Ammunition and Accuracy

[TomJ]

I was at the range today, shooting a 27, 30S and XDM 40 compact. At best, i'm an average shot and tend to shoot a little left of center while still hitting center mass on the silhouette. While shooting Winchester white box, Herters and some generic ammunition I bought at Cabelas, I was all over the place and do not remember ever shooting that poorly. I ran some Buffalo Bore ammunition through the 27 and XDM, and the results were on par with how I normally shoot. I did not track which ammo produced the worse results as it did not occur to me to do so until after I finished up with the Buffalo Bore ammunition. I'm wondering if the ammunition can cause me to shoot as poorly as I did or if i need to focus on something else.

 

[Cee Zee]

Ammo can absolutely cause bad accuracy and every gun works better with different ammo than other guns. Sometimes they like the same ammo as other guns of the same make obviously but a lot of times they don't. I will say that the Chinese made WWB is nowhere near as good as the old WWB.

Every time I get a new gun I test a whole series of different ammo with it to see what it shoots best. Reloaders get even more scientific about what their guns like. That's about the biggest reason people reload. They want to be able to produce the ammo their gun likes best so they get maximum ammo. I've never got into reloading myself because I have always shot .22LR more than anything else and no one reloads that. But I sure do go through the trouble of figuring out what every gun I own likes best. I may end up with a lot of ammo I won't be using a lot but generally I shoot that up just plinking.

My XDm .40 likes Critical Duty ammo as far as carry ammo goes. It also likes Speer Gold Dot. It likes 180 gr. in both types. For target practice I generally shoot CCI Blazer and do pretty well with it. Again it likes 180 gr..

 

[TomJ]

I'll have to pay more attention to what ammunition I'm using. I don't want to adjust my grip, etc. if it's the ammunition.

 

[Cee Zee]

There are other things to pay attention to also. It takes a few rounds through a gun before a particular type of ammo starts to work it's best. The lube on every brand of ammo can be different and some doesn't work well with other lubes at all. So when you fire a round that has a lube like that it can be affected by the lube in the barrel. One rifle I have I need to fire about 30-50 rounds of a particular type of ammo before it settles down and does it's best. Rifles are more affected by this than handguns because the barrels are longer of course but it could happen with a pistol especially with a longer barreled pistol. It's best to try a whole box of ammo through a gun just to be sure.

These things are generally only the concerns of target shooters. Still ammo differences can be huge. I have guns that won't shoot certain types of ammo at all but if I put the same ammo in another gun it shoots far better. That is a common thing. The deal with the different lubes isn't as common.

 

[mizer67]

Average plastic people poppers like you're shooting will average ~3-5" at 25 yards with most generic ball ammo out there (measured by 10-round groups shot from a rest).

I'm guessing you're setting up closer in, somewhere between 21 - 30 ft. based on where people normally shoot at my range. At that distance, ammunition accounts for about a 1" spread, unless the lot is seriously defective, which is highly to extremely unlikely for factory ammo.

So chances are about 99.9% that it's you, not the ammo.

Shooting left of center with a Glock for a right handed shooter is a trigger control issue. You didn't describe what "all over the place" means with any specificity.

 

[somerled]

When the bullets impact "all over the place", focus on the front sight. Most generic ball ammo will group within 5" at 25 yards from a rest.

 

[TomJ]

Average plastic people poppers like you're shooting will average ~3-5" at 25 yards with most generic ball ammo out there (measured by 10-round groups shot from a rest).

I'm guessing you're setting up closer in, somewhere between 21 - 30 ft. based on where people normally shoot at my range. At that distance, ammunition accounts for about a 1" spread, unless the lot is seriously defective, which is highly to extremely unlikely for factory ammo.

So chances are about 99.9% that it's you, not the ammo.

Shooting left of center with a Glock for a right handed shooter is a trigger control issue. You didn't describe what "all over the place" means with any specificity.

You're correct that I was primarily shooting at 21 feet. At that distance with those guns I generally shoot 2 to 4 inch groups, 1 to 3 inches left of center. That's what I shot with the Buffalo Bore ammunition. With the other ammunition the groups expanded to 4 to 7 inch groups, also left of center. As I mentioned above, that was a first for me. I'll go back in the next few days with some of the same ammo as well as another brand.

 

[mizer67]

Wierd things can happen if you shoot enough. Manufacturers have put out some bad stuff at times trying to keep up with demand. However, I've fired or seen fired hundreds of thousands of rounds in the past five years and only seen two instances where ammunition was defective to the point of not being able to print <2" at 21 ft.:

1.) Montana Gold put out a bad run of .223 projectiles a few years back. These bullets would normally do <2" 10-round groups at 100 yards, but with this batch would keyhole at <50 ft. and miss the target entirely at 100 yards in some cases. This was due to an operator error in setting up the machine. Sadly for me, I bought some and loaded up 1,000 rounds before I'd fired any of the new batch, since I'd been using that projectile with good results prior.

2.) A new reloader came to my range just last week. He'd cast his own 40 S&W bullets. He was using an undersized sizing die and a Lee FCD. Lead is normally too soft to expand an undersized case (unlike jacketed bullets) and his bullets were therefore being undersized while being seated. In addition, he then ran them through the FCD which undersized what was left exposed (the FCD carbide re-sizing ring is smaller in diameter than the bullets by design). These bullets when fired were also keyholing at 50 ft.

So it can happen, bad ammunition is out there, it's just unlikely. If you're buying factory ammo from one of the big mfgs. like ATK, etc., chances are slim it's the ammo. Put the guns on a rest or sandbag and shoot off the bench to remove as much human error from the equation as possible.