Couple of things to consider here. The OP clearly stated he knew nothing of handloading and was debating whether to invest (money, time and effort) in trying to build ammo or simply buy very expensive ammo that would allow him to pursue his predilection of destroying milk jugs at longer ranges.

I do not believe I lost track of the OP's query, I truly believe his goal would be better served buy selecting, testing and buying factory ammo for his lactic container distance destruction fixation. And that was what I recommended earlier.

Some people seem to believe that one can learn to handload match or high precision ammo in a week or two with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. This has not been my experience and that is to what I took exception in my last few posts here.

Well we will agree to disagree. It all comes down to what you expect. My 300yd targets don't lie & I am not doing much more than std reloading practices on an RCBS ss press.

OP -- every barrel is different, chambers can vary from one to the next, not all actions are the same, the nuts behind the butts have good days and bad.

Factory Hornady 6.5 ELD-M (and before than Amax) shoots pretty well in my rifle -- with two different Bartlein barrels and a Defiance action. Sure, skilled handloading will produce a more accurate round. But for now, I will lumber along with factory ammo, based on what the new barrel does with 5 rounds at 100 yards. And cold, clean bore to boot.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:
Well we will agree to disagree. It all comes down to what you expect. My 300yd targets don't lie & I am not doing much more than std reloading practices on an RCBS ss press.

And I understand that you learned how to reload just last week, right?

But to your point; I thought that my handloads were fine until I discovered that at 1000 yards (or even 600), I was only fooling myself. That's when I had to revamp everything and I'm still doing minor touches to my process to keep up with the competition.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
OP -- every barrel is different, chambers can vary from one to the next, not all actions are the same, the nuts behind the butts have good days and bad.

Factory Hornady 6.5 ELD-M (and before than Amax) shoots pretty well in my rifle -- with two different Bartlein barrels and a Defiance action. Sure, skilled handloading will produce a more accurate round. But for now, I will lumber along with factory ammo, based on what the new barrel does with 5 rounds at 100 yards. And cold, clean bore to boot.

Nice shooting, and exactly right; factory match ammo can be awesome and as I'm fond of repeating, don't expect to even handload to the level of factory ammo, let alone factory match or premium ammo right at the start.

quote:

And I understand that you learned how to reload just last week, right?But to your point; I thought that my handloads were fine until I discovered that at 1000 yards (or even 600), I was only fooling myself. That's when I had to revamp everything and I'm still doing minor touches to my process to keep up with the competition.

Yet again, depends on what level of accuracy one is striving for. The idea that some want to make more out of the process is always funny to me. You can measure all you want, but the groups will always tell the tail. Chasing numbers is some times all one is doing; low SD, small runout, etc. Groups don't lie. I don't shoot F class, & can appreciate those that do, but consider the OP question, yes one can load ammo to a higher degree of accuracy in THEIR rifle than most factory & it can be done for a lot less than $1000.

quote:

Originally posted by fredj338:

quote:

And I understand that you learned how to reload just last week, right?But to your point; I thought that my handloads were fine until I discovered that at 1000 yards (or even 600), I was only fooling myself. That's when I had to revamp everything and I'm still doing minor touches to my process to keep up with the competition.

Yet again, depends on what level of accuracy one is striving for. The idea that some want to make more out of the process is always funny to me. You can measure all you want, but the groups will always tell the tail. Chasing numbers is some times all one is doing; low SD, small runout, etc. Groups don't lie. I don't shoot F class, & can appreciate those that do, but consider the OP question, yes one can load ammo to a higher degree of accuracy in THEIR rifle than most factory & it can be done for a lot less than $1000.

Yeah, I don't know about that. Dude is trying to hold 1moa vertical and maybe 1/2moa wind at a grand. Milk jug or no milk jug, that's a pretty significant degree of accuracy.

Yet some do it very consistently during competition. I'm with Fred on this. It's all about repeat ability from round to round. Keep detail notes. Little things like brass, OAL, temp, pressure, etc.... all make a difference.

I thought we were done with this thread after exx1976 posted yesterday about the target size of the OP's aspirations.

Blue68f100; what kind of competition are you talking about, where the competitors hold 1/2 MOA of windage at 1000yards,using ammo loaded on a $300 setup?

I'm only familiar (meaning I shot in them) with two types of 1000 yard competitions; Highpower/Palma/Fullbore and F-class. The Highpower/etc discipline uses a 2MOA target, meaning that its 10-ring is 2MOA in diameter. It's X-ring is 1MOA in diameter. In F-Class, a 1MOA target is used, meaning that the 10-ring is 1MOA in diameter and the X-ring is 0.5MOA in diameter.

So, the F-class discipline is closer to the precision requirements of the milk jug that the Highpower/etc discipline. That makes it simpler to discuss here.

I don't think I ever met a high-level F-class competitor that didn't handload his or her ammo using a setup that pretty much comparable to what I use to handload my ammo. They all go through pretty much the same steps as I do, some go a little further with neck turning, bullet trimming and pointing, using an expensive primer seater, and even an inline bullet seater.

Holding 1MOA at 1000 yards is not easy. If you shoot all your rounds inside that 1MOA circle every time, they call you match winner, most anywhere you will go. Holding .5MOA at 1000yards very consistently, on top of Match Winner, they will also confer onto you the title of National Record holder pretty quickly.

I will also say that most of these people do not keep the detailed notes that you are thinking about. Once they have their load, they stick with it until forced to change for some reason.

I'm not sure if you've ever shot in a 1000yard competition of any kind, but if you did you would agree with me that the most difficult part of the entire equation is reading the conditions. It's the most difficult part, because you have no control over it and it's not something you can reliably measure for every shot. Of course, that makes all the other aspects over which you do have control, to have to be at their very best and that takes time, resources and money$$$.

When you go through the expense of gearing up, load development, years of practice, match fees, travel costs, etc. pretty much the last place you want to go cheap is on your ammo. World-class ammo is what is required to hold that milk-jug reliably at 1000 yards, well that and a great rifle, a high level of marksmanship and superb wind reading skills. Easy peasy.

quote:

Originally posted by Blue68f100:
Yet some do it very consistently during competition. I'm with Fred on this. It's all about repeat ability from round to round. Keep detail notes. Little things like brass, OAL, temp, pressure, etc.... all make a difference.

Yeah, you know. Cuz I don't compete or anything. I just have all these fancy rifles and reloading gear so I can shoot paper plates at 100 yards.

quote:

Originally posted by Blue68f100:
Yet some do it very consistently during competition. I'm with Fred on this. It's all about repeat ability from round to round. Keep detail notes. Little things like brass, OAL, temp, pressure, etc.... all make a difference.

The little things -- brass, OAL, jump/jam, powder weights -- are things the reloaders can comment on. I just try to click on the right box when I order ammo over the web. I just let the factories do their best in providing me quality boxes of ammo.

The little things -- temp, pressure -- unless you're the plant manager for Eley's UK factory and you're manufacturing 22lr match ammo, I seriously doubt you measure/control temp, pressure, or humidity during your loading process. Well, unless you have a climate-controlled loading room. Now during shooting, you bet. My handy Kestrel gives me accurate Density Altitude. I use the Kestrel, vegetation, and mirage to SWAG wind while pressing the trigger.

As noted by NikonUser, consistent 1 MOA performance at any kind of distance is truly world-class, record-setting performance. That "1 MOA all day long" line is an keyboard commando thing. Not to say that sub-MOA performance doesn't occur, just that we mere mortals realize it's a pretty darn special day when the stars are properly aligned for us.

Speaking of special days, the following is 5 shots at 1200 yards in 20-24 mph winds from right to left. That's a 24" square piece of steel, with impacts showing about 11" of vertical. And well, ahem, a little more lateral variation. All five rounds were fired in no more than 25 or 30 seconds -- close to as fast as I can fire at that distance, after watching my impacts, scanning the scope for any changes in grass movement, listening for changes in wind volume. I held wind, which was in the 12-14 MOA ballpark, and by coincidence was 12-14 feet right of target center.



It's unfortunate that I was using factory Hornady ammo, because it evidently doesn't shoot all that well.

OP -- Definitely a lucky day for me, impacting 5/5 at that distance. Depending on how an imaginary milk jug was dangled in front of the plate, I could have hit it anywhere from 0 to 3 times. But honestly, ixnay the gimmicky milk jug thing and concentrate on more traditional targets and accuracy metrics at distance.

Nice shooting fritz, that is awesome.

Yeah, factory ammo is pretty good these days; very difficult to match, let alone surpass in volume handloading. And factory match or premium ammo, even more so.

The thread has drifted into can one load sub moa ammo to can one shoot sub moa out to 1200yds. The former is certainly attainable by mere mortals with simple gear. The latter is that holistic thing.