Sean Smith
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2002
- Messages
- 4,925
Georgia Arms sells two of the most inexpensive 10mm practice loads available. These are:
180gr FMJ loaded to an advertised 1,100 ft/sec. The price for this ammo is $10/50, $19.50/100, and $190/1,000.
180gr LRN loaded to an advertised 950 ft/sec. The price for this ammo is $8.50/50, $16.50/100, and $160/1,000.
http://www.georgia-arms.com/pistol.htm#ee
I decided to compare these two loads head-to-head from my Ted Yost-customized Colt Delta Elite, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity and gain some sense of their relative accuracy. You can read more about the test gun at http://www.pistolsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=18404
100 rounds of each load were tested from the Delta Elite using 3 Colt 8-round magazines. For the curious, these were the Delta-logo magazines with the rounded metal followers and removable metal bases, and had been hard chromed by Tripp Research. My main interest was testing reliability, though I also took some time to see if there was any difference in accuracy between the two loads, and between the Georgia Arms products and other factory ammunition I tried. Bear in mind that different guns shoot differently with the same ammunition, and so my results may not be of universal usefulness.
The shooting was done with a mix of two-handed, strong hand only, and weak hand only. I was curious if the milder load with the 20 lb recoil spring would be reliable with a deliberately “limp†grip shooting offhand.
Both loads were 100% reliable in this gun. No malfunctions were observed in this test; feeding, extraction, ejection and lockback on the last round were completely consistent. This gun has fired about 2,000 malfunction-free rounds so far, so this isn’t really a surprise. But it does suggest that the Georgia Arms ammunition was well within spec.
Both loads consistently exhibited equal accuracy. Neither was the most accurate ammo that I’ve tested in this gun, but neither was bad either. I could consistently put 8 rounds into a quarter-sized hole at 7 yards with either load; by way of contrast, my best shooting at that distance with Federal American Eagle 180gr put 9 rounds into a hole the size of a nickel. I could also produce similar accuracy with Remington UMC. Unfortunately, my shooting yesterday was too craptacular to come up with any good 25 yard comparison targets.
Muzzle flash was fairly bright with the 180gr FMJ, slightly less than the UMC 180gr FMJ. The milder 180gr LRN load was, not surprisingly, relatively lower flash. Like most factory ammo, flash varied somewhat round over round.
I would conclude that the Georgia Arms 10mm ammunition is about on par with most bulk practice ammunition made by anybody else. It was not the most accurate ammunition I tested in this gun, but it is in the same ballpark, and I have seen considerably worse accuracy in major-brand factory ammunition (e.g. Winchester, Remington, Federal) in other calibers.
As a side-note I also test-fired some of the Cor-Bon 150gr JHP, advertised at 1,325 ft/sec from a 4.6†barrel. I only bought some of this because Pro Load is out of stock of their excellent 155gr Gold Dot @ 1,350 ft/sec load that I usually favor, and needed something to tide me over. That said, I was very impressed with this ammunition. It was notably more accurate than either of the Georgia Arms loads, and had almost zero muzzle flash… just a few sparks. I didn’t shoot a lot of it, but it was 100% reliable in this gun and subjectively seemed to feed extremely smoothly. I still favor the Pro Load for the Gold Dot bullet (and its very high quality), but the Cor-Bon was very respectable.
This leads to an interesting observation, which probably says more about how my gun was made than anything else. The more powerful the ammunition I tested, the “flatter†the recoil and the less muzzle flip there was. I could feel the increased recoil forces going from 950 ft/sec to 1,100 ft/sec to 1,325 ft/sec, but as the recoil went up the front sight was FASTER back on target. This lead to an unusual development: the more powerful the load, the faster I could shoot the gun with accuracy, with the Cor-Bon at the “sweetest†spot in that regard (probably because the lighter weight bullet changed the feel of the recoil impulse as well). My guess is that this is because the 20 lb recoil spring is at the high end of what is really appropriate for the milder load; with an 18 lb or even 16 lb spring my bet is that the 180gr @ 950 ft/sec load would recoil just as "flat" as the hotter loads with the 20lb spring. Conversely, folks using heavier-than-necessary springs in their 1911-pattern guns may actually be slowing up their shooting. But that’s probably the subject for a whole other topic…
180gr FMJ loaded to an advertised 1,100 ft/sec. The price for this ammo is $10/50, $19.50/100, and $190/1,000.
180gr LRN loaded to an advertised 950 ft/sec. The price for this ammo is $8.50/50, $16.50/100, and $160/1,000.
http://www.georgia-arms.com/pistol.htm#ee
I decided to compare these two loads head-to-head from my Ted Yost-customized Colt Delta Elite, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity and gain some sense of their relative accuracy. You can read more about the test gun at http://www.pistolsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=18404
100 rounds of each load were tested from the Delta Elite using 3 Colt 8-round magazines. For the curious, these were the Delta-logo magazines with the rounded metal followers and removable metal bases, and had been hard chromed by Tripp Research. My main interest was testing reliability, though I also took some time to see if there was any difference in accuracy between the two loads, and between the Georgia Arms products and other factory ammunition I tried. Bear in mind that different guns shoot differently with the same ammunition, and so my results may not be of universal usefulness.
The shooting was done with a mix of two-handed, strong hand only, and weak hand only. I was curious if the milder load with the 20 lb recoil spring would be reliable with a deliberately “limp†grip shooting offhand.
Both loads were 100% reliable in this gun. No malfunctions were observed in this test; feeding, extraction, ejection and lockback on the last round were completely consistent. This gun has fired about 2,000 malfunction-free rounds so far, so this isn’t really a surprise. But it does suggest that the Georgia Arms ammunition was well within spec.
Both loads consistently exhibited equal accuracy. Neither was the most accurate ammo that I’ve tested in this gun, but neither was bad either. I could consistently put 8 rounds into a quarter-sized hole at 7 yards with either load; by way of contrast, my best shooting at that distance with Federal American Eagle 180gr put 9 rounds into a hole the size of a nickel. I could also produce similar accuracy with Remington UMC. Unfortunately, my shooting yesterday was too craptacular to come up with any good 25 yard comparison targets.
Muzzle flash was fairly bright with the 180gr FMJ, slightly less than the UMC 180gr FMJ. The milder 180gr LRN load was, not surprisingly, relatively lower flash. Like most factory ammo, flash varied somewhat round over round.
I would conclude that the Georgia Arms 10mm ammunition is about on par with most bulk practice ammunition made by anybody else. It was not the most accurate ammunition I tested in this gun, but it is in the same ballpark, and I have seen considerably worse accuracy in major-brand factory ammunition (e.g. Winchester, Remington, Federal) in other calibers.
As a side-note I also test-fired some of the Cor-Bon 150gr JHP, advertised at 1,325 ft/sec from a 4.6†barrel. I only bought some of this because Pro Load is out of stock of their excellent 155gr Gold Dot @ 1,350 ft/sec load that I usually favor, and needed something to tide me over. That said, I was very impressed with this ammunition. It was notably more accurate than either of the Georgia Arms loads, and had almost zero muzzle flash… just a few sparks. I didn’t shoot a lot of it, but it was 100% reliable in this gun and subjectively seemed to feed extremely smoothly. I still favor the Pro Load for the Gold Dot bullet (and its very high quality), but the Cor-Bon was very respectable.
This leads to an interesting observation, which probably says more about how my gun was made than anything else. The more powerful the ammunition I tested, the “flatter†the recoil and the less muzzle flip there was. I could feel the increased recoil forces going from 950 ft/sec to 1,100 ft/sec to 1,325 ft/sec, but as the recoil went up the front sight was FASTER back on target. This lead to an unusual development: the more powerful the load, the faster I could shoot the gun with accuracy, with the Cor-Bon at the “sweetest†spot in that regard (probably because the lighter weight bullet changed the feel of the recoil impulse as well). My guess is that this is because the 20 lb recoil spring is at the high end of what is really appropriate for the milder load; with an 18 lb or even 16 lb spring my bet is that the 180gr @ 950 ft/sec load would recoil just as "flat" as the hotter loads with the 20lb spring. Conversely, folks using heavier-than-necessary springs in their 1911-pattern guns may actually be slowing up their shooting. But that’s probably the subject for a whole other topic…
