I have two Sig 716 rifles that I shoot, one setup for distance with a NF and one with a red dot. Anyway ive been shooting a steady diet of Hornady Amax 168 through the one for long range, and mostly CBC or similar 147 gr stuff out of the red dot. Last week I brought a few different kinds of ammo out to see what grouped better in the long range setup - Federal GMM 168 gr, GMM 175 gr, and the Hornady Amax 168 it was using. This rifle gets shot to 1000m when I take it out so I wanted to see if it would take the 175s instead since the 168s go subsonic at about 900-950 meters depending on the day. Out of the 3, the Federal GMM 168s grouped best with 1/2 MOA, followed by Hornady at 3/4 MOA and lastly the 175s which would be 3/4-1 inch at best, always seemed to be a flyer opening up the group. Thats the back story, so I went and bought 200 rounds of 168 Federal GMM and decided to stop using the hornady.
Went out today and loaded up a couple mags with the 168s and about 1 in every 10 rounds blew the primer out, and almost all of them had some pretty severe ejection marks on them. I also noticed when I zero'd that I had to come down a decent amount from where the 168 Amax rounds were to get on center. They grouped just fine with most groups being 1/2 to 3/4 MOA, and it did fine at 700, 800 and 1000m even with a decent wind. Just to see if it was the gun, I took my other sig, loaded up a mag and got the exact same issue with about 2-3 rounds out of every mag blowing out the primers.
Prior to this, the scoped gun had about 200 or so rounds of Hornady Amax, other than the two boxes I used last week to see which grouped better, if there was a popped primer last week, I didnt notice it. I still have to go through the brass to see if there were any ejector marks like these, but im also told the Federal brass is very soft and tends to get marks like that on semi auto guns. I have been shooting the 168 and 175 gr GMM in my savage bolt gun with no issues, and have a new remington 700p to try out this weekend to see if it has similar issues or not. I might call federal with the LOT number to see if there are any issues with the 200 rounds I got and I have a couple boxes from a separate lot to try out in the Sigs to see if they have similar issues.
Anyone have any ideas? I have plenty of Hornady if I should just go back to that but the GMM seems to do better on paper and at long range
Went out today and loaded up a couple mags with the 168s and about 1 in every 10 rounds blew the primer out, and almost all of them had some pretty severe ejection marks on them. I also noticed when I zero'd that I had to come down a decent amount from where the 168 Amax rounds were to get on center. They grouped just fine with most groups being 1/2 to 3/4 MOA, and it did fine at 700, 800 and 1000m even with a decent wind. Just to see if it was the gun, I took my other sig, loaded up a mag and got the exact same issue with about 2-3 rounds out of every mag blowing out the primers.
Prior to this, the scoped gun had about 200 or so rounds of Hornady Amax, other than the two boxes I used last week to see which grouped better, if there was a popped primer last week, I didnt notice it. I still have to go through the brass to see if there were any ejector marks like these, but im also told the Federal brass is very soft and tends to get marks like that on semi auto guns. I have been shooting the 168 and 175 gr GMM in my savage bolt gun with no issues, and have a new remington 700p to try out this weekend to see if it has similar issues or not. I might call federal with the LOT number to see if there are any issues with the 200 rounds I got and I have a couple boxes from a separate lot to try out in the Sigs to see if they have similar issues.
Anyone have any ideas? I have plenty of Hornady if I should just go back to that but the GMM seems to do better on paper and at long range