Testing Ammo Brands
Rob PincusDescription
A tutorial on testing a variety of ammo brands in a precision rifle. Do a controlled test. This one consists of three-shot groups at 100 yards with ammo of the same weight from three different manufacturers: Remington, Winchester and Federal. Split-screen video shows the shooter firing and the target as it is impacted by the rounds. Comparative results are shown after firing is completed. What does this kind of test tell you about the rifle? The ammunition? The shooter?
Here's another important video from the personal defense network. So now let's take it out to a hundred yards and test some different ammo and see what this thing really likes. Okay Let's start with federals. Okay. So let's go ahead and try a two shot group at a hundred yards.
This allows us to ensure our a hundred yard zero, and then we're gonna test some different types of ammunition. Find out where we are. It looks clear Alright Notice that when, Joe operates the bolt he's always sure to leave his head down on the rifle. That's an important precision rifle skill, especially for thinking about follow-up shots or situation where you wanna be able to keep an eye on a target, maybe in a hunting situation especially, to keep your cheek down on the riffles that as you work the bolt, close that bolt it would be ready to go. And also even though he knew he was out of ammunition intellectually because he only loaded two rounds, he was able to close that bolt again after rejected the last round, because that's a good habit to get into always running that bolt, just like we would with a pistol, always making sure we simulate that reloaded slide lock.
Ready for two more? Two more. Much better. Alright. We're got to come up Just a hair.
Okay.Are you ready for group? You bet. Alright, so we'll take a new circle and that target and fire three rounds, just to get a pattern on where the Winchester is. And then we'll try a couple of other brands and see where we're at. _ I'm gonna go to this federal next Okay.
Again it's not a horrible idea to take your time when you're loading. When you're switching ammo, to try to get the conditions as much the same as possible between the two different types of ammunition. If you were to fire 20 rounds of one type of ammunition, immediately switch ammunition, you may also be seeing some variation from a hot barrel. How we doing? Looking good.
And last we've got some Remington here and again, just to keep things relatively simple. This is all 168 grain ammunition, three different manufacturers, similar bullet designs, although the federal did have a ballistic tip, while the others are of soft points. Ready? Ready So Joel take a look at all three targets, and if they're very, very close, it'd be easy enough for us to walk down and take a closer look. Well then let's do it.
Take the Remington maybe but real close. Okay. Check out more videos just like this one at the personal defense network.
I did a test like this years ago with .22 amunition. I used the same rifle and 10 rounds of ammo per target. The ammunition I used was CCI, Federal, Winchester, and Remmington at 100 yards. I was amazed a the difference. The CCI Stingers I shot first and was all over the paper. The next group was with the Federal ammo. The ammo shot much better, but was still spread out a little. Winchester was third and there was a remarkable tightening of the group. I found the Remmington shot the best group and use that ammunition the most in my .22s. One could say that I might have started shooting better as time went, but then I didn't clean the gun any between firing the different ammunitions. One could also say that the first fired rounds could have had an unfair advantage by being fired in a weapon that coul have been fouled be bad ammunition. A short time after that, one of my brothers chronagraphed a few different primers in ammunition he was loading for a handgun. He found the principal reason that it is the ammo. All the rounds were handloaded the same, with the difference being the primers. He used CCI, Winchester, and Remmington primers. He used five or ten shots with each of the primers and found similar results as to what I had. The CCI primers shot +- 50 ft/sec difference from the middle result. Both the Remmingon and Winchester were somthing like +- 5 ft/sec difference. This only confirmed my findings. The primers were the main difference. If you don't have a consistant shooting primer, it will start affecting your accuracy. There are also guns that may fire certain ammunition better than others. But a consistant firing ammunition does work better.ÂÂ