I normally only shoot Milsurp 7.62X51 out of my rebarreled to .308 Garand and I don't expect MOA accuracy out of it. But I do expect to be able to do better than minute of paper plate and that's all I could get with South African.
I'd bought some South African because it seemed that most folks thought it was OK ammo. Turned out it definitely was NOT! But I wanted to prove it to myself so I ran a test.
I used my CZ-550 American with NIKON Prostaff 3-9X scope at 100 yards for the test.
I had 20 rounds of Portugese left from the last batch I bought and about 100 of the SA. I'd noticed that SA shot all over the place and 1 round in 20 wouldn't chamber without using some force to close the bolt (after the 3rd one of those when it happened I just chucked the rotten suckers). The SA shot all over the place - the best I could do from a sitting shooting position without a rest was about 10". With the Portugese I could do about 6". Was it me or the ammo?
Turns out it is the ammo.
I broke out the ole Caldwell rest and went to town. Set up two targets at 100 yards. Just to be fair I shot the SA first so the Portugese was shot out of a hot barrel (which supposedly makes a bolt action less accurate). Firing rate ran about 1 shot every 20 to 30 seconds.
See results in the pics of the targets. The SA shot high and into a group that ran 2"X4" (the outers smallbore 100 yard target). I shot two 4 round groups and one 3 round group Portugese (100 yard rifle precision sighting in target). You can see the difference. The bottom right bull was a 3 shot group and 2 of the holes are so close together as to be almost 1.
Like I said SA sucks - I don't recommend it for anyone. I especially don't recommend it because either the bullets are loaded long or some of the brass is oversized because like I said before 1 in 20 chambers only with difficulty.
I'd bought some South African because it seemed that most folks thought it was OK ammo. Turned out it definitely was NOT! But I wanted to prove it to myself so I ran a test.
I used my CZ-550 American with NIKON Prostaff 3-9X scope at 100 yards for the test.
I had 20 rounds of Portugese left from the last batch I bought and about 100 of the SA. I'd noticed that SA shot all over the place and 1 round in 20 wouldn't chamber without using some force to close the bolt (after the 3rd one of those when it happened I just chucked the rotten suckers). The SA shot all over the place - the best I could do from a sitting shooting position without a rest was about 10". With the Portugese I could do about 6". Was it me or the ammo?
Turns out it is the ammo.
I broke out the ole Caldwell rest and went to town. Set up two targets at 100 yards. Just to be fair I shot the SA first so the Portugese was shot out of a hot barrel (which supposedly makes a bolt action less accurate). Firing rate ran about 1 shot every 20 to 30 seconds.
See results in the pics of the targets. The SA shot high and into a group that ran 2"X4" (the outers smallbore 100 yard target). I shot two 4 round groups and one 3 round group Portugese (100 yard rifle precision sighting in target). You can see the difference. The bottom right bull was a 3 shot group and 2 of the holes are so close together as to be almost 1.
Like I said SA sucks - I don't recommend it for anyone. I especially don't recommend it because either the bullets are loaded long or some of the brass is oversized because like I said before 1 in 20 chambers only with difficulty.
