Failure2Stop
09-22-2011, 04:47 PM
Long story short, I picked up 500 rounds of 124gr 9mm reloads from a gunshow for practice ammo.
When I started shooting it I began with a POA/POI verification at 25yds.
It was a terrible group. Hell, it would have been a terrible pattern of 00 Buck.
Center of 10 shot "group" was about 7" left and high, with 3 distinct fliers.
I immediately blamed myself and brought the target back to 7 yards to do dot drills and get my poop in a group.
Still couldn't consistently place 10 shots into a 3" circle at 7 unless I slowed waaaaay down.
I went home and dry-fired throughout the week until I hit the range again today.
As I was packing for the range I remebered a box of ~60 aluminum cased Blazer 124gr that I still had, and threw in a box of S&B 115gr from a recent shipment.
I prefer to do speed work at the begining of a range session, but given my less than stellar performance earlier I wanted to check on fundamentals, so the first thing I did was a quick dot drill at 7 yds (further than I wanted, but that range is ghey) with old carry ammo and finished it with some of the Blazer. It was clean and I was happy, but I wanted to see what POA/POI shift I might be looking at so I pushed the target back to 25yds for POA/POI confirmation.
Blazer punched in a tidy 3-4" group with one flier (my fault all the way, but still in black), and the S&B put in a nice 4" group (I was shooting a little faster than I should have and had two drop a couple of inches below the group body.
So, I figured that the dry-fire did me right and proceeded to my training for the day.
I figured that I would use the reloads and check for POA/POI shift with what I intended to shoot for the day.
Same repeat of the previous group. Way high and left, with wild fliers.
I also noticed that the recoil was considerably higher with the reloads than even the GD (don't remember what weight I bought, old ammo).
Seriously, it felt like hot .40.
I considered dumping all the gunshow ammo, but I only had ~100 rounds of anything else, and I didn't want to lose time and range fee.
So I did big target/fast stuff at 7 until the ammo was all gone.
I noticed that there was a fine layer of unburned flake powder all over my station.
I haven't really shot all that much ammo that I have had to pay for (thanks Uncle Sugar), and of the 7 to 10 cases of ammo that I have purchased, I have never seen anything like that before.
If I hadn't shot such drastically better groups just before (and after) I probably wouldn't have believed it.
Has anyone else had this kind of experience with ammo?
*I intend on contacting the company and sharing my experience, so I don't want to name them until communication is established and they have had a chance to reply. FWIW, I also got 500 rounds of 69gr .223 from them, and it shoots as expected.*
When I started shooting it I began with a POA/POI verification at 25yds.
It was a terrible group. Hell, it would have been a terrible pattern of 00 Buck.
Center of 10 shot "group" was about 7" left and high, with 3 distinct fliers.
I immediately blamed myself and brought the target back to 7 yards to do dot drills and get my poop in a group.
Still couldn't consistently place 10 shots into a 3" circle at 7 unless I slowed waaaaay down.
I went home and dry-fired throughout the week until I hit the range again today.
As I was packing for the range I remebered a box of ~60 aluminum cased Blazer 124gr that I still had, and threw in a box of S&B 115gr from a recent shipment.
I prefer to do speed work at the begining of a range session, but given my less than stellar performance earlier I wanted to check on fundamentals, so the first thing I did was a quick dot drill at 7 yds (further than I wanted, but that range is ghey) with old carry ammo and finished it with some of the Blazer. It was clean and I was happy, but I wanted to see what POA/POI shift I might be looking at so I pushed the target back to 25yds for POA/POI confirmation.
Blazer punched in a tidy 3-4" group with one flier (my fault all the way, but still in black), and the S&B put in a nice 4" group (I was shooting a little faster than I should have and had two drop a couple of inches below the group body.
So, I figured that the dry-fire did me right and proceeded to my training for the day.
I figured that I would use the reloads and check for POA/POI shift with what I intended to shoot for the day.
Same repeat of the previous group. Way high and left, with wild fliers.
I also noticed that the recoil was considerably higher with the reloads than even the GD (don't remember what weight I bought, old ammo).
Seriously, it felt like hot .40.
I considered dumping all the gunshow ammo, but I only had ~100 rounds of anything else, and I didn't want to lose time and range fee.
So I did big target/fast stuff at 7 until the ammo was all gone.
I noticed that there was a fine layer of unburned flake powder all over my station.
I haven't really shot all that much ammo that I have had to pay for (thanks Uncle Sugar), and of the 7 to 10 cases of ammo that I have purchased, I have never seen anything like that before.
If I hadn't shot such drastically better groups just before (and after) I probably wouldn't have believed it.
Has anyone else had this kind of experience with ammo?
*I intend on contacting the company and sharing my experience, so I don't want to name them until communication is established and they have had a chance to reply. FWIW, I also got 500 rounds of 69gr .223 from them, and it shoots as expected.*