Recommended Factory Berger 300 Norma for 20” 1/8 twist barrel

[Familydude]

Just picked up an AXSR that came with a factory 20” 1/8 twist barrel. Typically shoot 6GT and 6.5 Creedmoor to include in a PSR setting, but want to switch things up.

Going with factory ammo at this point and am leaning toward Berger. I’d like to get out to a mile at minimum for now, with longer distances in the future I hope. I’d appreciate recommendations.

Thanks in advance.

Also, can’t own a suppressor in my state. Will be using an Area 419 Hellfire.

 

[eod_tek]

Unless something has drasticllly changed since I've been stuck overseas the last 6 months, you dont really have a ton of options for factory ammo.

In my experience, the berger ammo with 215s shot fine, about MOA for 5 round gorups. I tried the federal premium with 215s and my barrel was not a fan, maybe 1.5-2 moa, ymmv.

That being said, depending on target size, a mile is a tough shot on factory loads. Its doable but be prepared for the SD of the ammo alone to put you off target. In my testing the frederal premiums had an SD of 17.3 and an ES of 49 for 10 rounds and berger was similar with an SD of 18.2 and an ES of 52.

If you really want consistency for shooting at a mile, I 10/10 recommend handloading or using a company like unknonwn munitions to load for you. If you are okay with blowing through a half box or more of ammo to get a hit or your targets are larger, then youll have fun.

Good luck, and enjoy!

 

[Familydude]

Great info. Thank you.

 

[vh20]

Berger 230 OTM Tactical ammo gave best performance for me out of the few factory options available (Federal Premium, Norma, and…that’s about it besides Berger). It gave best ES/SD of the three. While I have seen it occasionally as bad as mentioned in the previous post, I usually find it a good bit better than 52/18.2. Also, you have Lapua brass left over for your eventual handloads, which is where you will end up if you get serious about ELR. I have shot over 1300 of these rounds, and some lot numbers (pre-Covid) were amazing, with consistent single-digit SDs around 7-ish. Nowadays not so much, but it’s still the best factory option. All three brands shot sub-MOA (all used the same 230 Berger bullet), and the Berger ammo was easily 0.5 MOA, sometimes less. But as said above, at a mile you will just have to live with vertical dispersion due to the higher SD than a well-tuned handload. I run a chrono on every shot (used to be Labradar, now Garmin), and if a shot went high or low, and the chrono showed it was correspondingly way above or below the average, I chalked it up to things I can’t control, and did not “correct” elevation based on that impact.

 

[Rocketmandb]

@Familydude close to the midpoint of the video below, I walk through how to judge how standard deviations impact vertical at long range. In the video, I do it for the difference between a 9 fps SD and a 6 fps SD. Walk through that for your given round/bullet and an SD of like 18 fps, which is probably what you'd expect out of factory ammo.

Just because you can get factory ammo to shoot 1 MOA, or even 1/2 MOA at 100 yards, doesn't mean that it will perform at distance. Standard deviations play a much bigger role than inherent system dispersion as you move farther out - some of which you can tune out with seating depth when you roll your own ammo.

If you're serious about shooting at longer ranges, you really should reload. Otherwise, you're just building frustration and spending money on hitting dirt.

 

[Familydude]

I appreciate the input and good info. Figured I’d ultimately need to reload to get my desired results, but thought I’d ask and maybe get lucky. Currently do 6.5 creed and 6GT. Guess I’ll add one more caliber.

Thanks again all.

 

[Rocketmandb]

I appreciate the input and good info. Figured I’d ultimately need to reload to get my desired results, but thought I’d ask and maybe get lucky. Currently do 6.5 creed and 6GT. Guess I’ll add one more caliber.

Thanks again all.

Not a bad thing at all to start with some factory ammo to break in the barrel and get used to the rifle. Then, as long as you bought ammo done up with good brass, you can use the brass for the reloads. A friend of mine did that with his new 6 BRA because at the time he couldn't find Lapua 6 BR brass. Turns out it cost about the same to buy the ammo as it would;ve been to buy all the components separately. The end result is the same: formed Lapua brass - but he didn't have to load it to begin with.

 

[Familydude]

Not a bad thing at all to start with some factory ammo to break in the barrel and get used to the rifle. Then, as long as you bought ammo done up with good brass, you can use the brass for the reloads. A friend of mine did that with his new 6 BRA because at the time he couldn't find Lapua 6 BR brass. Turns out it cost about the same to buy the ammo as it would;ve been to buy all the components separately. The end result is the same: formed Lapua brass - but he didn't have to load it to begin with.

Thanks. I’ll try a couple/three or so boxes of Berger as suggested above and go from there. Pretty eager to get started. Again, much appreciated.

 

[vh20]

What @Rocketmandb said about SD at distance is definitely true. I think Chris Wray did an article on here somewhere where he actually quantified it to a degree, and tied it to Time Of Flight (TOF) rather than specific distances. Paraphrasing and sort of guessing at what numbers I can remember (they’ll be close), I believe he concluded that TOF < 1 sec, group size is more important than SD. TOF between 1.0-1.5 secs, both factors have about equal weight. TOF > 1.5 sec, SD outweighs group size (obviously we’re talking about “reasonable” group sizes and SDs, not extreme cases that no one would want to shoot ELR to begin with.
And, as he and I both suggested, factory ammo is ok to play with, break barrels in with, etc, but if you get serious about it you’ll need to handload. I suggested the Berger as the best factory option because it performed best for me, and because it leaves you with Lapua brass (best brand for 300NM) to handload with. But you will want to eventually handload. I’m curious to see what kind of SDs you get with a 20” bbl. All of mine have been 27” AI bbls. I rarely got anything as bad as 18 SD, but I think quality of ALL factory ammo has suffered post-Covid (actually somewhere around 2021 to present).