factory match ammo test holy shit 0.094"@100

[silentsoulsleave308holes]

holy that which promotes growth and vigour found this on sniper central, couldnt paste picturesfor some reason and you will have to drag link to your search cause I am a dumb ass

 

factory match ammo (saami spec ) best group 0.094" @ 100

 

if some body can paste he link properly or paste the whole thing better please do

 

 

http://www.snipercentral.com/matchammo.htm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.308 Match Ammo Comparison

Table of Contents

Introduction and Test Procedures

The Test Rifles

Test Results

Conclusion and Thoughts

 

Introduction and Test Procedures

A while back I wrote about various match grade factory ammunition loads that were available and described my feelings about each of them. But, that article was not very complete and it did not provide much testing data to go off of. For a while now I have been wanting to revisit the subject and try to provide some empirical data as well as try out several other manufacturers 308 match ammo. I also wanted to establish a set of test procedures that were standardized as well as a format to the article that was expandable so that I could review and add other manufacturers ammunition to the test later without having to redo the entire review article.

 

Once I had set it in my mind what I wanted to do, I set out to gather all of the ammo I wanted to test for the first go around. I wanted to stick to the 168gr class of ammo for this initial test and figured I would open it up to other match loadings (175gr & 155gr) down the road and possibly even other cartridges beyond the 308. I then needed to set a standard for the tests. I wanted to take out as many of the variables as I could, but I needed to keep it simple (not a ton of rounds or complex mechanisms like a rifle vise). Without a serious vise I know that shooter error will come into play and I wanted to incorporate multiple shooters but ruled it out due to the constraint it would place when we went to add new loads down the road as the chances of getting the same shooter may be difficult. But I did settle on the fact that two rifles will be used for the test. Both rifles are permanent fixtures with Sniper Central and the same two rifles will always be used for future tests. More info on the rifles is provided later in this article. So, after a lot of thought, here is the accepted test procedure for each make of ammunition.

 

 

1 Box of 20 rounds of ammunition will be purchased over the counter/web/mail order to insure randomness. No factory provided ammo for testing

3 groups of 3 rounds will be fired from each rifle at 100 yards

Called flyers will be noted in the results but no individual groups will be re-fired

Each rifle will have a bore snake pulled through the bore ONCE before the start of the test.

Each rifle will fire 2 fouler shots after the bore snake cleaning and before firing the groups for record

Groups are fired with a Caldwell sand bag up front and a sand sock under the rear of the rifle

Groups are fired slow fire at what ever pace the shooter desires.

Groups are fired with a scope set on 16x (read about the rifles to see what makes & models are currently being used)

All rounds are fired through a chronograph to measure average velocity, standard deviation, and extreme spread.

Outside temperature is recorded for each series of tests as well as wind conditions

Retesting is allowed but the entire test must be fired as a whole for that ammo

As you can see, there are not a lot of rounds fired for each make of ammo, but I needed to keep it reasonable and I do reserve the right to do a retest. Shooter error certainly comes into play and the results have both the raw averages as well as averages with the "called flyer" groups excluded. A called flyer has to be called before looking at the target again.

 

There is no doubt that the test has flaws, but I have done my best to limit them as best as I could and still provide some useful data. This is why I included the chronograph results as this provides some true empirical data to examine, and not just some accuracy comparisons shot by a single shooter. I have provided all the procedrues so you can take the test results for what they are worth!

 

The Test Rifles

For the tests, I wanted to have two rifles represented, a standard factory produced tactical rifle and a high end custom tactical rifle. I also needed to know that I would have these rifles for a long time to come so I could add more ammo as time goes by and still be able to do the same tests with the same rifles. The two rifles I settled on was our Remington 700 mule rifle which is a 700 SPS-V in 308 with a 26" barrel set into a remington 700P HS Precision stock. The SPS-V barreled action is the same as the 700P, 700 VS, and other remington heavy barrel rifles. It still does retain the X-Mark pro trigger which is set to 3 lbs. This rifle is essentially a 700P and represents a very popular and common tactical rifle in use by many agencies and has typically fired about .75 MOA with Federal GMM. The scope used currently is a Mueller 4-16x50mm Tac I. All groups were fired with the scope set on 16x.

 

 

Remington 700 Test rifle at the cleaning/fouler station

 

The second rifle used for the high end tests is a Tactical Operations Bravo-51 with a 22" barrel. This rifle will shoot sub .25 MOA with federal gold medal match ammo if the shooter does his part. It is a very high end rifle with very high accuracy requirements before leaving the factory. The rifle is also threaded for a suppressor and all groups were indeed fired with a Tactical Operations suppressor attached to the rifle. The rifle is pretty much setup as it came from the factory except for the tests I have replaced my normal scope (Leupold Mark 4 10x M3) with a Leupold Mark 4 16x M1 in order to meet the criteria of 16x for group firing.

 

 

Bravo-51 at the group firing station

 

These rifles should serve as a good sample of what might be expected with this ammo performing in various rifles. Tac-Ops guarantees their rifles using the Federal GMM ammo, but I am not aware of anything special they do specifically for that ammo. Beyond that, these rifles will be in our inventory for a long time to come and we might as well get going with the test results!

 

Test Results

 

l-r: Lapua, Hornady, ABT, HSM, Blackhills, Winchester, Remington, Federal

 

The initial test included 8 manufacturers of match grade ammunition including Lapua, Hornady, American Ballistics Technology (ABT), Hunting Shack Munitions (HSM), Blackhills, Winchester, Remington and Federal. There will be more added over time as we continue to test more match grade ammunition. The summary of the results is included in the table below, but be sure to visit each manufacturers result page to find out more specific details on how the ammo performed as well as photos of the ammo, best groups fired, price, etc.

 

Remington 700 SPS-V (700P)

 

Ammo Avg Velocity Std Dev Extr Sprd Avg Group Best Group

 

Hornady 168gr Match 2694 fps 13.2 fps 43 fps .864" .481"

 

Winchester 168gr Supreme Match 2652 fps 16.16 fps 56 fps 1.25" .678"

 

Blackhills 168gr Match 2694 fps 20.52 fps 60 fps .774" .698"

 

Federal 168gr Gold Medal Match 2682 fps 9.23 fps 27 fps .873" .592"

 

HSM 168gr Match 2602 fps 22.60 fps 67 fps .588" .516"

 

Lapua 167gr Aficionado+ 2836 fps 23.85 fps 58 fps .788" .615"

 

Remington 168gr Premier Match 2716 fps 26.87 fps 87 fps .901" .483"

 

ABT 168gr 2704 fps 9.37 fps 34 fps 1.155" .550"

 

Average 2697.5 fps 17.73 fps 54 fps .899" .577"

 

 

Tactical Operations Bravo-51

 

Ammo Avg Velocity Std Dev Extr Sprd Avg Group Best Group

 

Hornady 168gr Match 2696 fps 9.88 fps 29 fps .668" .574"

 

Winchester 168gr Supreme Match 2672 fps 13.84 fps 49 fps .483" .483"

 

Blackhills 168gr Match 2678 fps 25.00 fps 85 fps .811" .650"

 

Federal 168gr Gold Medal Match 2694 fps 9.26 fps 27 fps .480" .214"

 

HSM 168gr Match 2623 fps 11.58 fps 34 fps .227" .094"

 

Lapua 167gr Aficionado+ 2807 fps 17.00 fps 50 fps .658" .588"

 

Remington 168gr Premier Match 2752 fps 26.15 fps 72 fps .686" .474"

 

ABT 168gr 2724 fps 17.18 fps 58 fps .673" .479"

 

Average 2705.8 fps 16.24 fps 50.5 fps .586" .446"

 

 

Conclusion and Thoughts

So, after all of this shooting and note taking, what conclusions can be drawn? As most all shooters know, rifles will favor a particular load for what ever reason, and I do not think I have proven otherwise with these tests. I would also venture to say that the single biggest limiting factor of modern factory match ammunition is the person behind the rifle. While I tried to take out as much human factor as I could, the rifle was still not in a clamped down vise with a mechanical device pulling the trigger, and therefore the groups were subject to the shooter and his errors. Which as we well know can be effected by many many things. I do plan to re-fire some of the above manufacturers to see if better results can be achieved, and we'll see how those go.

 

There are a few things of note that I would like to mention. It does appear that a nice tight chamber and a high quality barrel on a custom built rifle does effect things, as you will notice that the standard deviation and extreme spreads were reduced with the Bravo-51 on all but two of the loads and on the average of all the loads together. On some of them, it was very significant. The 700P actually has fewer rounds through it than the Bravo-51, so we cannot put blame on throat wear or anything like that. Though this discovery really isn't that surprising, BUT, perhaps the average velocities are. The 700P has a 26" barrel and the Bravo has a 22" barrel (23" if you measure it the same as Remington does) but the velocities were HIGHER in the Bravo-51 with the shorter barrel, which is contrary to accepted theories. I believe there are a few reasons as to why this is the case.

 

The Bravo-51 has a custom barrel made for me with only three lands and grooves which puts a bit less drag on the bullet as it travels down the barrel vs. a five or six land and groove barrel. I have no real empirical evidence that I can offer to support a claim that this will actually increase velocities, but, in theory it should. The second potential reason why we have extra velocity is because of the tighter match grade type chamber which should seal tighter with less energy being used to expand the brass vs. sending the bullet down the barrel. And my final idea as to why the velocities may be higher with the shorter barrel is because these .308 match loadings are fairly low power and we may actually be getting close to the maximum barrel length at which the .308 reaches it max velocity. I have read that this usually happens around 30" for the .308, but I think that is for higher velocity full power loads like the 155gr palma loads (palma rifles have long barrels). If you look at the results of the Lapua loading, it is a very hot load, the fastest of this group by far, and you will notice that in the longer 26" barrel it outpaced the shorter Bravo-51 barrel by 30 fps. The hotter loads utilize the longer barrels to generate the higher velocities, but the lower power loads seem to possibly be reaching their max velocity around the 24" barrel length. Of course, all of the above are non scientific theories of my own as to why the average velocities in the shorter barreled Bravo-51 were higher than the longer barreled 700P.

 

So which ammo is the best? Well, that will have to be left up to you to decide. I think they are all acceptable to use and it is pretty remarkable that the overall average accuracy for the off the shelf 700P was under .9". Factory mass produced rifle with factory mass produced ammo from eight major manufacturers. There is enough verity with the ammo to allow you to evaluate and see which might fit best for you and your situation. With this initial test, the HSM is the most accurate out of these two rifles, but also has the lowest muzzle velocity. If you are looking for extra long range punch, the Lapua load is probably the way to go, as the velocities are higher than the rest by enough of a margin to really make a difference in long range shooting applications. And of course, every rifle likes a certain load; these loads give you the opportunity to try out many different good loads to find the best for your rifle. If you are a department deciding a primary load, then rifle preference is probably not as much of an issue. Hopefully this test provide some useful information as to where to possibly start with your own testing. We'll do our part to continue to offer updates and to further test new loads.

 

If you would like to request a particular match grade ammo be tested and posted, or if you are a manufacturer and would like to request your ammo be tested, please feel free to email me.

 

 

All spread out, hard at work.

[Ronin]

Silent

 

it was a good read on the SC site and thanks for bringing it across so that those users here are updated,

 

 

The Tac Ops series of rifles are renowned for their accuracy and price! The Bravo 51 and Tango 51 rifles are guaranteed 1/4" or less with certain factory ammo so the .094" group is no real surprise.

 

 

What I did fing an eye opener was the fact that the standard Rem 700 shot nearly as well ( on average) with the rifle that costs 6 times more. Just about every brand of ammo shot 1/2 or sub 1/2 MOA in the REM.

 

I wonder if the clock was rolled back ten years if the same resulst would be had with factory fodder?

 

Makes one realise how good the standard Rem 700's are, mind you, if I had a spare $5000, there's always a place in my cabinet for a Tango 51