What shoots best

black_bear

black_bear

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Not sure if this is the right forum to post, but was wondering how do you narrow down to a specific ammunition your rifle likes? Do you just buy a whole bunch of different ammunition in different weights? Or do you just find out overtime?

Thanks.
 
Buy 2 or 3 boxes of each and find what works best. Then try other brands.
Brand X of one bullet weight may shoot better than Brand Y of the same weight but Brand Z may smoke them both. Every rifle is different.
Hand loading is the way to go to find what your rifle likes best. For the price of about 10 boxes of match ammo or 20 boxes of Wal-Mart specials you can set yourself up with a nice reloading kit.
Now if you are talking about rimfire, ammo is pretty cheap unless you are looking for bugholes at 100 yards from a match rifle. In that case you are looking at about $100-$140 for a brick of 500:eek: Some people won't pay for that much accuracy. ;)
 
Black Bear, you'll probably be a poor student like me pretty soon;) so if you can find a buddy with a gun in the same cal, pool together and buy a few boxes to try out. You're right in that the best way is trial and error.

Ask around here for where to start looking (ie loads, weights, bullet types etc) depending on what the application is. I'm sure you'll get more suggestions than you asked for!

edited to add: take notes too! After you choose to use a certain type, (for hunting for example) make some notes on how the round performed etc so you can build a basis for comparison.
 
"...buy a whole bunch of different ammunition..." Sort of. Gets expensive though. If you don't reload, you have to try as many brands and bullet weights as you can in your chosen calibre. Same as you have to with a .22LR. However, you can narrow it down by calibre. The .30-06 and .308 tend to shoot 165 grain hunting bullets best. So you can try factory ammo with that bullet weight first. A 165 grain hunting bullet in either will take any game with no fuss.
Reloading is your best bet though. No factory ammo, as good as it is these days, will shoot as well as ammo that's tailored to your rifle.
 
Myself , I buy 3 different boxes and try them . One is always a tighter group and its not always the most expensive box . then when I need a box of ammo I buy the one that works and another different one again to see how it will work ( unless I'm very happy with one of the first ones ) .Reloading isn't cheaper , you just get to play more . This powder didn't work with that bullit and so on you wind up with a lot of product that is useless to you and worth even less to anyone else . For the reloading to pay off you would have to shoot a lot and load for all you guns , then atleast the unwanted product will still get used up on something , eventually .
 
Like mentioned before friends is the cheapest way to go. It all depends on how tite of a group you want and how much shooting you want to do. I reload and so do most of my friends that hunt so we have lots of tried loads and componants to trade. I have been able to use, sell or trade every powder and bullet I have bought. If you start to reload go to gun show where you find lots of part boxes of bullets that you can buy cheap to test.
 
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