For those that don't know, when a lot of military ammo is tested and comes up out of spec because of any number of factors like velocity, pressure, etc it is rejected. Companies then pull it apart and sell the different components to re-coup some of their losses.
I have shot a lot of these pulled 175 Sierra Match King bullets and a lot of new ones. I have sold them on this site too, and have had many people who are return customers. I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison from the same rifle, the same day, same conditions with the only variable being a "pulled" surplus projectile compared to a brand new one from Sierra. These are the same bullets, same BC, only one has been pulled and has pull marks and the other is straight from the factory. This was as much for my own curiosity as anything, but I thought I would share my results with you all. These bullets are very cost effective for practice and even match shooting. I did not sort the pulled ones at all, just grabbed a fistful from the box and loaded them with my Dillon Progressive 550B in "single stage mode", only seating the bullet and priming, having resized earlier.
I went to my local highpower range after loading up 25 pulled projectiles and 25 new ones in twice fired Lapua brass with Winchester primers and 43.5 grains of Varget hand weighed and seated at 2.82" COAL.
Testing was done at 500 yards from my Savage Model 10 24" barrel that is threaded with a TOMB brake and mounted but not bedded in McMillan M40-A1 HTG stock and equipped with a CDI bottom metal. Scope is a MIL/MIL Vortex Razor HD.
On the hour drive out to the range there was a crazy storm that luckily blew over by the time I got there. It actually turned out to be wonderful conditions, with barely any wind, which is good out there, since it is out on the "plains" side of Colorado and can get pretty dang gusty. Probably had 0 wind for the first 25 and 2-3 MPH at 90 degrees to the muzzle for the last 25. I decided to do 5 shot groups with 5 minutes of cooling between each group and alternated back and forth between pulled and new loads for consistency. Measured each group with a micrometer.
Here is the 500 yard line view of my target:
I did a three shot warm-up group at 500 with a few extra pulls in FGGM brass I had and was pleasantly surprised to have a 2.5" 3 shot group including my cold bore, right around my point of aim. (I don't normally shoot groups, am more of a steel banging addict these days, so that was good shooting for me.) One had center punched the orange dot on the Shoot N'See that I was using for a point of aim on the big target.
Went right to work after that, again allowing cooling between each 5 round group and alternating back and forth between the two loads. I didn't pay much attention to wind because it was so low, and I wanted to do everything I could to shoot consistently with focus on the fundamentals.
Here is the one pic I got of a new projectile group:
Here is a surplus projectile group:
And here are the results:
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">New</span></span>
1:6.75"
2:6.5"
3:4.1"
4:5.004"
5:6.5"
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">Surplus</span></span>
1:5.014"
2:5.46"
3:5.54"
4:3.008
5:4.08
So, for new bullets my group average was 5.77" which equals roughly 1.15 MOA.
The surplus projo gave me my group average of 4.6" which equals roughly .92 MOA.
Now here is the "controversial" part. If you look at my pictures you will notice that I have several very good groups going with both new and pulled and then a "flyer" that opens the average up to almost double. I decided to compare the five, 5 shot groups but with a tweak of using data by taking out 1 flyer from 3 groups of each set of 5. That sounds complicated, but here is what it looks like:
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold"></span>New</span>
1:6.75"
2:6.5"(4 in 2.75")
3:4.1"
4:5.004(4 in 4.52")
5:6.5" (4 in 3.03")
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">Surplus</span></span>
1:5.014"
2:5.46"
3:5.54"(4 in 3.03)
4:3.008(this was a four shot group only, had a bum primer on the fifth.)
5:4.08(4 in 2.4")
So, I don't post these for my ego or to skew data. If anything, I think this actually would take some of the human error out of the data, as I know I had a few self called flyers out of those fifty, and wind did start up for the last 25(although very light wind.) Also, this is to compare new vs. surplus bullets and I took 3 total shots from each set of loads so one set of projectiles did not get any more special treatment than the other.
Here are the averages with the 3 flyers from each set of 25:
New with three flyers removed averaged 4.23"=.846 MOA
Surplus with three flyers removed averaged .78"=.75 MOA.
Here is a picture of what I am talking about. These were with pulled/surplus projectiles and shot towards the end when wind was gusting a tiny bit, which could have accounted for some of the horizontal dispersion. As you can see, the vertical dispersion is excellent, around an inch at 500 yards. Gotta love that Lapua brass and Varget powder!
In conclusion, this is obviously not the most scientific of experiments. I also do not claim to have the best gear or to be the best shot, this was shot with a factory rifle barrel and I am no statistics pro. That being said, I was impressed that the surplus bullets actually averaged a little better than the new ones. I don't think that result tells us that you should always shoot surplus vs. new by any means. One would probably need to test and record thousands of shots of both to get unequivocal results with different shooters and guns. However, for my purposes, I feel that this does make surplus ammo a legitimate practice and match option for those who want to shoot more for less, with the same BC bullet many already favor.
If you have done your own tests, formal or informal feel free to post your results in this thread, I am by no means the type to get pissed about more info on these, good or bad. My main purpose in posting these results is to get the conversation going about these and to show that 175 M118 surplus bullets can be a good way to save even more money when reloading your own long distance ammo for that .308 workhorse! Thanks for looking!
I have shot a lot of these pulled 175 Sierra Match King bullets and a lot of new ones. I have sold them on this site too, and have had many people who are return customers. I wanted to do a side-by-side comparison from the same rifle, the same day, same conditions with the only variable being a "pulled" surplus projectile compared to a brand new one from Sierra. These are the same bullets, same BC, only one has been pulled and has pull marks and the other is straight from the factory. This was as much for my own curiosity as anything, but I thought I would share my results with you all. These bullets are very cost effective for practice and even match shooting. I did not sort the pulled ones at all, just grabbed a fistful from the box and loaded them with my Dillon Progressive 550B in "single stage mode", only seating the bullet and priming, having resized earlier.
I went to my local highpower range after loading up 25 pulled projectiles and 25 new ones in twice fired Lapua brass with Winchester primers and 43.5 grains of Varget hand weighed and seated at 2.82" COAL.
Testing was done at 500 yards from my Savage Model 10 24" barrel that is threaded with a TOMB brake and mounted but not bedded in McMillan M40-A1 HTG stock and equipped with a CDI bottom metal. Scope is a MIL/MIL Vortex Razor HD.
On the hour drive out to the range there was a crazy storm that luckily blew over by the time I got there. It actually turned out to be wonderful conditions, with barely any wind, which is good out there, since it is out on the "plains" side of Colorado and can get pretty dang gusty. Probably had 0 wind for the first 25 and 2-3 MPH at 90 degrees to the muzzle for the last 25. I decided to do 5 shot groups with 5 minutes of cooling between each group and alternated back and forth between pulled and new loads for consistency. Measured each group with a micrometer.
Here is the 500 yard line view of my target:
I did a three shot warm-up group at 500 with a few extra pulls in FGGM brass I had and was pleasantly surprised to have a 2.5" 3 shot group including my cold bore, right around my point of aim. (I don't normally shoot groups, am more of a steel banging addict these days, so that was good shooting for me.) One had center punched the orange dot on the Shoot N'See that I was using for a point of aim on the big target.
Went right to work after that, again allowing cooling between each 5 round group and alternating back and forth between the two loads. I didn't pay much attention to wind because it was so low, and I wanted to do everything I could to shoot consistently with focus on the fundamentals.
Here is the one pic I got of a new projectile group:
Here is a surplus projectile group:
And here are the results:
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">New</span></span>
1:6.75"
2:6.5"
3:4.1"
4:5.004"
5:6.5"
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">Surplus</span></span>
1:5.014"
2:5.46"
3:5.54"
4:3.008
5:4.08
So, for new bullets my group average was 5.77" which equals roughly 1.15 MOA.
The surplus projo gave me my group average of 4.6" which equals roughly .92 MOA.
Now here is the "controversial" part. If you look at my pictures you will notice that I have several very good groups going with both new and pulled and then a "flyer" that opens the average up to almost double. I decided to compare the five, 5 shot groups but with a tweak of using data by taking out 1 flyer from 3 groups of each set of 5. That sounds complicated, but here is what it looks like:
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold"></span>New</span>
1:6.75"
2:6.5"(4 in 2.75")
3:4.1"
4:5.004(4 in 4.52")
5:6.5" (4 in 3.03")
<span style="text-decoration: underline"><span style="font-weight: bold">Surplus</span></span>
1:5.014"
2:5.46"
3:5.54"(4 in 3.03)
4:3.008(this was a four shot group only, had a bum primer on the fifth.)
5:4.08(4 in 2.4")
So, I don't post these for my ego or to skew data. If anything, I think this actually would take some of the human error out of the data, as I know I had a few self called flyers out of those fifty, and wind did start up for the last 25(although very light wind.) Also, this is to compare new vs. surplus bullets and I took 3 total shots from each set of loads so one set of projectiles did not get any more special treatment than the other.
Here are the averages with the 3 flyers from each set of 25:
New with three flyers removed averaged 4.23"=.846 MOA
Surplus with three flyers removed averaged .78"=.75 MOA.
Here is a picture of what I am talking about. These were with pulled/surplus projectiles and shot towards the end when wind was gusting a tiny bit, which could have accounted for some of the horizontal dispersion. As you can see, the vertical dispersion is excellent, around an inch at 500 yards. Gotta love that Lapua brass and Varget powder!
In conclusion, this is obviously not the most scientific of experiments. I also do not claim to have the best gear or to be the best shot, this was shot with a factory rifle barrel and I am no statistics pro. That being said, I was impressed that the surplus bullets actually averaged a little better than the new ones. I don't think that result tells us that you should always shoot surplus vs. new by any means. One would probably need to test and record thousands of shots of both to get unequivocal results with different shooters and guns. However, for my purposes, I feel that this does make surplus ammo a legitimate practice and match option for those who want to shoot more for less, with the same BC bullet many already favor.
If you have done your own tests, formal or informal feel free to post your results in this thread, I am by no means the type to get pissed about more info on these, good or bad. My main purpose in posting these results is to get the conversation going about these and to show that 175 M118 surplus bullets can be a good way to save even more money when reloading your own long distance ammo for that .308 workhorse! Thanks for looking!
