How many of you hunt w/ factory ammo exclusively & why? I often see posts concerning availability of factory ammo for this or that caliber as a factor in buying a given rifle. Just curious, as I have always handloaded for my hunting rigs.

Fred,
I use reloads for all of my shooting / hunting ammo except for a .30-06. I have found the Federal Hi Energy 180 gr TBBC load to be very accurate and effective in my rifle. I have not been able to reproduce its' performance by reloading so I am quite content to use this ammo.

I never hunt with anything other than my own "reloads". There are three reasons for this:

First, my handloads (as opposed to simply "reloads") generally perform better than factory loads since they are carefully tailored to the individual rifle.

Secondly, my loads will be available as long as I am around to cobble them together. Even when factory loads are available which give good velocity and accuracy with a bullet that provides good terminal performance, the next time you go to the store, what you buy will at best come from a different lot from the "good stuff" you bought before and at worst may not be available at all.

The third reason, and perhaps even most important in terms of personal satisfaction, is that hunting with your own load just adds a dimension to the entire experience which you miss if you simply shoot factory loads.

This is of course from the perspective of someone who is both a shooter and a hunter. Many of the best hunters pay little attention to their guns and loads and are far more successful than me. I have no criticism of this type of hunter; I'm just turned a different way.

I only use factory ammo for several reasons. Primarily, I simply don't have the time to handload because I have other hobbies/interests. I do think I would enjoy handloading if I eliminate some of the other things I and my wife do in the outdoors. But I don't see us eliminating any of our other interests.

Second, our hunting rifles are a 30-06 and a 7mm-08. Lots of reasonably priced ammo for the 30-06, and the 7mm-08 is not much more expensive.

Third, depending on how accurately my rifle is shooting the factory load I hunt with, I'll shoot at an animal at 300 yards and no farther. BUT, if field conditions are absolutely, positively perfect, and they rarely are, I'll shoot at up to 400 yards since I routinely shoot at 400 yard targets. Now, factory ammo can shoot extremely well if you search long enough for an ammo that your rifle likes. Some years I get my rifles shooting sub-MOA, some years they shoot 1 3/4 inches at 100 yards. It all depends on how my rifle likes the ammo I test that year. I'm happy with consistent 1 3/4 inch groups. I hunt deer and elk. They are big targets, especially elk. I don't need tack driving accuracy. At 300 yards, factory ammo gives me plenty of accuracy to hit an animal in the lungs under less than ideal field conditions.

Fourth, if I had a rifle and handload that shot consistent sub-MOA groups, I couldn't shoot any more accurately under field conditions with it than I could with a rifle shooting 2 MOA groups. When I lay my rifle on a rock, or tree limb, or aiming while sitting or standing, trying to hold the crosshairs still on an animal, while the wind is blowing, or the snow is falling, or it's raining, I wiggle the crosshairs plenty, and I can't read the wind well enough to shoot sub-MOA. And I haven't been able to find a shooting bench and sandbags right where I see an animal I want to shoot. And the ONLY times I shoot sub-MOA groups is off a bench and sandbags.

So for these reasons, I buy factory ammo. roy p.

The first time in many years I relied on factory ammo it let me down.

Here's the scoop. It was ultimatly my fault for not checking every round in my chamber before heading out to hunt.

I bought some 225gr Swift A-Frames loaded by I think it was Remington. They shot well, so I went back and bought two more boxes before I left hunting.

Later on I was checking my zero before we headed out on wheelers into the field. I chambered a round and it closed fairly tight, so I opened the bolt but it wouldn't pull the cartridge out. It seemed to have jammed the bullet into the rifling. I beat it open and lost all the powder in the mag well. What the $$ck I thought. I was able to get the bullet out with a rod so I checked another round, same thing, only this time I fired it out instead.

I was able to find 3 or 4 out of each box that would barely come back out while checking VERY carefully, even so I still had to fire a couple more that got stuck. All went ok with the 5 or 6 I had to hunt with, but that sucked.

A few months later someone on the net complained of the same thing happening to him with the same ammo only he wasn't so lucky. I think he said he had 4 boxes on a fly out hunt that ruined his hunt, nothing worked at all.

He contacted Remingon and they recalled a certain lot of these loads. I had thought my Ruger just had a real short throat was all. Turned out they screwed things up.

The other experience I had was as someone said, different lots shoot different. A load for 308win, Federals 165 Sierra Gameking was faster than my handloads and shot 1.2" groups at 300 yards. My hand loads would do 2" and were about 100 fps slower too.

Point is, the next lot of these were worse than my handloads. Now I say they just can't be counted on, for me anyway. I can modify the charge wt. if a new powder lot is faster or slower, but you never know what you have with factory stuff.

Chamber all rounds before hunting with them, that's for sure, handloads or factory. I still buy factory stuff for psi comparisons with the Oehler 43 I use but that is all I use the stuff for anymore. Some of it nowdays is real accurate stuff though, you just need to buy a bunch of the same lot if you find a good one and don't handload, that's a fact.

I have just started learning the fine art of handloading, so up until I actually begin doing it, I rely strictly on factory loads. I have never had a problem in any of the many calibers that I shoot, and for whitetail, the trusty 356 Winchester factory ammo has never let me down.
I want to handload because as written in a previous post, you can tailor the round to your rifle and to the distances that you will primarily be shooting. And if you do it correctly, you will NEVER have a problem in the field when you need it most.
Ranger

I hunt with handloads except for the one caliber I haven't been able to get great accuracy for ... .338 Win Mag. I have two rifles in that caliber (BAR and a custom pre-64 M70 w a Kreiger barrel) that love 250 grain Remington Core-Lokts.

Everything else (308, 30-06, 308 Norma Mag, 300 Win Mag, and 375 H&H Mag) does beautifully with handloads.

Stonecreek, you have pretty much summed up my reasons for always handloading. I am just curious as I have seen so many posts expressing a great need or desire for the availability of factory ammo when choosing this or that rifle round.
The only factory hunting round I shoot is the .280. Everything else is a wildcat or might as well be (7mm Dakota).
That being said, I can barely edge the Speer NItex 160gr load for accuracy and vel. in my .280. Then again, I doubt I'll find that "factory" load in many "Wally Worlds"!

The only factory ammo I use is rimfire.

I mostly hunt with handloaded ammo, but there is some mighty fine stuff available from the factories these days. I think the attraction to being able to easily find factory loaded ammo is a "just in case" kind of planning, which isn't a bad idea. I ran out of handloaded ammo during a varmint shoot (rockchucks in south Idaho) a few years back and went into town to stock up. No problem, they had lots of 6mm Rem varmint ammo on the shelf. I think the same thing could happen on a big game hunt pretty easily, especially if an airline lost the baggage containing your specially crafted home-brew handloads... Nah, that would never happen! Guy

Fred338: I've had much the same experience as you. The one rifle I have in which I do shoot factory loads is a Browning BAR .270. The reason for shooting factory loads in it is that (1) a friend gave me six boxes of the same lot of ammunition, ammunition which happens to perform well in this rifle, and (2) autoloaders are a bit more touchy to load for and usually require (for proper functioning) powders that are a bit too fast for best velocity, anyway. So, I'm happy shooting factory stuff in this gun (which is actually my son's, given to him by his grandfather, and which neither of us regularly hunts with, anyway).

I, too, am frequently puzzled by posts that cite the availablility of factory ammunition as a compelling reason to have a certain caliber. That reasoning seems plausible for the occasional hunter, or someone like Roy P above who would have to give up some other interest in order to handload, but on a forum styled "Accurate Reloading", that reasoning seems misplaced for the bulk of the participants. But I guess if I arrived in British Columbia with my Sako .338 and without my Nosler handloads, I might rethink that position!

Nonetheless, I get alot of added enjoyment out of planning, scheming, and loading for an upcoming hunt and just enjoy my hunting experience more if I'm shooting, as Burt Lancaster said in the lead role of the movie "Valdez is Coming", shooting "si, my own load".

I like to play to much to use factory ammo. Let try this bullet this year thing. Also it is a sense of pride harvest an animal with one of your own loads.

Hcliff