Thursday, March 22, 2012

Range Report

I was inspired.

Range

Not inspired enough to make make a spreadsheet like Professor Hale, but enough to post some pictures.

Prvi Partizan 69 gr. BTHP Match, $10.95/20:

Prvi Partizan 69gr

 

Rem Fiocchi 69 gr. Matchking, $16.95/20:

Fiocchi Matchking 69gr

 

PMC Precision 75 gr. Match, $16.95/20:

PMC Precision 75gr

 

Right to Bear Ultra Match 75 gr., $14.95/20

Right-to-Bear Ultra Match 75gr

 

After a couple of sight adjustments, I resumed.

PMC Bronze 55 gr., $10.95/20*:

PMC Bronze

 

PMC X-Tac 55 gr., $10.95/20*

PMC XTAC

 

Precision Cartridge Inc. 55 gr. (factory reloads), $19.95/50*:

Precision Inc.

 

Precision Cartridge Inc. w/Iron Sights**:

Iron Sights

 

Notes:

  • All targets were shot at 50 yards.
  • The first four loads were hollow points.
  • You get what you pay for.  Only the Fiocchi and the PMC Precision even look like they came from a rifle.  But at $16.95/20, I can’t see myself using much of it for anything but varmit shooting.
  • * Prices are estimated.  I bought this ammo a while ago.
  • ** These shots may have been my 7 y.o. daughter’s, since we were sharing this target.  One of us completed missed.
  • I don’t seem to be an especially impressive shooter on a .223 rifle.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice. But what did each round weigh? I NEED STATISTICS.

Just be careful. It is real easy to get carried away once you start measuring stuff.

I am now at the point where I rank order my store bought ammo by weight so that groups of three and 5 will be with similar weights from teh same box instead of drawing randomly from the box.

Mike43 said...

Given the spread of your shot groups, a little refresher in BRM might be necessary.

Grouping is more important than 10 rings. If you can get your group down to 2-3 inches, you can adjust your sites.

I detect a little jerking and flinching going on.....

But that might just be me.

Anonymous said...

And breathing. Too much breathing.

Mike43 said...

You're right, Professor. Way too much breathing.

Dr. Φ said...

Ouch! I thought the number of "grains" was the weight of the bullet!

I will allow that I haven't been especially happy with my ability to brace the rifle steady, even shooting from the bench as here. But I would have sworn that I was holding my breath and squeezing the trigger. I'll try to pay a little more attention to these this weekend.

Anonymous said...

Also, ditch the POC bi-pod in the handle. They only thing they are good for is holding your weapon upright on the display table or on the mess hall floor (that would be dining facility to you zoomies). Shoot from sandbags for more stability.

Anonymous said...

Ouch! I thought the number of "grains" was the weight of the bullet!

Nominally, that is true. But the actual weight of each bullet can vary by a quarter grain and total cartridge weight can vary by several grains. With store-bought ammo, it is too hard to tell which component is contributing most to the variability or even if one overweight item is cancelled out by an equally underweight item.

Dr. Φ said...

Hey that bipod is "Marine Corp issue"! (Whatever that means . . .) The range doesn't have any sandbags.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking about the mass of the cartridges: I'd have no idea what variation I was measuring, although I guess I could correlate overall variability at the target with variability of the ammo. Unfortunatley, I don't have a scale.