I was wondering if anyone knows how accurate are the powder dispensers in factory ammo. I have seen tremendous improvement in the accuracy of factory ammo. When I load, I trickle to within 1/10 of a grain. Does anyone know how the standards of the factory dispensed ammo?

I had a couple friends stop by last year before deer season to sight in their rifles with factory ammo. I had my chrono set up for testing my loads and being the EXPERT reloader that I am I promptly announced that they should expect 100-150 fps slower than the boxes said. To my surprise they were all within 25fps of advertised velocity. The speeds were very consistant so I'm guessing that they do a good job of throwing powder at the factory. Re accuracy of factory ammo I'm sure they do their research and have some powder formulas that seem to perform pretty well in alot of test guns. AND I'm sure the manufacturing processes are being improved from year to year and it's showing up on the "paper" we shoot. I used to load for a friend's 300 wby and he liked my loads. One time he was going on a hunt and I didn't have time to do his loads. He picked up some ammo with trophy bonded bear claws and it shot so good that he's never asked me to load for that gun since. PLUS when he told me how much the ammo cost I couldn't hardly buy the bullets, brass, powder and match the price!!

I haven't pulled a whole lot of Factory rounds but, I have pulled some Federal Premiums (Since they are supposed to be first class) and found quite a differnce inbetween charges. I would say variances of 1-3 grains. Some would be close and then one would be a bit lighter.

Nothing like the accuracy of trickling by hand .

Reloader

The ammo factories use non-canister powders that are unavailable to us handloaders. They load by bulk, not weight just like most of the benchrest shooters.

Aktoklat, I haven't a lot of information on the factory ammo, but I have taken apart a fair amount of Winchester Supreme ammo trying to sleuth out their load because I like the CT bullets available in their loadings, and get good performance from their factory loads often. I can say that how ever they 'throw powder' it is remarkably consistent. I have weighed as many as 8 rounds from a single box and had NO variance in powder weight, and I have several very good scales, both digital and analog.

It's interesting what Onefunzr2 says about them charging by volume, it makes sense, and some benchrest guys say it is more effective than weighing. It seems like if Winchester is doing it, it at least gives pretty close weights within a given box of shells.

Good Shooting--Don

It is certainly true that factory ammo has become a lot better over the years - the use of premium bullets is just one big improvement. But whether this improvement is due to more consistent powder charges, who knows??

When you look around, the only people (apart from us "anal" reloaders) who really seem to rely on tricling powder charges, are long range BR shooters. Even in (short range) BR, people rely on charges measured by volume, as opposed to by weight. They claim it works that way, and it is hard to argue with success.

BR shooters normally use different powder measures than regular reloaders do - Harrell's seems to be a popular choice. But I think the main advantage of that measure, is that it is click adjustable. The tests I have seen (not executed) of Harrell's measures, actually show no greater consistency in charges thrown, compared to a regular measure like a Redding.

So all in all, I don't think you can equate accuracy with absolute consistency of charge weights.

- mike

If you have a gun and load that shoots well and you know what it's groups are do this:

Load a five shot group with that load but vary the charge in each of the five cartridges such that there's 2.5 grains difference between lowest and highest.

Shoot them for groups and see what you get.

Maybe you'll start using the powder measure and quit dribbling too.

I new a couple of guys that never completely made their own ammo. They would buy boxes of factory ammo and pull the bullets and weigh each charge. After weighing they would put the powder in a container and get the average charger weight of all the powder charges, run the case in a die without a decapping pin and charge the cases with the exact weight of the average charge and re-seat the bullets. They had pretty good results. I have never tried this and dont think I will. I like the satifaction of know I was in control of every aspect of the assembly.

Well, I have had quite varied results with factory ammo lately.

I bought a new 7-08 Remington and just wanted to run some factory stuff through it to break in the barrel and get some brass.

I found the Federal stuff I bought to be so over pressure that I had to stop shooting it. The bolt lift was terribly hard and the primers are cratered and the ejector marks were awfull!

The Winchester ammo I bought shot good groups but was more than 200 fps slower than expected.
(The groups were just about an inch.)

The Hornady Light Magnum stuff that was supposed to go 3000 fps with a 139 bullet made about 2900 fps. No problem, that is pretty good from a 7-08. However, the groups were just about 3 inches!!

The Remington factory ammo is supposed to go 2860 I think, but only managed about 2770 fps. Again, no problem. The problem with that ammo was terrible inconsistancy. One three shot group gave an extreme spread on the chronograph of 142 fps!!! The group was about 2 inches. The next three shells from the same box of ammo gave an extreme spread for three shots that was only 39 fps and the group was great; a mere 0.61 inches.

A friend just told me yesterday that he pulled the bullets on a bunch of factory stuff and was amazed at variation in powder charges. I am not certain I remember of the brand so I will not bad mouth anyone here. BUT, in a box of 20 shells he found a powder charge variation of four grains. That is pretty sorry!

I guess there is a reason to reload.

RUSS---I hate to sound like a smart alec but man oh man those guys HAVE WAY TO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Reloader:
I haven't pulled a whole lot of Factory rounds but, I have pulled some Federal Premiums (Since they are supposed to be first class) and found quite a differnce inbetween charges. I would say variances of 1-3 grains. Some would be close and then one would be a bit lighter.

Nothing like the accuracy of trickling by hand .

Reloader

This 1 to 3-grain variation is the same as I have found in the rounds of different caliber rifle ammo that I have pulled and weighed over the years. It doesn't make much difference what brand you are talking about......

However, I have gotten as little as .01 grain variation in MEASURED charges rom a Redding Master measure when using ball powders like H380 or WW760, so I assume a factory could do as well with their volume measures. It's just the stick powders that are harder to throw consistently (1-2 grains off with some of the larger ones in my measure.)

quote:

Originally posted by kraky:
RUSS---I hate to sound like a smart alec but man oh man those guys HAVE WAY TO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS!!!

I agree. They didnt get the results that they wanted and they wouldnt listen to my advise so the gave up "reloading".