So I've started this year reloading and I decided to try out some cheap projectiles. The main reason was that my boyfriend comes out shooting with me from time to time, he always wants to shoot my TRG22 but all he does is shoot the big gong at 200m or 300yards. He just likes to hear the gong make the sounds (Silly boys). I'm more OCD and like to shoot paper and concentrate on getting nice groups.
I'm was tired of him feeding my nice SMK rounds into the gong and bought some cheap Hornady FMJ-BT 150 gr projectiles (Budget Shooter Supply had them for cheap). I loaded them in brass that was well prepared, the brass was prep'ed for my SMK but used them with the Hornady's because that's what I had laying around.
I was at the range this past weekend and decided to test out these new projectiles and see how they were. I fired six 5 shot groups at 200m, the best group was .46 moa and the worst group was .81 moa. It was cold out (I was cold), the wind had heavy gusts, and to be honest I wasn't really trying that hard on the first few groups. Plus this was with just a standard COAL and powder load of 44.5 of IMR 4064 and F210, I've done no load development for this projectile I just figured it'd be a safe load to start with and it wouldn't eat up to much of my powder supply.
At 100m it was similar results with lots of 0.6 to 0.8 moa and a few sub 1/2 moa groups (again with no load development and not great conditions). To my shock I had two 5 shot groups that had amazing vertical MOA of 0.112 and 0.125, the gusting wind pushed them side ways to end up with a overall MOA of 0.631 and 0.460.
Before I fired a round I was expecting the groupings to be in the 1-1.5 MOA range, more then good enough for chuckles to hit the gong. But I was pleasantly surprised with how well they grouped.
I haven't played around with projectiles much, and the only reason I tried these was because I wanted cheap gong ammo for the boyfriend/friends to shoot.
Time will tell if this just happened to be a random chain of events and weather (or magical pixie dust in the air) that happened make this round perform well on that day.
Has anyone else had experience with cheaper projectiles performing well? Are these results usual for a projectile like this?
At 100m-200m what should I expect for grouping differences between premium projectiles vs cheap projectiles? (I suspect that at longer distance 500m+ cheap projectiles groups will fall apart)
Is the magic in the rifle/barrel and it'll shoot anything well?
Is the magic of reloading a good round in the brass preparation and load consistency, and less so in the projectile itself?
With some load development and a better day I'm thinking the grouping should get smaller and more consistant. So that leads me to question if I am just wasting money shooting SMK at anything closer then 200 meters? ~maybe 300 yards? (my range goes to 300 yards, but I haven't tried grouping these at that distance yet)
Hugs,
April
I'm was tired of him feeding my nice SMK rounds into the gong and bought some cheap Hornady FMJ-BT 150 gr projectiles (Budget Shooter Supply had them for cheap). I loaded them in brass that was well prepared, the brass was prep'ed for my SMK but used them with the Hornady's because that's what I had laying around.
I was at the range this past weekend and decided to test out these new projectiles and see how they were. I fired six 5 shot groups at 200m, the best group was .46 moa and the worst group was .81 moa. It was cold out (I was cold), the wind had heavy gusts, and to be honest I wasn't really trying that hard on the first few groups. Plus this was with just a standard COAL and powder load of 44.5 of IMR 4064 and F210, I've done no load development for this projectile I just figured it'd be a safe load to start with and it wouldn't eat up to much of my powder supply.
At 100m it was similar results with lots of 0.6 to 0.8 moa and a few sub 1/2 moa groups (again with no load development and not great conditions). To my shock I had two 5 shot groups that had amazing vertical MOA of 0.112 and 0.125, the gusting wind pushed them side ways to end up with a overall MOA of 0.631 and 0.460.
Before I fired a round I was expecting the groupings to be in the 1-1.5 MOA range, more then good enough for chuckles to hit the gong. But I was pleasantly surprised with how well they grouped.
I haven't played around with projectiles much, and the only reason I tried these was because I wanted cheap gong ammo for the boyfriend/friends to shoot.
Time will tell if this just happened to be a random chain of events and weather (or magical pixie dust in the air) that happened make this round perform well on that day.
Has anyone else had experience with cheaper projectiles performing well? Are these results usual for a projectile like this?
At 100m-200m what should I expect for grouping differences between premium projectiles vs cheap projectiles? (I suspect that at longer distance 500m+ cheap projectiles groups will fall apart)
Is the magic in the rifle/barrel and it'll shoot anything well?
Is the magic of reloading a good round in the brass preparation and load consistency, and less so in the projectile itself?
With some load development and a better day I'm thinking the grouping should get smaller and more consistant. So that leads me to question if I am just wasting money shooting SMK at anything closer then 200 meters? ~maybe 300 yards? (my range goes to 300 yards, but I haven't tried grouping these at that distance yet)
Hugs,
April
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