What company loads the most accurate/consistent rounds? .223/5.56 SMK 69gr./77gr.

I am looking for some ammo to really see what the accuracy of my SPRish build is. Barrel is an 18" Noveske in a Vltor VIS.

I have been using Prvi 75gr. BTHP rounds. I have had what I consider now a fluke .63 moa 5 shot group with this ammo. The last couple sessions I was getting pretty consistent 2 moa groups. This is fun for banging steel, but in 100yard groups leaves something to be desired.

I see many companies load the SMK, but who does it best? Is there also a different bullet I should look at?

This is going to be for shooting 100 yard groups on paper.

Price doesn't really matter, though a good value always makes me happy.

Black hills


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Concur, definitely Black Hills.

The single greatest mistake I see folks make in regards to selecting ammo for .223/5.56 precision shooting (non LR) is that they only consider the heaviest avail. bullets for this task. This is a critical misjudgment as I can assure you that across a wide sample of different barrels, I can take Hornady 55gr. Vmax and significantly shoot smaller groups than any SMK could ever produce.


Form factor, BC, and LR bullet design are all wasted by in large at 100yds....so what I'm getting at is that the heavy SMKs were designed to yield high levels of accuracy once they reached longer ranges. The following accuracy eval. will better explain what I'm talking about.

You'll note below that the 100yd groups are noticeably larger than the ones at close to 300yds.

100yds
http://i51.tinypic.com/10wru6p.jpg

287yds
http://i53.tinypic.com/2d7inoi.jpg

Now take a look at Hornady 55gr. evals.

100yds

http://i53.tinypic.com/zsvc01.jpg

So in short....I'd recommend trying at first an ammo loaded with one of the bullets featuring flat bases, and ballistic tips, and some specific good ones to try are:

Hornady SF 53gr. VMAX
Hornady 55/60gr. VMAX
Rem 55gr. Accu-Tip
Nosler 50gr. Blitzkings

Lastly in regards to PRZI 75gr/69gr match....it's not a surprise to me that you had a nice group or two with it, only then to have poor groups with it because since they have been around they've suffered from very spotty QC. The primary example of this is the 2009/2010 lot of the 75gr. variety which ran amazingly slow. They then changed their box and fixed their velocity issues on that one issue at least.

The stuff from mid 2011 shot excellent which are the evals below. That said, I have never expected it to perform as it did on that particular day for an average....just too many things not suited for reloading precision pills going on at PRZI.

Again, notice these heavy rounds weren't tested at 100yds....but rather 200yds.

http://i53.tinypic.com/245ncit.jpg

heed tridents advice
i can outshoot blackhills 77grn at 100yds with bh 52grn smk loads using the same weapon

In all honestly its sorta hard to get the true accuracy potential out of your barrel buying factory made ammo. No matter how consistent they were with their loading it still doesn't guarantee the load is optimal for your particular barrel. It doesn't require a huge investment to get started into loading high quality ammo for accuracy. Just something to consider.

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Moved to Reloading/Ammo since it does not deal directly with terminal ballistics.

Anyway, I am a strong proponent of Mk262. It does a lot of things well, from muzzle to meat in a pretty broad range of applications. Now, there are certainly more precise factory loaded rounds, there are more barrier blind rounds, and there are more terminally impressive rounds, but it generally beats any competitor in the two other categories of performance other than the one it gets out performed in.
This is, of course, when considering factors other than pure precision, which may our may not be applicable to your intended application with your particular firearm.
Mine is based on use against lethal human threats in a contemporary setting from muzzle to 500 meters with a bias toward 0 to 200 meters using a carbine and optic that is optimized for longevity in training and effectiveness in combat.

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On the recommendation of folks here and reviews at snipershide I ordered 500rds of Southwest Ammo's 77gr. It gets delivered tomorrow though so I won't have any results to share for a while. I've had good luck with Black Hills (68, 69, and 77gr), Corbon (77gr), and Asym (70gr) but not in large amounts and I'm still not good enough at distance to take full advantage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TMS951

Price doesn't really matter...

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It's not cheap, but Federal Gold Medal Match (FGMM) is a kind of a "gold standard" among the M14 crowd.

I see that the FGMM .223 loads use SMKs...

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