Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Anyone ever weighed charges in factory ammo?

I know it doesn't make much sense to buy a box of ammo, tear them apart and weigh charges, but I'm betting one or two loonies here have done it.

Reason I ask is I was shooting this weekend (Factory .308 ammo)and had two rounds that were noticeably less audible and both missed a gong at 300 yds.

Buddy did see one bullet strike ground at base of gong.

I figured they were just short runs of powder, but it made me wonder just how precise/consistent powder charges are in factory ammo.

Never had this happen with centerfire ammo before. Seems like an ammuntion mfg. would have loading machines that would detect under/overloaded rounds.

Even my Dillon 650 will alert on an overloaded round.

JM

A couple of weeks ago I pulled three bullets from some Hornady match ammo in 308. The charges were 43.5 and 43.6 grains, two of one and one of the other, but I forget which.

For a lot of intents and purposes, the charges don't need to be nearly as uniform as some think. As I type, I'm looking at a target with a ten shot group of just under one half MOA. The ammo used thrown charges of IMR3031, a long stick powder that crunches through a powder measure.

Thanks MM,

a few tenths of a grain certainly isn't going to make any difference in the rifles I shoot. Doubt if my shooting is good enough to tell either.

Just wondering if anyone has found a real discrepancy in charge weights or had something similar happen.

Was also thinking maybe the crimp was light on those rounds?

A friend of mine was shooting some surplus (Greek, if I remember correctly) 30-06 ammo through his Garand and it wasn't grouping well. Handling several cartridges, we could tell by shaking and listening that the powder charges weren't uniform. I didn't get any to break down and weigh however.

I've had the same experience, audible squib, with 22lr, never a centerfire rifle.

If you can clearly hear a difference, I'd guess its a bit more than a few tenths of a grain.

I would be surprised if ammo manufactures didn't have a fairly accurate way to weed out over filled cases, but perhaps the lower end isn't culled as closely.

I've had plenty of .22 LR's fart on me.

It was def more than a few tenths if it was the powder and not a neck tension deal.

Oh well, shoot enough and strange stuff will happen.

I've done it a couple times. Once with 338 Win. 200 BST and with 338 RUM loaded with 250 Swift A-Frames.

Don't remember the specifics other than to wonder why I always weigh charges down to the tenth of a grain on handloads. The factory stuff varied "a bunch"

Never had a squib though...dud primers, yes.

I've never weighed factory ammo charges but I have seen the same ammo from two different boxes give 250 fps difference in velocity. A friend and I were sighting in his 7mm rem mag and I happened to have my chronograph set up. Loads that were doing 3000 fps suddenly started chronoing 2750. I thought my chrono was acting up then we figured out that he'd ran out of one box and opened a new box from a different lot. Identical ammo just bought at different times & different lot numbers. Federal premium 140 nosler partition loads.

That's pretty interesting guys. The only .308 I currently own and the rifle i was shooting is a BLR Model 81.

Just never bothered loading for that rifle and always used factory stuff because I seldom hunted with it where a shot would be longer than 150 yards.

One time I was breaking down Remington 300 Ultra Mag ammo for the brass. I was lining up the bullets on the bench as I went, and in one box of 180 Partitions, one bullet was noticeably longer.

Stuck it on the scale and it was a 200 Partition.....

I have pulled bullets on factory ammo a few times. Never because I thought there was a problem with it, but because I wanted to try to duplicate the factory load with my own handload.

One Hornady factory load shot very well in a particular 270 Win I own. They discontinued the round and I was trying to duplicate it. Same with a 375 H&H Remington factory load. Neither worked out for me as far as duplicating...

Last summer I was working up loads for the .300 Weatherby, and was startled to see factory 165's clocking 3425 fps. I pulled them down, and found they had waaayyy more powder on board, than any of the books

So I loaded waayy more powder than any of the books, and stopped at 3350

LOL.

Judging by the few comments in this thread, it appears factory ammunition may be a little more up and down that I would have thunk.

I did once after a factory load caused a Marlin lever gun to lock up after firing. I had to pound the lever open and then took it to a gunsmith to have the case removed. I pulled the rest of the box and found two more rounds with significantly more powder than the others. I wrote the maker just to give them a head up on the issue and got a letter back that said "that is impossible."

You wouldn't have to pull the bullets and weigh the powder. just weigh the whole cartridge. It would also include variations in case weight and bullet weight. But it would give you some ball park info.
This is also why folks that use store bought ammo will tell you if you get a box that shoots well in your rifle, run to the store and buy several boxes with the same lot number. The factories will often change powders with different lots.