Question? Do you find your accuracy is better with factory loads over re-loads?

[Spinkx79]

I am brand new to pistol shooting, I am not a great shot by far (yet).

I have noticed something that could be totally unrelated but i find that i can hit the target better with factory loads, the few i have tried so far are CCI Lawman and Amercan Eagle 9mm fmj. I picked up 2, 50 round boxes of Wolf reloads and a 300 round box of Canadian BDX.

Seems i have MUCH better luck with the factory loads.

Does this make any sense?
Im not looking to make excuses for my poor marksmenship im new, i dont expect to be good, I have less then 300 rounds fired in my life.

Im shooting an M&P 9.

 

[nada]

@ your skill level it makes no diff , they should all group very much the same . the only way to test ammo to the gun is a machine rest or an expert shooter using sand bags . what range are you shooting @ ? 10/15yds using your type of pistol , once your grouping , 10 shots , in 2" 100% of the time , then maybe look @ diff ammo . untill that time it's definitely the nut behind the wheel . focus on perfect sight alinement , breath & squeeeeeze , grip & stance . good luck & happy punching .

 

[misanthropist]

Some rounds will be more accurate than others for a few reasons...

1) some guns just seem to prefer one load over another. I had a 1911 that loved 5.2 grains of 231 and hated 5.6 grains of 231. Something about the extra bit of speed seemed to really destablize the bullet. No good explanation available. At 5.2 I could reasonably expect to shoot in to an inch at ten yards every time. At 5.6, maybe six inches. It wasn't me, it was the load and that gun didn't like it.

2) some manufacturers will meter powder far more carefully than others. Black Hills might meter their charges down to a tenth of a grain or less. Wolf might vary half a grain, who knows? I have seen mags of Wolf that went BANG bang pop BANG!!! bang BANG pop BANG.


However...by far the biggest factor is you. Unless you have a freak load/gun combo, there's a pretty good chance that at 7 yards, 2" groups are always going to be there for you.


Dial in your stance, grip, and trigger press and the rest is cake.

What does a dialed-in stance, grip and press look like?


Stance: feet a little more than shoulder width apart. Some guys will have one foot slightly ahead of the other, the so-called "combative" stance. I do this a bit for various reasons; it's not really necessary though. Weight on balls of feet. Knees bent. Shoulders rolled forward. Arms straight out. Lean forward. The gun will recoil back; get yourself solidly planted so that the recoil won't move you. Have someone shove you backwards; if you stay firmly planted, you're all set.

Grip: Maximum contact with the gun. With your strong hand, bury the tang of the gun in your web. Get high on the gun. Solid grip but not a death grip that makes you shake. Weak hand/left hand/other strong hand/### hand, stick your arm straight forward and thumb straight up. Now rotate your wrist until your fingers are pointing down at 45 degrees. Wrap that around your strong hand. Both your thumbs should be pointing forward. Yes it's uncomfortable. Shut up and get used to it.

Trigger press: smooth and zen'd right out. Balance an empty case on your front sight. When you can dry fire the gun without moving the brass, you're all set.

Sight alignment: Front sight. Front sight. Front sight. Focus on the front sight. You want equal sized light bars on either side of it and the top of the front sight aligned with the top of the rear.

Sight picture...varies a bit. M&P, probably a drive-the-dot situation. Dot on target = hole where dot was.

Useful tip: lock in the sights on a target and have someone else put their hand over yours and press the trigger. I did this recently for someone who couldn't make decent hits; turns out that with me on the trigger they were deadly accurate. Therefore: sight alignment was great; but a questionable trigger press. Solution: several hours of dry fire. Result: shooter now pretty good.


You go with that advice and think things through as you go, you will shoot well in a fairly short amount of time. You will hear some people say things like "maybe that gun doesn't fit you" or "get a .22".

That's why it's important to learn to shoot well...you need to kill those people.

 

[Spinkx79]

Thanks for the recomendations.

I'm going to give it another try this wknd, im gonna load up 2 mags with Can BDX and 2 with American Eagle and without looking at them load em up and see what happens. I figured it was a stretch blaming the rounds but it just seemed strange. Ill just chalk it up to coincidence.

My range is 25yrds to the target. 7, 10, 15 yards? Thats pretty close no?

 

[graydog]

Yes I have experienced the exact same thing but not with every gun. Some are worst then others. The factory should be better as everything is brand new and not reconditioned so to speak. I also think that the major brands of ammo have very good machines to make this stuff they sell us and everything is very uniform size when they start and finish.

Graydog

 

[misanthropist]

Thanks for the recomendations.

I'm going to give it another try this wknd, im gonna load up 2 mags with Can BDX and 2 with American Eagle and without looking at them load em up and see what happens. I figured it was a stretch blaming the rounds but it just seemed strange. Ill just chalk it up to coincidence.

My range is 25yrds to the target. 7, 10, 15 yards? Thats pretty close no?

25 yards is going to be pretty hard to learn on for most people. It can be done, certainly. But most pistol shooters find learning much quicker if they work on closer targets.

 

[COREY]

I have found certain factory loads that I cannot match with my reloads, but then again, I have some reloads that cannot be beat by factory loads in certain guns. If I have the time, I can usually find a good load for every gun; I am still working on the right load for my 1911 as the white box Winchester will make one ragged hole at 10 meters and my load is 1/2 again as big (would consider it a good load if I did not have the other as a basis).

My experience with Wolf loads have been okay, but they have never been an accuracy winner. One member of my club had such deviation in some 9mm loads that he could feel the difference in recoil from one shot to the next and the group looked pretty bad. Other lots of the 9mm ammo worked much better, so it could have just been that run. The 38 Special loads work okay, but my loads work better with my cast bullets in my revolver (but they keyhole in my lever rifle (go figure)).