First time out with my SR25 was a success. Everything want bang, ejected, loaded, … w/o a hitch. After zeroing we worked our way out to 500 yards and successfully hitting steel. Was getting a little cross wind and ended up with a 6" verticle pattern stretching left to right. Been a long time since I shot that far, really had fun. Only shot one type of ammo, federal XM80C, 149 grain. I was surprised that the cheapest ammo I found shot that well. The range we’re using goes out to 1000 yards, so was curious what’s the best factory ammo to work my way out to that? Not sure I’ll get to a full 1000, but I want to see what the rifle, with me being the jerk behind it, can do. Also only have a 1-8 scope whitch will make it a challage for me. Suggestions on where to start?
I also took a few shots of my PTR-91, amazing how I don’t like that trigger after shooting the SR25.
I believe that would be your best bet as far as factory ammo goes. Or the offering from HSM with the 185 gr Berger. I shoot a Colt 901 and reload, but Federal Gold Medal Match always seems to be recommend. AMAX’s are very accurate bullet so maybe Hornady’s ammo with that bullet will work for you.
Federal Gold Medal Match is always the first recommendation, but not necessarily the best answer. Still, FGMM 168 gr should be a good baseline to compare to others.
The SMK 168 grain was designed for 300 meter matches, it goes sub sonic around 700 meters and does not handle the transition well. The SMK 175 on the other hand goes sub sonic further out and is more stable during the transition so is a better bullet for long range. Basically the SMK 168 is not a good long range bullet, some other brands that are not SMK copies are. This explains it well:
"Thoughts on Accuracy and Transonic Bullet Speeds by Laurie Davidson.
There is no simple answer to the question “How do transonic speeds affect accuracy”. Some bullets manage OK, some not so well, some fail entirely, and I’ve never seen a guide as to which models do and which don’t. But we do have the ‘boat-tail angle rule’, anyway. Bryan Litz says the ideal boat-tail angle is 7-9°. Go much above 10° and it’s too steep for the air to follow the bullet sides around to the base. This seems to manifest itself as much increased drag and turbulence leading to instability in transonic flight.
It is this effect that has led to the common advice of “Don’t use 168gr 30-caliber bullets at 1000 yards”. That is misleading advice as it resulted from use of the 168gr Sierra ‘International’ (aka MatchKing) bullet with its 13-deg BT angle. (This was, originally, a specialized 300m design — there are various near copies on the market from Speer, Hornady and Nosler.) By contrast, Berger 168-grainers are designed as long-range bullets with 8.9, 8.5 and a really nice 7° angle on the BT, VLD and Hybrid respectively. Hornady A-Max 30-cal projectiles (other than the 208-grainer) fall into this enforced shorter-range bracket too thanks to their 12.6° (and greater) boat-tail angles. (155gr = 13.5°, 168gr = 12.87°, and 178gr = 12.6°.)"
I took my EMC out to the range a few weeks ago to see what the rifle likes as far as factory ammo goes. I shot from sandbags at 100m I did five round groups trying as best as I could to be as consistent as possible. The Black Hills 175 had the best group for my rifle, so I was able to get a case of the same lot for consistency sake.
When I was shooting international rifle competitions we would bench test the ELEY and the R50 lot by lot to see what shot best in our rifles. I used the same approach with the .308
I tried
175 Black Hills
168 Black Hills
178 Hornady ELD-x
178 Hornady Superformance
175 Gold Medal Match
168 Gold Medal Match
Hey Ed, when you get a chance could you please post current pics of your ACC with the SL-S stock (probably best to do that in the SR25 pic thread)? Also, are you still running the S&B 1-8x?
I buy 175 FGGM factory fodder. I also liked the 168 TAP ELD’s. It shot great and I’ve gone 1,000 yards with both of these loads.
Good places to buy. Bonefrog and SG ammo online. However many places stock these loads. A better option to your XM80 is German MEN 147. It’s 1.5 -2.0 MOA ammo in some guns
I short Markm handloads the vast majority of time.
Pappabear, Might have to look at the MEN. Looking for relatively inexpensive factory loads I can run reliably in tactical rifle matches. Max engagement is typically 300 yrds out, hitting 12" diamond steel plates.
You can wear out steel at 300 all day long.
We have run it out to 600 with good reliability. WE have made hits at 1,000 but it was me raining ammo on the hill to make a hit. Still it didn’t wobbled out of the world.
Also, the brass is very good for reloading if you ever decide to reload or have a friend that does.
