I get ads and calls for random powders for $8-$10 per lb all the time. I honestly don't pay attention to them.

Like I said earlier, I realod almost exclusively. However, just curious what specific ammo is crap nowadays?

I may have bought ONE box of factory centerfire rifle ammo in the last twenty years, so I wouldn't know... but my first guess would be Remington.

Superformance (at east in the rifle I tried it in)

Maybe or it may leave you on the side of the road on the way home.

YUGO it don't

I remember when Bill Clinton bombed Kosovo And completely destroyed the Yugo Auto plant....did over 250.00 dollars worth of damage.

Isn’t Alliant Swedish? Vihtavuori is Finnish powder that works good.

To the OP. I think much of it depends on what you wish the bullet to do and what your purpose is. Hunting trophy animals or dispatching the armadillo, rabbit, possum, coon, etc??? As to handloading, over 15 yrs go I started loading all my old .308 bullets into a 30-30 just for the purpose of dispatching unwanted animals which were usually within 50 yds. Just my experience. Back in the Rock Ages we did not have as many choices nor did we have the internet/google, but the manufacturers were easier to reach and talk to for a purpose.

All rifles are different. My 270 has shot nearly every factory and handload offering I have fed it sub moa for a 3 shot group at 100 yards. The one exception is 150 grain barnes-x.

I bought 2 boxes of 95 grain federal fusion when I bought my 243 for sight in ammo, for the brass, and hopefully to hunt with. I never shot a group less than 3 inches, was disgusted that I had bought a POS gun. Shot my first round of hand loads using sierra soft points and they were all way better than the fusion with a few nodes to focus on.

I shoot nosler partitions at nearly every game animal I hunt because of their consistency on game and it costs me less than someone who buys cheap Remington core lock etc. ammo off the shelf.

Just depends on what your planning to do with it to make that decision worth it

I am the ORIGINAL, "all day sucker" I got partial boxes of every .224, .264 and .284 rifle bullets and 5 different handgun bullets of .44, .45 and now .357 ever produced.

if its the latest, greatest, you can bet I will buy it.

that's why I BEG the bullet makers to pack 15 count boxes of ALL their bullets, 3/5 shot groups or 5/3 shot groups


Come on Man !!!!!!

Agree except for the weatherby comment. And yes I'm biased but,
Weatherby premium ammo uses only Norma brass, only Norma MRP powder. Which was actually designed for weatherby ammunition. The premium ammo only uses top tier bullets like partitions, accubonds, Barnes.
Even the cheaper ammo they produce still uses Norma brass and MRP powder.
Yes it is expensive but remember they don't mass produce nearly as much ammo as the big three. Plus it is loaded in Sweden by Norma.
Yes you can build great reloads that your gun will shoot great, but if you don't reload you should try to use the best ammo that you can, especially for hunting. Ammo is the cheapest part of any big game hunt even at 100.00 a box.
If you are ringing steel weekly you probably are not using an ultra high velocity caliber like the weatherby or nosler calibers.

Explain .300 WSM, Nosler ammo I pulled apart, and weighed the powder that came out of the case. 20 cases, and a 7.0 gr spread in powder charges. At $80 a box of 20, people are getting screwed.

Don't work for Nosler, have no idea and don't care. Never said anything about Nosler ammo quality.
I only referred to Weatherby ammo. I mentioned Nosler only as a hypervelocity round like Weatherby calibers not used often for shooting steel or punching paper.
Plus if the person shooting the Nosler is happy then they aren't getting screwed.

I don't understand why so many people differentiate between shooting paper and steel, versus game. I use 100 yard paper to verify zero, and then use steel to verify my corrections at distance. Hunting bullet, or target bullet, it doesn't matter, it has to be done.

I hunted a big ranch a few weeks ago, and guess what. They did not ask me what rifle, cartridge, or bullet I was shooting. But they did ask me to show them my 100 yard zero, then hit a 10" plate at 300 yards. They require this of every hunter, and I think it is more than reasonable. I saw some guests play hell at both 100 and 300 yards, and I saw each end of the spectrum of ammo.

It is because those of us who do not plan to shoot beyond 200 or 300 yards don't give a rat's patoot about BC. Speaking only for myself, it's about the classic bullet performance paradigm: expand moderately, hold together, penetrate straight and deep, and hopefully exit. This is what drove the development of the Partition and that's the bullet the rest have been compared to, by and large for over 50 years. Things have changed somewhat with new things like the monolithics and some bonded cores, but for the most part this is still the standard.

If I DID plan to shoot meat at 900 yards, I'd give at least ONE rat's patoot about BC, and maybe more than one...but as things are for me (and probably a great many others), BC just does not matter. I will say that I don't totally ignore BC. If it's there, that's gravy...but I sure don't choose my bullets based on that number. I have no reason to. You, on the other hand, have a reason to do that. We all have different outlooks.

Hopefully, here we don't go!

If you don't handload, you've usually got to try a few different factory loads to find one your rifle likes (sub MOA or less). I have had rifles that like cheap, expensive, and anything in between. I have only owned one rifle that just flat wouldn't shoot anything I tried. Accuracy is a big confidence booster, not to mention we owe it to the animals we hunt to be proficient when we pull the trigger.

For LR or benchrest shooting I'm sure handloading is the only way to go.

Bullet performance, on flesh, means zero, if the hunter/ shooter cannot put the bullet where it goes.

That was my point.

It does not matter bonded, monolithic, ect, if it misses the animal all together, or worse, hits brisket or gut. I am, and many others, are the guys that do not need the man with the tracking dog on speed dial. The key is testing. Test the rifle, optic, ammo, and shooter prior to attempting to cleanly make a kill.

Nowhere did I mention BC or distance. I only mentioned testing. I even told a story of 100 and 300 yards that happened two weeks ago. There were more misses, at both distances, that first round hits, from other hunters.

Oh. I guess I kinda missed your point. Badly. (I guess I need to check my own zero.)

And you're right, of course...gotta put that bullet in the right place.

Is there any accurate, science-based info that shows the effects on accuracy inconsistent/varying powder weights causes?

I have an almost 40 year old Sako that has always shot Winchester PowerPoint 150 grain factory ammo. Now, I know that since 1979 that ammo has had to have many, many changes in powder brand/type/suppliers, many periods of varying consistency of grain weights between cases, and probably undergone dozens of other changes over the years.

Yet my rifle has always shot it well, and does not shoot others I have tried as well (some horribly). I just assume that barrel favors the 150 grain PowerPoint bullet and would probably shoot it well in any somewhat reasonably consistently loaded cartridge.

IDK for sure though because I've never tried it.

That kinda depends on the group.
We did something similar before my recent sheep hunt. The results were 180 degrees from what you describe.

I think that's pretty far off topic, NP, but there are several threads going right now where the topics are overlapping a bit so I can see how you went there.

I'd say the effects are well known. If this was not true, then ladder testing would be meaningless. Since it IS true, then sloppy ammunition has a chance to perform satisfactorily within certain range limits. But it is also known that sloppy (in terms of powder charge) ammunition will come up short if the range is sufficient to highlight its shortcomings.

Hope that makes sense...having a nice cool adult beverage at the moment and I can feel it.