I have reloaded for a while now and experiment a lot. So much that I could not remember the last time I carried Factory AMMO afield.

When I went to the range today, I took a box of Winchester Supreme ammo in 22/250 with a 50 grain Nosler/Combined Technology Moly Coat 50 gr Ballistic Tip. This is a box that belonged to a good friend who died in 2003 and his wife just wanted all of his gun stuff gone after he died, so brought a lot of ammo over to my house, mainly 22 LR and some 9 mm.

However the Winchester Supreme load happened to be in the stuff. So I finally decided to go out and shoot it, after trying to disassemble one to see what was in there. It amazed me how much the 50 grain bullet was seated into the case.

Well after shooting the box, minus two rounds that I plan to dissect, all I can say, is that I WASN"T impressed one bit.

If one of my handloads I tested gave me this performance I'd just write it off and go back to the drawing board. But this Winchester Supreme is suppose to be good stuff isn't it???

Locally it is $14.00 to $15.00 a box, It has Ballistic tips on it.
That surprised me. The accuracy disappointed me.

So in conclusion, this handloader got a reality check on how lucky I am to handload! I now have 20 shiney nickel coated Winchester 22/250 pieces of brass. I know that that particular load is not that great. But beyond that, it was a counter productive experiment.

The rifle was a Ruger VT. The group size was 1.5 inches at 50 yds. This rifle traditionally will give me one hole groups at 50 yds with RL 7 and just about any bullet. ( for those inquiring minds among us!).

Cheers and Good shooting
seafire

Well, the gunrags are always telling us how much better factory ammo is today than it was in times past. I really can't compare, because the only factory ammo I use is el cheapo 9mm. I load for twenty or so calibers and the only time I buy/shoot factory ammo is when I acquire a piece that I don't have brass or dies for. I use the factory ammo for initial sighting in and the fired brass for reloading. I don't think factory ammo will ever equal properly assembled handloads.

I usually buy factory winchester and some remington just for the brass and if i have a new caliber rifle before I get dies . My first reloads through a new or new/used gun are always way more tighter groups than the factory loads. My latest was a pre 64 308 m 70 featherwieght. I wasnt impressed at all with the rifle with that factory ammo.The bore was alittle rusted not bad, just hard to get clean. I was thinking to rebarrel it. Then I got some 308 dies and Wow, My reloads shot some very tight 3/4" and cloverleafs through that old barrel.

If you try enough kinds of factory ammo, usually you can find some that will shoot quite well, but I don't think it will ever beat finely tuned handloads that have been tailored to an individual rifle.

About the only factory ammo that I've seen consistently provide excellent performance is the 308 Win match loads from Federal and Black Hills. It's amazing that it shoots as well as usually does, but it can still be beaten with good handloads.

I have to agree. In my opinion of all the factory ammo out there Federal is by far the best. As far as how consistent it shoots anyway. Even with that, it still doesn't outshoot my handloads. Pretty sure the reason for this is that you will never by able to measure powder loads down to a 10th/20th of a grain with mass produced shells, nor will they ever give you the correct COL for your gun.

Even if one finds a factory load that shoots well, the problem of lot-to-lot variations still exists. This includes powder type, charge weight, velocity, etc., etc.



Handloading allows us to minimize such variations, or at least effectively adjust for them.



I will say that, of the factory stuff, I've always had great luck with Hornady Custom.



RSY

Sad to say, I still shoot a decent % of factory ammo

The 45-70 Rem 405 is just as accurate as I load. The Win and Fed 45-70 loads don�t come close to my loads.

The 308 and 30-06 federal premium loads are better than my loads. The Rem and Win factory load are right in line with my loads.

All the factory 22 hornet loads are better than my loads.

Right now I can not beat the factory loads for accuracy. Then again, I am not that great of shot.

I shoot handloads about 99% of the time. I have found some factory ammo that shoots great from rifles I have. One comes to mind, Speer's Nitex, 160gr .280 ammo shoots as good or a bit better than mu best handload, under 1/2moa. I bought (3) boxes from the same lot & will save them for emergency use, but handloads are definetly the way to go for this shooter.

The fact that a certain factory load didn't perform well in your rifle, of course, means nothing. It could still be excellent ammo in the majority of other people's rifles. However, it most likely isn't going to shoot as well in anyone's gun as will ammo that is worked up especially for that individual rifle.



The first HP rifle I bought was a Rem. 721 .30/'06 in 1953. I fired one box of factory ammo through it, then bought a Lyman 310 tong tool, a Pacific powder scale, and 1 lb of salvage 4895 in a paper bag from B.E. Hodgdon. This was because I could not afford to shoot much, at $3.35 per box of Winchester factory ammo! I got 100 M2 ball bullets from the DCM, and have been loading most of my ammo ever since. The only exception was pistol match ammo that the Army furnished when I was on a pistol team! Strangely enough, no matter how hard we tried, we could not find handloads that would beat factory pistol ammo in either .38 SP wadcutter or in .45 ACP wadcutter or Ball-match!



The only time I fire factory ammo today is to get needed brass, if I can't find the brass I want for sale as a component. Not only do my handloads generally shoot more accurately than factory stuff, I can greatly improve on the ballistics of cartridges that the factories have "wimp-ized", like the 7mm Rem. Mag., the 7X57, .257 Roberts, etc.

When I shoot factory ammo I feel like I'm cheating. It's like catching hatchery stocked trout in a barrel and thinking I'm a great fisherman. If on very rare occacation I am shooting factory fodder, I feel shame and disgrace for dishonoring my firearms. It's just wrong and unethical to shoot factory garbage.

It's always possible for factory loads to shoot well and give good velocity. A couple that I have stumbled into have been some old lots of Remington Coreloct .270/130, which does well in a BAR, and some equally old Rem .244/90 which gave scalding velocities and pinpoint accuracty in a vintage 721.

But it is also possible for factory ammo to give very mediocre performance. Factory loads are designed to work "acceptably" in any firearm chambered for that caliber. They will only give excellent or outstanding performance in a few firearms that, for whatever reason, tend to "like" a particular factory load.

What you can say about factory loads versus handloads specifically tailored to a particular rifle is that a good handload will almost always be superior to the factory load in accuracy and velocity. Of course that depends on whether the handloader knows what he's doing.

Hi, Seafire...

There is SOME really accurate factory ammo out there for the more common chamberings, such as the .308.

But, it is danged hard to find if you can purchase it at all.

What I am referring to is the various Hornady, Winchester, Federal, and Black Hills "TAP" (Tactical Applications) ammo. I am working with some other fellas on an up-to-date military sniping book, and "we" (almost exclusively "they") have been shooting a LOT of factory freebie TAP ammo.

Bullet weights run from 110 grs. to 175 grs. in the .308 fodder, and both the 110 gr. and 168 gr. stuff reliably produce groups in the 0.2 to 0.4 MOA at the shorter yardages from bolt guns.

The only hang-up is that most of it is NOT for sale to any but the law-enforcement/military communities.

The factories DO know how to make the stuff, but probably don't figure it's worth the cost except where they can get their butts sued completely off if/when it fails.

Best wishes,

Alberta Canuck

Bug,

I have actually gotten to the point that some of my first handloads come out a lot better than factory.

But this comes about from several reasons, and not dumb luck.

I. I have learned that certain powders and their burn rates work well in certain cases.
2. I have learned that seating the bullet as close to the lands as the magazine will allow also does a darn nice improvement.

I don't use Match primers. and I have also learned that using a faster powder in most instances which produces lower velocity also tho rewards me with a more accurate load.

Only in a few rifles, have I found that a load that is "Redlined" or a little over gives me the best accuracy.

Guess I have learned more for handloading than I give myself credit for. So thanks for the question!

I am sure a lot of handloaders have learned more than we thought we had!

cheers and happy holidays.
seafire

Yep. I got myself a free box of 50 Federal Hydra-Shok 45 Auto ammo, and you know what good it will ever do me?

None at all.

Shooting 50 rounds will give me an idea of how accurately they shoot. I already know that it's accurate enough. At pistol shooting distances, inherent accuracy doesn't matter to a first approximation. Shooting 50 rounds will tell me nothing at all about reliability. I shoot maybe a thousand rounds of a reload before I conclude that 1 or 2 out of 300 rounds are going to malfunction on me, and then I figure out what went wrong. If I have no malfunctions after several thousand rounds, I conclude that I have a reliable load. Then I shoot thousands more, and I get happier with the reliability assessment. I'll never buy myself a thousand rounds of expensive Hydra-Shok ammo.

H. C.