FrankenMauser
New member
Interesting.
Thanks for testing and sharing.
Thanks for testing and sharing.
First time ever shooting Lapua X-act and Long Range--bad news for all the other manufacturers!
- Thread starter stagpanther
- Start date
stagpanther
New member
Lapua's long range does well, but was always slightly behind x-act in accuracy--at long range as well. It's rated the same velocity by Lapua as far as I can tell, so I'm wondering if it's the same ammo but sorted out from x-act as having slightly more dispersion.
I'm not a comp guy so I don't know what those guys do or use, I'm beginning to wonder if it might be an advantage to use different ammo depending on the range and conditions over the course of a match? Have you seen or have knowledge of a competitor doing that?
FrankenMauser
New member
I have overheard a couple discussions suggesting changing ammo for longer stages, and have had a few discussions about it.
People do sometimes change ammo for an entire match. But almost no one wants to do it for only a portion of a match.
I do not know of anyone actually trying it, except my son.
We had a local match that was all inside 100 yd, except a club stage that was entirely 350-378 yd. He shot the normal stages with CCI SV but changed to Blazer for the longer stage, in order to have a suitable hold in the scope's reticle (a previous iteration of his 10/22, with a scope that did not have enough elevation adjustment).
It seems like it could be a good idea, until you recognize that when you're on the clock you fall back on "training" - like police in a shootout or soldiers in battle.
How you train is what you default to on the clock. Keeping in mind different dope is not a big deal for casual shooting, or even a match stage that goes smoothly. But add complicated target sequences, weird position changes, stress, a time limit, and, most importantly, a mistake, and it becomes another point of failure.
All it takes is one mistake (or unexpected distraction) on the clock, and that different dope might be ejected from the active priority processing in your brain. Mistakes snowball if you don't get back in front of them. A mistake in hold, wind call, or target sequence might turn into a snowball of pain. Most people simply do not want to have another variable to track, even with that data on a dope card and cheat sheet.
Example:
We have a local family that shoots almost every match. Three brothers, a cousin, and sometimes their wives and/or father. They are middle-of-the-pack to top level shooters. One of the younger brothers is the ringleader. He recently found that SK Rifle Match shot better in his Vudoo360 than the Center-X that they had been shooting. So *everyone* switched to the SK ammo. The dope wasn't much different, but just enough to matter. (I'm pretty sure it also didn't shoot well in at least two of the rifles, but I don't know.)
For various reasons and in various ways, each shooter ended up falling back on prior knowledge (that old dope, burned into their memories) during our last local match, and dropped a lot of shots with the new ammo. They even checked their dope with a Labradar during sight-in. But things changed when on the clock.
Every one of them knew what they had done, understood what had happened, and wished they could have had a "do-over". But that is just how it goes when you make changes of any kind - we default to training that is no longer valid. As a long term change, they'll get used to it. The SK dope will become their standard, and it will be second nature within a couple months. But if it were a constant variable, only coming into play once or twice in each match, it would continue to be a problem.
...Long-winded again. I'm falling back into old habits.
People do sometimes change ammo for an entire match. But almost no one wants to do it for only a portion of a match.
I do not know of anyone actually trying it, except my son.
We had a local match that was all inside 100 yd, except a club stage that was entirely 350-378 yd. He shot the normal stages with CCI SV but changed to Blazer for the longer stage, in order to have a suitable hold in the scope's reticle (a previous iteration of his 10/22, with a scope that did not have enough elevation adjustment).
It seems like it could be a good idea, until you recognize that when you're on the clock you fall back on "training" - like police in a shootout or soldiers in battle.
How you train is what you default to on the clock. Keeping in mind different dope is not a big deal for casual shooting, or even a match stage that goes smoothly. But add complicated target sequences, weird position changes, stress, a time limit, and, most importantly, a mistake, and it becomes another point of failure.
All it takes is one mistake (or unexpected distraction) on the clock, and that different dope might be ejected from the active priority processing in your brain. Mistakes snowball if you don't get back in front of them. A mistake in hold, wind call, or target sequence might turn into a snowball of pain. Most people simply do not want to have another variable to track, even with that data on a dope card and cheat sheet.
Example:
We have a local family that shoots almost every match. Three brothers, a cousin, and sometimes their wives and/or father. They are middle-of-the-pack to top level shooters. One of the younger brothers is the ringleader. He recently found that SK Rifle Match shot better in his Vudoo360 than the Center-X that they had been shooting. So *everyone* switched to the SK ammo. The dope wasn't much different, but just enough to matter. (I'm pretty sure it also didn't shoot well in at least two of the rifles, but I don't know.)
For various reasons and in various ways, each shooter ended up falling back on prior knowledge (that old dope, burned into their memories) during our last local match, and dropped a lot of shots with the new ammo. They even checked their dope with a Labradar during sight-in. But things changed when on the clock.
Every one of them knew what they had done, understood what had happened, and wished they could have had a "do-over". But that is just how it goes when you make changes of any kind - we default to training that is no longer valid. As a long term change, they'll get used to it. The SK dope will become their standard, and it will be second nature within a couple months. But if it were a constant variable, only coming into play once or twice in each match, it would continue to be a problem.
...Long-winded again. I'm falling back into old habits.
stagpanther
New member
I sure appreciate the detailed response, thank you. I am one of those people that "chokes" easy and then only snowball the "negativity." That's why I think you have to have a masochistic streak to compete in long range high wind 22lr.
FrankenMauser
New member
It can definitely be painful.
But when everything comes together, it is rewarding.
But when everything comes together, it is rewarding.
stagpanther
New member
I bet--I feel the same way when shooting a primitive wood longbow with no sight.
firepin_Fun
New member
That’s impressive shooting. It’s always exciting to try out new ammo, especially when it performs so well in challenging conditions.
It’s interesting how sometimes our curiosity can lead us to new discoveries, like how well the X-Act performed in the wind for you...
It’s interesting how sometimes our curiosity can lead us to new discoveries, like how well the X-Act performed in the wind for you...
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stagpanther
New member
You know what they say about depends on the barrel--I've tried the X-act in my match-chambered Lilja 1:9 barrel and it doesn't shoot worth a poop out of it--while Tenex excels. Go figure.
Two things I have learned about ammo from good/bad experiences.
First:
SK ammo has pretty severe variations in velocity and accuracy depending upon specific lots.
When Wolf ammo was made in the same Jagr factory in Germany as SK, the Wolf boxes of Target were filled with SK Std Plus ammo and the Match boxes were filled with SK Rifle match.
I bought a case of the cheaper Wolf Match Target years ago that shot better than just about anything. (I never had any SK or Wolf ammo that could come even close.) My buddy bought a brick of Wolf Target ammo because my case shot so well (It was a different lot) and thought his rifle had broken something, it shot so badly. After several sessions of cleaning, adjusting and trying to find what was out of kilter, I gave him a box out of my lot, and his reaction was "My rifle is shooting just like it used to." That had us all checking lot numbers on SK and Wolf Ammo to find good lots and three of the four of us eventually switched to Lapua Center-X because the lot variations were almost incidental. One stalwart was still convinced, based on price that he can conquer the lot variations in SK manufactured ammo.
Now that Wolf has switched its contract to Eley, I don't know of the lot variations from the Jagr factory have disappeared.
Second:
I think I may have already mentioned this on this forum, but Eley Tenex, based upon our testing in 18 rifles, shoots best in rifles with tight chambers.
Sounds reasonable since it is tested in fixtures with Anschutz barrels to determine if a lot is good enough to go into the red Tenex boxes.
We have tested 58 different ammos, in 5-round groups, across 8 bolt action and 10 semi-auto rifles. We've shot them at 50 and 100 yards and have fired about 50,000 rounds to gather the data. I must admit that, once a particular ammo showed that it shot poorly across the mix of rifles, we stopped buying it.
The better performing ammos eventually dominated the results.
Of our 18 rifles, four of them have chambers tight enough to shoot Tenex really accurately. Those four rifles also shoot Lapua well.
The other 14 rifles all shoot Lapua well but can't seem to take advantage of Tenex's high quality.
RWS performance, for a quality ammo (across 4 different labels of Match ammo), seems to be spotty depending upon our individual barrels. Some rifles really shoot it well, but for some it is in the middle of the pack of quality ammo. There doesn't appear to be an link to chambers since the best performance is not in the same rifles as Eley Tenex.
All 18 rifles shoot match ammo more accurately than super-sonic and hyper-sonic ammos.
There is always the possibility that shooter induced variations created some anomalies that colored the data, but the number of groups shot should have washed out individual anomalies. The sample sizes are large with at least 133 groups shot with the worst performing ammos. The best performing ammos have from 350 to over 1300 groups in the ammo samples.
First:
SK ammo has pretty severe variations in velocity and accuracy depending upon specific lots.
When Wolf ammo was made in the same Jagr factory in Germany as SK, the Wolf boxes of Target were filled with SK Std Plus ammo and the Match boxes were filled with SK Rifle match.
I bought a case of the cheaper Wolf Match Target years ago that shot better than just about anything. (I never had any SK or Wolf ammo that could come even close.) My buddy bought a brick of Wolf Target ammo because my case shot so well (It was a different lot) and thought his rifle had broken something, it shot so badly. After several sessions of cleaning, adjusting and trying to find what was out of kilter, I gave him a box out of my lot, and his reaction was "My rifle is shooting just like it used to." That had us all checking lot numbers on SK and Wolf Ammo to find good lots and three of the four of us eventually switched to Lapua Center-X because the lot variations were almost incidental. One stalwart was still convinced, based on price that he can conquer the lot variations in SK manufactured ammo.
Now that Wolf has switched its contract to Eley, I don't know of the lot variations from the Jagr factory have disappeared.
Second:
I think I may have already mentioned this on this forum, but Eley Tenex, based upon our testing in 18 rifles, shoots best in rifles with tight chambers.
Sounds reasonable since it is tested in fixtures with Anschutz barrels to determine if a lot is good enough to go into the red Tenex boxes.
We have tested 58 different ammos, in 5-round groups, across 8 bolt action and 10 semi-auto rifles. We've shot them at 50 and 100 yards and have fired about 50,000 rounds to gather the data. I must admit that, once a particular ammo showed that it shot poorly across the mix of rifles, we stopped buying it.
The better performing ammos eventually dominated the results.
Of our 18 rifles, four of them have chambers tight enough to shoot Tenex really accurately. Those four rifles also shoot Lapua well.
The other 14 rifles all shoot Lapua well but can't seem to take advantage of Tenex's high quality.
RWS performance, for a quality ammo (across 4 different labels of Match ammo), seems to be spotty depending upon our individual barrels. Some rifles really shoot it well, but for some it is in the middle of the pack of quality ammo. There doesn't appear to be an link to chambers since the best performance is not in the same rifles as Eley Tenex.
All 18 rifles shoot match ammo more accurately than super-sonic and hyper-sonic ammos.
There is always the possibility that shooter induced variations created some anomalies that colored the data, but the number of groups shot should have washed out individual anomalies. The sample sizes are large with at least 133 groups shot with the worst performing ammos. The best performing ammos have from 350 to over 1300 groups in the ammo samples.
stagpanther
New member
I've shot enough 22lr to know that it can vary dramatically depending on things like individual chamber and headspace dimensions. Even the dimensions of the cases themselves can have an impact on how well it shoots. This is mostly because the tolerances for consistency are FAR smaller in 22lr than any other chambering, at least in my experience. I've seen +/- .001 differences translate to many inches spread at distances of 200 yds or more. It's true that I have to be absolutely precise as I can to get repeated accuracy, and I do slop shots on occassion--very easy to do with 22lr. In my stock CZ barrel--which has a looser chamber and conventional 16 twist th--X-act dominates all other ammos, including RS 50 and 100 which formally were the best. I've found that 225 to 250 yards is really the "acid test" distance where the long range potential of ammo either keeps it together or falls apart.
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