Sierra TMK 77gr vs Lapua 69gr OTM Scenars

[chaz]

I want to try a box of the Sierra TMK 77's in my Tikka T3 1 in 8 twist, but was shocked at the price. £37 a 100 versus £33 for a 100 Scenars in my area. I will give them a go, but they're more expensive than the Lapua 69 grain Scenars!

Whats the score with that then? I naturally presumed the Lapua would be better or at least match the quality? Albeit the TMK's have a higher G1 BC rating. Or is that why they're more money than the Scenars?

Not withstanding that my rifle may like one over the other anyhow...

Constructive comments appreciated.

Chaz.

[VarmLR]

The price is the price. TMKs are not a one piece bullet and are therefore going to attract a small additional premium to cover associated manufacturing costs, plus they're a relatively new line up and made to very high tolerances compared to some older designs. These things plus demand all attract a premium price. They seem no more expensive than any other premium bullet really. I agree, they're not in the plinking ammo cost bracket, but then they're not really plinking ammo. They're possibly one of the best all round bullet designs doing the rounds at present, incredibly consistent, batch to batch and therefore a very reliable bullet. You pays your money and makes your choice.

 

If cost is an issue, then the standard smk is still a great bullet at a decent price.

 

Lets put it into perspective. Any half decent factory round for the .223 will be costing you £25 per 20 these days, or £1.25 per pop.

 

Home loading, using cases that you should get up to 20 firings from (if you anneal and don't load too hot) will cost you about 60 pence tops per round. That's very good value for a premium round.

 

Also, last time I looked, Lapua 69gr HPBT Scenars were closer to £40-£44 per 100! https://www.1967spud.com/shop/lapua/lapua-scenar-l/

 

If you're getting them for £33, my advice would be to buy as many as you can at that price!

[Laurie]

Also, last time I looked, Lapua 69gr HPBT Scenars were closer to £40-£44 per 100! https://www.1967spud.com/shop/lapua/lapua-scenar-l/

 

If you're getting them for £33, my advice would be to buy as many as you can at that price!

 

 

That was my thought too. 69gn Scenars aren't the most widely used 224s, so £33 / 100 is likely old stock and bullet prices have risen rapidly recently. With the pound sterling to Euro exchange rate currently at a mere 1.04 or .05 per pound, imports from the EU are going to see some frightening price increases simply because of exchange rate changes.

 

Having said that, Sierra has improved its quality control vastly over the last couple of years and it also regards the TMK models as premium products for which it can charge more. If I were in Sierra's management team, I'd be looking to have a strategy to have products that match Berger's bullet performance .... and attract the same (high) prices. It is Berger that sets the pace in long-range match bullets these days - in marketing as well as ballistics performance - and everybody else - Hornady, Nosler, Sierra - are scrambling to catch up.

 

The days of cheap Sierras are over unless you can find older examples. The company having been sold to a financial holdings company Clarus for $79 million two weeks ago isn't a good omen either. Prices tend to only go in one direction when bean counting outfits buy producers.

 

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/clarus-acquires-sierra-bullets-for-79-million-20170822-00496

[VarmLR]

 

 

That was my thought too. 69gn Scenars aren't the most widely used 224s, so £33 / 100 is likely old stock and bullet prices have risen rapidly recently. With the pound sterling to Euro exchange rate currently at a mere 1.04 or .05 per pound, imports from the EU are going to see some frightening price increases simply because of exchange rate changes.

 

Having said that, Sierra has improved its quality control vastly over the last couple of years and it also regards the TMK models as premium products for which it can charge more. If I were in Sierra's management team, I'd be looking to have a strategy to have products that match Berger's bullet performance .... and attract the same (high) prices. It is Berger that sets the pace in long-range match bullets these days - in marketing as well as ballistics performance - and everybody else - Hornady, Nosler, Sierra - are scrambling to catch up.

 

The days of cheap Sierras are over unless you can find older examples. The company having been sold to a financial holdings company Clarus for $79 million two weeks ago isn't a good omen either. Prices tend to only go in one direction when bean counting outfits buy producers.

 

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/clarus-acquires-sierra-bullets-for-79-million-20170822-00496

 

 

This is a very pertinent point Laurie, and far from shying away from current TMKs, people would be advised to start building stocks before the inevitable prices rises start to bite, as they surely will in due course. It will take a while for the bean counters to re-assess a revised marketing strategy but rest assured, when they do, Sierra will probably see a hefty rise in their "premium" bullets pricing.

[bradders]

GGG 69gn .223 with a SMK is £85/100....maybe the name isn't fancy enough, even though it's really good ammo

[MrCetrizine]

I'm now shooting PPU HPBT match in both .224 and .308 as they are half the price of Sierra and shoot just as well.

[gbal]

Bullet performance (indeed any gear) is relative.Note the absence of actual numbers (accuracy on target) or reference to what target is,size wize...in most posts claiming good performance.That's ok-you don't need premium bullets for such -often modest-performance,which may well be 'good enough'.

 

In ultimate accuracy terms, say 100/200 Bench Rest (.26 for 25 shots is a train crash,unless there is a hurricane blowing):

which top shooter uses PPU,Nosler,MIdway etc bullets? OR

 

which top shooter does not use Berger or premium custom bullets?

 

I'm not saying we all should pay more-'good enough' is good enough,and so is a factory rifle,mostly.

(Yeah,yeah...I've got some one off clover leafs too-near train crashes...a 3 shot 6mm clover leaf is .243).

Wonderful varmint performance,though.). :-)

Rifles also have their precision limits,which in a factory rifle-may be poorer than the same premium bullet's potential in a custom rifle.

 

gbal

[MrCetrizine]

Bullet performance (indeed any gear) is relative.Note the absence of actual numbers (accuracy on target) or reference to what target is,size wize...in most posts claiming good performance.That's ok-you don't need premium bullets for such -often modest-performance,which may well be 'good enough'.

When I said they shoot just as well, I meant exactly that, no noticeable change.

My .223 typically shoots between 0.4 and 0.5 MOA with my modest ability, my .308 is a little better. When I tried PPU bullets of the same weight as my usual Sierra based load, there was no change at all in group size or consistency.

 

Maybe in benchrest (I don't do that) they aren't as good as what people call premium grade bullets but I'd be interested to know how many people have actually tried them because I find a lot of brand snobbery among shooters.

I don't pretend to be a high level shooter, I'm still pretty new to it but I can't count the number of club competitions I've won against shooters who, "would never use anything but Lapua brass and Berger bullets" while I was shooting PPU, S&B or Hornady out of Remington brass.

[Laurie]

GGG 69gn .223 with a SMK is £85/100....maybe the name isn't fancy enough, even though it's really good ammo

 

I'd agree 100% and as 80% of a rifle's 'precision' comes from the bullet and as the older SMKs tend to work very well in most barrels, such factory 'match' ammunition can be a bargain. It shows how relatively little RWS and GGG pay for SMKs when bought in million count quantities!

 

The Euro is riding fairly high against the US dollar right now helping European ammunition manufacturers buy these bullets, but the pound's collapse against the Euro doesn't bode well for GGG prices to us. The advice for such factory ammo users might also be to buy as many as you can afford now subject to FAC variation holdings allowances and ammunition cabinet capacity.

[bradders]

The RWS 223 you mention Laurie is around £140/100 and shoots no better than the GGG

[MrCetrizine]

I've just spent half an hour searching the internet for a scientific side by side test of different bullet manufacturers and I can't find anything.

 

Does anyone have a link to a properly conducted test of any bullet against the same bullet from a different manufacturer? Better still a group test?

 

One must exist. Berger can't have become "the best bullet" based on anecdotal, circumstantial evidence or good marketing, there must be proof.

[Laurie]

The US Army did it many years ago in the .30-06 era testing Sierra MKs against its own standard and 'arsenal match' bullets and came up with an 80/20 split. 80% to the bullet / 20% to everything else combined. That's not to say that this remains valid today with modern barrels and components and the3 difference between the best and worst of bullets is much closer today than in the 1960s or 70s. This was in the days when (1) armies actually tested things instead of contracting things out and (2) the US Army and Marines took accuracy very seriously including success in formal gravel-belly competitive shooting.

 

The H P White ballistics laboratory in the USA also did a lot of 'what goes into accuracy?' work around the same time. One finding for instance was that charge variations up to and including 0.5gn had little or even no effect on pressure and velocity spreads or 'accuracy' in the .30-06 cartridge over charges that had in effect a nil variation. There was also an American ballistics experimenter / guru (C E Harris or Harrison?) who did a great deal of fascinating stuff and published it. He is still quoted today ion cast bullet loading, but otherwise it's mostly gone too.

 

Most of this sort of stuff has been 'lost' - it was in ancient American shooting magazines and Gun Digest annuals. Probably still hidden away on odd Internet pages here and there. Unfortunately, the recent demise of German Salazar's 'A Rifleman's Blogspot' has removed a great deal of older research from the Internet.

 

However, all is not dark. Bryan Litz and his Applied Ballistics LLC outfit is doing a great deal of current testing on handloading aspects / products / procedures using a 'Mythbusters' approach and thne results are published in his two volumes (so far) of Modern Advancements in Long Range Shooting. There is some really interesting stuff and I can reveal that you'd save yourself hundreds of pounds in expensive loading gear if reading some of his findings before buying expensive big boys toys! I will review the two in TS Online shortly having bought both books, but won't reveal most of his secrets (otherwise why would anybody buy two rather expensive books ?)

 

https://store.appliedballisticsllc.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=0004

 

https://store.appliedballisticsllc.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=0008

 

I can also recount several personal examples. The most striking was Henry Krank's surplus 7.62X51mm ball ammo almost certainly Gulf War 1 battlefield recovery and ex Iraqi MG (it was in 5-round linked disintegrating belt clips the 1 of 5 ball + 1 tracer having been removed). It had the worst made cases and bullets I've ever seen (many bullet bases tail sections crushed or square) huge weight discrepancies, and three types / charge weights of powder - two ball and one extruded.

 

Pulling and ditching the bullets, sorting the powders out, squaring case-necks and dumping a few cases with flaws that suggested they might be dangerous to fire and reloading with the original 155gn Sierra MK saw 5-MOA + at 100 yards rubbish shoot consistent half to three-quarters MOA groups in a heavy-barrel Ruger 77V Mk1 that liked these bullets. The old 170gn Lapua B series Lock-Bases shot almost as well. Nothing else apart from bullet was changed, the rest just cleaned, sorted and inspected as well as providing single type charges of the original powder that had reasonably consistent weights.

 

Going from half-MOA precision to quarter-MOA / sub-quarter MOA (never mind 0.1-MOA for BR) for say F-Class is another matter of course and needs the whole package to be good and well matched.

[chaz]

Some really good replies there folks, so thanks to you all for your contributions.

I'm no Bench Rest shooter. It's more a case of finding more enjoyment from shooting at distance than vermin control in the last 12 months. And i had totally forgot about the exchange rate problem at the moment.

I don't buy cheap and cheerful for everything. I use PPU brass and Federal match primers and Viht powder and V-Max heads for vermin. But for what i call "long range" I use Lapua brass and A-Max Bullets. Or ELD Match that's not long come along.

Cheers.

Chaz.

[Laurie]

The RWS 223 you mention Laurie is around £140/100 and shoots no better than the GGG

 

Mark, I was thinking more of the sub £100 / 100 prices for the older 308 Win NRA ammo and its 155gn 308 Sierra MK that was provided prior to GGG getting the NRA contract.

[bradders]

 

Mark, I was thinking more of the sub £100 / 100 prices for the older 308 Win NRA ammo and its 155gn 308 Sierra MK that was provided prior to GGG getting the NRA contract.

Aah, from memory the 155gn RUAG was £84 or £85/100

The current 155gn GGG is £76/100 from the NRA....which is a cracking price

[Laurie]

It is indeed - you can't handload for that.

[VarmLR]

Oh, I don't know!

 

Cost breakdown for my 155 loads:

 

Bullets: 42p ea based on last batch price

Cases: lapua, now 6 times fired and bought for £30 once fired, so based on my next firing: 5p

Propellant: 23p

Primers: 3

 

Total 73p/shot

 

Cost break-down of my current LR loads in .308:

 

As above plus 7p/shot so 80p/shot for LR rounds using TMKs

 

[gbal]

Looking back over the years...both Sierra and Lapua have been bankers-in several calibres-shot well in everything,maybe a slight preference for one/other in a few rifles...nothing in it though,so it's try and see,for the OP with 224.

 

On the other hand,almost every .0x/.01x/.02x 5 shot group from my BR rifles (22/6PPC,6.5&7mmand 30cal)have been shot with Bergers (save a very few with custom bullets,though to be fair,other makes were not much used...it may be that in very precise capability rifles,Berger are worth the premium...

 

But the 2017 IBS 100/200 Bench Rest results are out-not one podium shooter in any of the four classes was using anything but custom bullets (usually his own make).....

 

So maybe,at the very top (of that game),Bergers have to give way too...as ever,shoot what works to your satisfactions...I can't see 'good' bullets getting less expensive;value is a different judgement sometimes. :-)

 

gbal

 

Ps agree about reloading ball park costs quoted. ("just" for consumables..annealing to extend life too will add a few pence -10p min if done for you).

[chaz]

Can't argue with all with all the experience out the.... But looking at the Berger 70 grain ELD's were exactly inspiring..... Yes the price is about the same...But the Meplat's seem all over the place, (For what they're intended..) Am i being too finicky or do people "machine" the meplat's out, and even them up???

Thanks.

[deadcenter]

I've also had excellent results with 69gr .223s, as above, no real difference from my SMK load when loaded up the same.

 

But...........

 

Did find this in a batch. Only one I've come across but never found a Sierra one like it. The PPUs perform well but I think you get what you pay for quality wise.