütz/Benchmark barrel and 18.9mm in an Anschütz/Hart
I'd have other examples, but I just wanted to show you that differences between batches can sometimes be very significant.
I have to note that the term "incredibly well" was yours. In your post above you suggested the poorly performing X-Act might perform "incredibly well" in your rifle, regardless of SD.For your third question, it depends on how you define ''poorly'' and ''incredibly well''
Referring only to match grade varieties, ammo that shoots poorly is inconsistent. (Of course some lots are more inconsistent than others.) When it comes to shooting groups, that means that even though occasional small groups appear there is a wide variety in group sizes, with some not uncommonly twice the size of others, or more. Such results are representative of poorly performing match ammo.
If I was describing ammo that shot "incredibly well" its results would have to be extraordinarily and consistently good.
I never had any ammo that gave consistent, extraordinarily good results. Good results show up occasionally, but the ammo lots available are not so good that they show up regularly. These lots are not consistent from brick-to-brick, from one box to the next.
I suspect this problem is what leads shooters to think that different rifles shoot the same ammo differently. When the ammo itself is not sufficiently similar from box-to-box, results at different times will not be similar with the same rifle, let alone different ones.
