The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Has anyone ever pulled facory rounds and measured the charges?
I am just curious if there is a marked difference with production line powder weights as I have noticed in rimfire rounds that most are bangs but the odd one is noticably quieter.

I do quite a bit of testing in a tunnel range and you can really tell the rubbish rim fire from the variation in reports.

I have not pulled factory ammunition in years however I have shot a reasonable amount of centre fire factory and have noticed the Hornady Superformance mostly because it is quick and remarkably accurate. Certainly the best of the factory I have shot recently.

I do agree that cheap rimfire is just that however cost and quality do not always equal accuracy with rifires and it is down to what performs best in a specific rifle.

I pulled a load of RG5.56 from the same year and weighed each charge intending to make a kind of 'Mexican Match' ammo from them, they varied by no more than 0.5gn (extreme spread) and most were at the high end.

I averaged the charge and reloaded. The new rounds were only slightly better than the factory and not worth the effort for the PR competitions that I used them for. It needed better bullets at least.

Mattnall wrote:I pulled a load of RG5.56 from the same year and weighed each charge intending to make a kind of 'Mexican Match' ammo from them, they varied by no more than 0.5gn (extreme spread) and most were at the high end.

I averaged the charge and reloaded. The new rounds were only slightly better than the factory and not worth the effort for the PR competitions that I used them for. It needed better bullets at least.

I did the same with some '77-dated 7.62x54r (188 Novosibirsk LVE Plant) and found the powder weight and bullet weight were pretty consistent for military ammo.I also averaged the charge and reloaded but found quite a good improvement in accuracy.

What made me ask this question, although not quite the same topic, is that I bought a thousand .223 military 55gn FMJBT from Hannams and due to my life being overun with things to do I decided to weigh them all and see what the difference was between each bullet.
Three hours later I had weights ranging from 54.3gn to 55.6 with the majority at 55.2gn
Would these weight differences relate to spurious accuracy when used with the same powder charge?
If that would be the case would it be advantageous to adjust the powder to the weight of the bullet or would it be negligible?
I will be shooting these rounds mainly at 100mtrs but on occasion out to 300mtrs

I will stick my neck out and say the difference would be negligible at 300m depending in the type of target, that said it could make a difference if you are shooting for tiny groups

snayperskaya wrote:I will stick my neck out and say the difference would be negligible at 300m depending in the type of target, that said it could make a difference if you are shooting for tiny groups

I would tend to agree with Snayperskaya (never thought I'd say that ). The biggest problem with the military bullet is the placement of the steel inside the bullet, if it is off centre by a small bit the bullet will not fly like a concentric one would, even if they are the same weight.

Having said that I think the current military ammo is pretty good and manufacturing proceses and QC is such that surplus ammo is very good stuff indeed on the range. I doubt it would beat a home load with match bullets but then don't use it for bench rest comps.