I had a problem with some ammo two weeks ago In Missoula. While shooting a bank of rams I had three out of 10 shots fall 8 to 10 inches low. They were good breaks in the animal, but the slugs were falling into the grass and gravel. I lost one in the first five, then two in the second set. CRAP !! I was shooting good for a change and losing animals to bad ammo hurt. I posted a 34, not bad. It could have been a 37 though.

The report was weak compared to the rest and I could easily track the bullet to the ground thru the Leupold. I may have also lost one turkey to an unexplained low miss.

I went back to the truck to get ammo from a different lot number brick. The ammo I was using is SK Standard Plus. Never had any trouble with this stuff before and no issues during pre match practice. The suspect lot number is 07742- 11234. I am not much of a small bore fanatic and use mixed lots of the SK either purchasing a few bricks once and a while or just using SK won as awards at our local club matches. This one box was one I got as an award ! I have four boxes of 50 of the suspect lot and will fire them for practice only. Anyone had any similar misfortune with this or any other ammo ?

McAlice, the ram loss is because the silhouette ram gods are trying to get even with you for your 10 in a row HP ram award that you made.
Oh BTW rimfires are at least as ammo sensitive as your HP, so mixing lots there is no telling what you will get. Tried weighing some of that free ammo, yet?

Innocent

McAlice, I had one soft round at Harrisburg last weekend with the std +. I do not have the lot # handy. But I will check for any of the lot you posted.
I was going to purchase a case or two at the nationals now I wonder if I should.
Some one else was in at the store and said about having a couple of light shells also.
I only had one brick of newer stuff and for that I was greatful.

Innocent wrote: Oh BTW rimfires are at least as ammo sensitive as your HP, so mixing lots there is no telling what you will get. Tried weighing some of that free ammo, yet?

Innocent

Weighing .22 ammo?...no way. Like I said, I am not that serious about smallbore. I let Dave B. do all the testing on the cases of SK he buys for the club. The clunker lots
are the stuff he gives away for awards. Just kidding, Dave.

.22 ammo as sensitive as my HP handloads ?? At least as the assembler I have total control over the quality of the loaded HP round. My ammo will shoot tight little groups for as long as the barrel throat will last provided they are carefully assembled the same round to round.

.22 match quality ammo is mass manufactured thousands of rounds a minute in some cases. They are a manufacturing marvel that are consistent and accurate lot to lot. I can not fault the manufacturer for a couple of rounds that were light on powder or some other cause. I just wish they were not rounds fired for score.

Bob, SK Standard+ is probable one of the best of the "inexpensive" ammo if we can call it that but if you expect to get better results at large matches use better quality ammo like Eley Black, Red or even the Orange. You should also consider using Lapua Center X or Midas +
Some times people in Bench Rest Central sell their ammo for less than the going rate, I can tell you by my own experience that most of the ammo that BR shooters use or decide to get rid of for our off hand shooting is great ammo. A few years back I bought half a case of Tenex (not EPS) for $400 and shot good enough for my friend Agustin Sanchez several National Championships with it.

Hello all

I shot a SB prone match last wknd and lost 2 shots low because of POOF rounds. It cost me 3 pts. My son even noticed they sounded weak. Was shooting Wolf MT.

Shot a case of Eley Target yellow box 3 yrs ago and had several in that lot that were weak.
I shoot SB silhouette,prone, BR, and anything else I can find.

I guess that's the price we pay for using mid grade ammo. I've never heard of any weak shots from the premium stuff.

Brian

I have to ask......could I or should I have asked for an alibi for faulty ammo ? Only my spotter and I could verify the low hits due to the weaker sounding rounds.

If it was clear enough of a squib that the match director laughed at you, it was an alibi.

I just looked it up in the rulebook. Looks like NO alibi for this situation, only rounds that fail to fire.

Mine was for entertainment value.

I am the match director for a "old Farts" match we shoot on Thursdays at our Club (Benton Gun Club). We shoot from the bench at 100 yards on a "mini-Palma" target.

At first I just took my Evileo built silhouette Anschutz 1712 out with some of the Eley Club Xtra EPS I bought from Kathy and was a happy camper. The gun and ammo are amazingly accurate with groups around .5"-.75" at 100 yards if I do my part and watch the wind. I noticed, though, that I was getting unexplained occasional low hits, about 1.5" low in every match.

So back to the house and considerable thinking and cussing while enjoying an occasional adult beverage while reading Precision Shooting magazine. To say the BR rimfire gang pays attention to ammo and guns is not needed - those guys look at EVERYTHING.

I found an article that discussed this very observation we are noticing and testing that was done to attempt to eliminate it. Testing by sorting by weighing and sorting by rim thickness was reported, but found no consistent on target improvement. Just out of curiosity, I weighed my Club Xtra and found that it weighs 51.1 grains with less that 1% being off by .2 grain and none more that that - guess that explains why I have had such good results with it. But it does not explain the occasional low as in testing these out-of-weight rounds did not strike outside the weight sorted round POI.

The only thing I found in reading and testing was that $$$ buys better on-target results, not sorting.

Well, back to the adult beverages and reading..........


George

Bob. If a pop sticks in your barrel you can get an alibi but if it comes out, I think you are out of luck. You gotta start shooting the good stuff.

Okay - no alibi - but it sure was funny!

At the nationals, I had quite a few miss fires with eley club extra. The firing pin strikes where consistent with the cases that did fire. I would turn the round so that the firing pin hit on the opposite side and the round would fire. A very good shooter at the Nationals stated that the primer might not be all the way around the rim of the cartridge.

It looks like I am going to move to the EPS in order to get consistency. Nothing worse than getting that great hold on the target then nothing when you squeeze the trigger. Of course, getting a poof shot might be worse. At least I can still take a shot with a new cartridge.

Bob, replace your firing pin spring.