Sierra Bullet Consistency on the Wane?

[Sven]

My benchrest / handloader friend - a guy who doesn't throw opinions around too often without careful consideration - said that he has been throwing out an increasing number of bullets from Sierra of late. He mics, weighs and 'spins' each bullet to check for uniformity when loading for matches - apparently he has done this for a long time, and his observation is that Sierra's quality has been dropping. Just one data point, but I wanted to ask for other opinions.

My buddy has begun, as a result, to look for bullets from other manufacturers such as Lapua.

When you figure out the cost, including the culled bullets, Sierra didn't seem as good of a value to him. Questions:

1) Anyone else notice a drop in bullet-to-bullet consistency with Sierra?
2) Anyone have recommendations for other manufacturers / lines who make extremely consistent bullets, proved by your own testing?

Again, this is for the benchrest / precision accuracy guys... most folks (or deer) wouldn't notice or care if a bullet was slightly 'off'.

 

[bogie]

The large manufacturers will generally have several machines on a single production line. Each machine will produce differently, but they all get boxed up and labeled as being the same lot.

Recommend you check out the smaller outfits, such as Berger.