Hornaday Superformance accuracy issues?

R

reynolds357

New member
First, I bought it for the brass. It was cheap, and I do not intend to hunt with it. Having said that, I have never in my life seen ammo Shoot this bad. 6.5 Creedmoor 129 SST. The ammo for the most part groups about 1 1/2" @ 100 yards. Not great but not awful. This is the part that bugs me. Consistently there will be 3 to 4 shots per 20 that are 3 to 4 inches away from the group. Out of 60 shots, there have been 11 of these flyers. Anyone else had this happen with Superformance?
As a side note, Its not me. Its not the rifle. Me and the rifle shoot consistent 3/8" to 1/2" 20 shot groups at 100 using Berger 130's over IMR 4350. I have NEVER seen ammo shoot a decent base group and have consistent extreme flyers like this stuff has.
Bad lot of ammo or typical?
 
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Hornady Not Nosler

I cant get any of my rifles to shoot that crap either, primers flat, targets look like buckshot .
Now American Whitetail is decent and uses same brass and its cheaper reynolds.
 
I could not get it to group in a Savage 7mm-08 Model 10. Then again, nothing else grouped in that gun either.
 
I never could get that stuff to group well in my .243's or .270's. Even tried the superformance powder and couldn't work a consistent load that way.
 
I've only tried 2 calibers in 3 rifles. One 7x57 shoots SF 139 grain well (under MOA) while the other is indifferent(2"). My 257 Roberts carbine doesn't like the SF 117 grain but it doesn't particularly like bullets over 100 grains so I can't specifically lay blame on the SF ammo. Some rifles simply have very narrow parameters of velocity and bullet weight that they shoot accurately.

Concerning the fliers, I've never noticed this with the ammo I've used but I haven't bought any of this type ammo for several years, either.
 
I can get much better performance out of handloads anyway, so I won't be buying any more Superformance. One factory load you may want to look at is the Norma Kalahari line. It has great velocity like Superformance and a great looking bullet. Just a thought.
 
Yeah I've heard mostly bad things about it....large extreme spreads and high pressure despite the company claims. I have no experience with the ammo but I have reloaded with the hornady/hodgdon superformance powder and it sucks so much! Very wide range of velocities from shot to shot and I followed their stated load data exactly for a .243 with 75 grain bullets and it fell 250 fps short! I know every rifle is different but not 250 fps different!!! Never buying that crap again!
 
I had poor accuracy with both 150 and 165 gr 30-06 ammo and the speed was not any better than my hand loads.

My 308 on the other hand shot 150 gr Superfromance ammo with acceptable accuracy, around 1MOA +/- a bit depending on the day. Speed was not as fast as advertised, but better than I can get with any of my hand loads.
 
I tried some of that ammo out of my Browning A bolt .243 and it was very inconsistent. Flyers would regularly bring groups out to 1 1/2"- 2". This is a rifle that will shoot nickel sized groups with good ammo.
 
I also had poor accuracy with the 243 superperformance 95 grain. Shooting out of my weatherby vanguard, the best 100 yard group I could get was 2.5 inch. For comparison, plain-Jane Remington 100 grain core-lok makes reliable 3/4 inch groups. Every single 100 grain factory load I have tried is 1 inch or less, including the standard hornady 100 grain BTSP. The best factory ammo in my rifle is a federal load using sierra 100 gr game king BTSP. I cannot find those anymore :mad:

I thought it was just me, but I guess a lot of people have problems with the superperformance ammo.
 
I think this is the same ammo they used to sell as "Light Magnum". I had the same problem and, as I was getting older, I thought it was just me or something wrong inside the scope or something.

I went to the range with a 20 year old friend and we both shot my 270 with the "Light Magnum" and his 7mm-08 with his standard load. It wasn't me because I could shoot his rifle as well as he did. As we were leaving I thought I was going to have to send the Leupold scope to the shop but had a thought and changed ammo to an old 150Gr Winchester load I had in my gun box and all of sudden we were both back to 1 1/2 inch groups @ 100yds with my A Bolt.

I have always heard that different ammo shoots differently in the same gun but never heard it explained. I really liked the fast bullets in the Light Magnum because of the shorter time to target but it turns out that speed was the problem.

When I looked into it I found that it's complicated but essentially it all boils down to the vibration the load sets up in the barrel and when the bullet exits the muzzle. The vibration travels down the barrel from the chamber, reaches the end of the barrel, reflects back toward the chamber, reaches the chamber and reflects back toward the muzzle and repeats until the energy in the vibration is expended.

What you want is for the bullet to exit the barrel at exactly the same time one of those traveling waves reaches the end of the barrel. That will produce the best accuracy the gun can attain. If the bullet exits the barrel while the traveling wave is, say 1/2 way down the barrel, the end of the barrel is not where it was when the cartridge was discharged. In 2 dimensions you can think of it as a pendulum with the chamber being the pivot point and the muzzle end of the barrel being the swinging end that reaches center point when the traveling wave reaches the end of the barrel. The bullet's trajectory is set when it exits the barrel and if the end of the barrel isn't at that center point in the vibration the results vary.

So it depends on a lot of variables. Temperature plays a role because it affects the barrel. The steel barrel and any imperfections determine the vibration rate of the traveling wave. How fast the powder burns and the pressure attained also affects the traveling wave in conjunction with the barrel and the speed of the bullet down the barrel. Bullet seating and weight and rifling twist also all play a role.

The Browning BOSS system was developed for exactly that reason. It lets you adjust the length of the barrel to set when the bullet exits the muzzle with any particular load. I bought my Browning A Bolt in .270 before the BOSS came out. Wish I had a BOSS but don't want to spend the money to have one fitted just to shoot a faster load. So I just have to test loads to see what shoots good in my gun. I've been shooting Hornady Whitetail 130gr for a few of months. I liked their 140gr "Custom" but can't find them any more. The "Custom" loads may have been rebranded to the "Whitetail" moniker because the ballistics chart on the box is the same but I haven't been able to find any 140gr Whitetails.

Here's Browning's video about the BOSS system:
How does the BOSS system work?
 
The Light Magnum ammo was discontinued. The Superformance ammo is different. Both were an attempt to get more speed, but Hornady used a different approach with the Superformance ammo.

The superformance powders generate better speed with less pressure than the old Light Magnum ammo, and do it from shorter barrels.

Like any new technology or advancement it takes time to get it perfected. I think that the powder will eventually be perfected and we will be able to get good accuracy and 100-200 fps more speed from many rounds. It just ain't quite perfected yet.
 
SF Not good in My 25-06 either .But the SST 117gr.bullets over My handloads were really good performers on game.
 
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