Why is a $40 box of bullets better than one that costs less than $20?

Just spend a few minutes looking at ammo shelf in any good sporting goods store and you're quickly reminded there's a lot of options for just about any caliber. Granted, the well known fact that bullet placement is paramount should never be challenged. Still, I suspect the average hunter like me has little idea what makes one bullet costs a lot more than another. And what difference in performance does that extra cost really buy you?

I'm sure there are others like me who would enjoy hearing answers from those who know bullets best.

*Bullet construction type.
*Bullet consistency.
*Alleged R & D associated with cartridge and load, almost guaranteed to shoot well.
*Reputation of the ammo.
*Alleged load consistency from the factory.
*Quality of brass.
*Quality of primer.
*Reliable powder ignition.
*Reliable powder burn rate in a large temperature span.
*Name.

That last one "name" has much to do with price. There are people that think Weatherby or Nosler, hung the moon and stars, and by paying more, they get more. But in reality, they paid 3X as much money, for not 3X the performace.

That's where hand loaders come in. In the rare case of the hand made widget out performs the mass produced widget, hand loaded ammo, is certainly the best example.

For some reason my rifle prefers expensive ammo
better grouping
$40 a box...7mm SST....

Quantiles made also come into play with many rounds. Some that were cheap in the past now are only made in limited or very limited runs. Smaller runs higher cost per round. 375 Win, 350 Remington Mag, 218 Bee, 6.5mm Remington Mag, 6.5-284, 284 Win.... are examples there are many more.

FiremanJG dod a pretty good list and summation.

On the Weatherby I find it strange in several Weatherby rounds you can buy ammo loaded with pointed soft point bullets for about the same price as unprimed new brass for the same cartridge.

Bullets some cost more than others for the handloader or the ammo manufacture whih drivs price up. Brass quality can as well if loaded in Lapua or Norma/nosler brass it will be more expensive.

Anything that is conventionally machined will be more expensive as the tolerance band decreases. Add to that a tighter inspection criteria (AQL) and cost goes up. IMO opinion, these two things are the only objective measures of quality. Here's a test: Inspect 100 Hornady SST bullets. Measure OAL and major Ø. Then inspect anything that cost 1/2 the price. Your extreme spreads will vary much greater on the low cost stuff. Good names are usually earned. This is true of actions, barrels, etc.

You certainly get what you pay for. That said, do you really need a rifle to shoot sub MOA to kill an animal at a couple hundred yards? As long as the bullet selection is right for the animal hunted, then most of the time budget ammo is just fine. A lot of critters are dead thanks to some cheap Corelokts.

I agree. That said, I like every edge I can get. It's kinda' like me throwing a football 30 yards. Standing in my front yard with my son in law, we tag each other all day long. Make me do it in 2.5 seconds with 5 300 lb guys trying to bury me and I can't hit anything. Some hunting situations are like that. Less than ideal range conditions, sub MOA might make the difference.

A Yugo will get you to the grocery store, just like a Lexus will

Hell I don't know...I've killed the last three deer I shot with Remington brand bullets...clean shots too. Buy what ammo you can afford son.

I'm shocked you have been let slide with the "bullets" word so far.

It's a pretty common sense answer. Quality and/or brand name. FiremanJG broke them down in detail.
The same principle can be applied to just about every consumer good one can think of.

Before I started loading my own, I killed a bunch of game with cheap Remington Core-lokt, Federal blue box, and Winchester Power Points. Usually whatever wally world had sitting on folding tables and marked down to nothing after deer season - yes, they really used to do that. In most cases and from a rifle that is not too extreme on either end of the velocity spectrum, they do great from point blank to 250-300 yards. That said, if you are shooting a really fast cartridge at short range or a rainbow lobber at distance then bullet construction really starts to make a difference on game. The list of bullets that do well across a wide range of velocities is fairly short, the bullets themselves are fairly expensive, and factory loaded cartridges even more expensive. Also if you are going after larger game or dangerous game, then there may be certain attributes of bullet construction that appeal to you - without getting into the "dump all the energy inside" vs "leave a big honkin exit wound" debate. The proven tough & dependable bullets also tend to be on $$ side. And like others have said above, names, logos, and glossy boxes tend to contribute to price regardless of performance.

-ww

Don't forget the discussion about price of reloading components too. I all goes back to the first response.

I pay more for certain bullets. A Accubond or Partition will almost always do a better job when fired through the shoulders of a large Boar than a soft point. Both will do the job but with a soft point your shot angles need to be watched more closely. For deer a soft point is just as good as the more expensive options for the most part. There are exceptions to every rule of course.

A guy could make this as complicated as you'd like to, and I do load my own almost exclusively nowadays.

IME, with the 7-08, 7mag, and 30-06, I've found the Federal Fusion to be the best combination of price, great bullet construction, reliability, and quality. They are a helluva good bullet that kills stuff consistently.

I also believe that if you buy your ammo your rifle has a lot to say about it because I've seen rifles that only seem to like the cheap stuff where other rifle seem to like the expensive stuff. Now I load my own so I can make sure that I load quality ammo that my rifles like. I honestly don't know what it costs me to load my own ammo but with the cost of all the components it's not cheap to load your own.

there ya go, you don't HAVE to spend allot to kill game.

most people on here are all day suckers and jump on ALL the latest and greatest stuff. LOts of high dollar marketing spent by these companies cuz they know it

The 2 most expensive parts of the ammo are the bullet and the brass. But you also have the powder and primer.

On the bullet, you go go with a basic lead bullet for about $.25 each. Jump up to a bonded bullet, like an Accubond or a Barnes TSX, and you are at $.5 to $.55 each. Even the Nosler Partitions run about $.60 each.

Brass wise, you can get middle of the road, like Win or Hornady brass. Go with a Nosler or Norma (which I prefer), and your cost per piece goes up by about $.30 to $.50 each over the Win or Hornady. The Norma/Nosler brass generally will get you more reloads. And the weight variation between case to case has much tighter tolerances.

Powder wise, Hodgdon or Alliant powders (which I use about 90% for my ammo), run about $.13 to $.20 each round. I could buy some cheap foreign made powder that burns dirty and is a very low end powder and save a few cents per case. But it's often a ball powder that is temp sensitive.

Primers, your Federal and CCI primers run about $.03 each. Your cheap Tula, Wolf and foreign made one's can save you $.01 to $.02 each also.

Add all these differences up, and you can easily double the cost.

For example, my 308 BULK ammo is $82-$85 per 100 rounds. It's on once-fired WCC brass, Hornady A-max bullet, commercial grade powder (large canister powder), and Win primers. I'm loading 500 rounds per hour with this ammo.

Now if I switch to match grade, and use brand new Lapua or Win brass (more cost) and a match grade Hodgdon powder (like Varget or H4350), then the cost goes up. I'm also loading these one at a time with the powder weighed out to within .02 grains. My cost for these in 308 is about $160 per 100. The cost doubles. The BULK ammo shoots pretty good, but the match grade ammo will be much more consistent and loaded to tighter tolerances.

Another big factor for factory ammo is marketing. What does that company do with the marketing of that particular ammo.

Cheap foreign powders? As far as I know, most of Alliant, Accurate, Ramshot, and Hodgdon come from Europe and Australia. Last I heard IMR was coming out of Canada. I can name only a handful of powders I believe come out of St. Marks, and that would be the Winchester/Hodgdon sphericals powders.

The bullet is the cheapest part of the hunt for most hunters. Spend less on a bullet in a $40 box of ammo than a gallon of gas to get to the lease and could buy 3 bullets for a bag of corn.

It makes NO sense to scrimp on bullets. It's okay if a cheap bullet WORKS---that's a good reason to buy it. The fact that it's cheap is NOT.

I'm talking about the stuff from Russia, and some low end powders that are available for much less than the Hodgdon and Alliant powders. Yes, some of these powders are mfg in Australia and such, but they are quality powders. I'm talking about the low end powders that are cheap and dirty burning.

Take a high end rifle (mass produced or custom), give it quality base and rings, put a high end scope on it, and give it crap ammo. Good chance the system WILL NOT shoot to its' potential.

LOL. No argument here!

I was kinda comin from the other direction, though...there are plenty of very accurate bullets I'll walk right past to pick up a box of something that's gonna work for any shot I care to take.

Can you list some of those?

I can't say I've tried any Russian powder. I have tried an "obscure" foreign shotgun powder in handgun cartridges that seems to be okay---CSB-1. I think it's Brazilian, but maybe not. Supposedly they use it in Rio shotgun shells.

I never understood all the price angst/scrimping on ammo either. I mean, I wish it were all still $8.88/box too but it's still the cheapest part of the system. And it is kinda important.

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.

Makes sense. Moral I guess is keep ranges reasonable with most factory ammo.

Exactly.

Shooting 1" at 100 is easy.

Shooting 3" at 300, is not as easy.

Meaning what is inside the brass. Bullet depth, powder charge consistency, ect. ect

A poor charge consistency may look alright at 100 yards, and it'll rear its' ugly head at 300+.

If you don't mind, please reference the conditions under which this should be achievable. For example, on the bench in a sitting position with only a single, forearm rest and the arms and elbows free of support?

I ask because people here frequently share their shooting performance, but very seldom include the conditions under which their shots were made. I can shoot half-inch groups at 100 yards if you throw me a few sandbags. But ask me to use just a single rest with no body support and the groups begin to get larger.

Taking the shooter out of the equation, inaccuracy means simply the bullet is not stabilized as well as it could be once it leaves the barrel. There are many reasons groups may "open up".

Ammo is one (variables within that variable - quality of powder used, powder weight consistency, seating depth/consistency, etc.).
Barrel is one (variables within that variable - proper rate of twist for bullet used, quality/consistency of barrel steel,rifling, etc., barrel thickness, etc.)
Stock and barrel "marriage" (bedding, free-floating, contact point issues, etc.)
Cleanliness issues (copper fouling, other buildup, etc.)

No doubt handloading allows for more precise (and thus consistent) ammo. And that is better for precision and/or long range shooting. For that matter better at any range since it is more accurate. But does that mean all factory ammo sucks/is inaccurate/shouldn't be used/everyone should be using handloads or they are risking their hunts? No. Certainly not at the hunting distances the vast majority of people shoot.

Factory ammo quality has improved by leaps and bounds over the past 20-30 years. Lots of serious, dedicated, and successful hunters rely on factory ammo. Sure, you usually have to play around and find what your rifle likes, but you have to do that handloading too.

Since this is an ammunition discussion. I was assuming a perfectly stable rifle.

The reason for my post is that this is an ammo discussion.

My point is that there are a lot of variables involved in shooting 3" groups at 300 yards. Good ammo (no matter how sourced) is only one of many.

Wind is always the biggest problem. Nobody masters the dope 100% of the time.

I sure wish I had an $80 box of nosler custom ammo to tear down and weigh powder charges for myself.

7 grains is about double the spread from min to max on the recommended charges from loading manuals etc. Either the manuals have nothing to do with what is safe or that ammo could have killed or seriously injured somone.

So if I had to repeat and summarize the most common answers given....

Better brass
Tighter quality control on the amount of powder used
Higher quality powder
Better primers
Smaller production runs
Bullets made of higher cost materials with more machine work
Marketing costs and greater price margins for customers willing to pay more

Thanks guys. The discussion sometimes went over my head but was very thought provoking.

This ^^^ is pretty much the way I look at it.

If you don't load, it's nice if you can find a decent shooting factory load that your rifle likes without having to go through several hundred $$ to get it narrowed down. One reason being all the leftover, sometimes high $ ammo that your gun won't shoot well.

But, for what we spend nowadays in order to hunt...at the end of the day, the cost of the ammunition is really a pretty small % of the total cost involved.

The sad fact is many folks, for one reason or another, just don't find enjoyment shooting their rifle.

Yeah, but will the Yugo get you back home?