Ammo & Handloading

I’ve surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS) for the past 4 years, and published what gear they’re running in my annual “What The Pros Use” series of posts. This year, I also asked a few questions about their ammo loading practices and how much they practice. When handloading there are a thousand operations and details you can spend time trying to perfect. It’s easy to get caught up trying to do them all, or spending a ton of time focusing intently on a couple of aspects and completely miss other important steps. But I was ...

Great ammo is a cornerstone of competitive shooting. Once you master the fundamentals of marksmanship, the quality of your ammo can become a differentiator. Want to know what bullets, brass, primers, and powder the best precision rifle shooters in the country are running? That’s what this post is all about. I recently surveyed the top 100 shooters in the Precision Rifle Series (PRS), and this post reviews the reloading components those élite shooters were using in 2015. The PRS tracks how top competitors place in major rifle matches across the country. These are the major leagues of sniper-style competitions, with ...

Over the past couple months, I’ve been working with a lot of scary smart engineers on my muzzle brake field test. One who has given me a lot of great input is Josh Kunz, whose professional background is in Aerospace Engineering. Josh recently told me about a new line of bullets he’s been working on, which have the potential to be one of the biggest leap in ballistics in recent history. The product is being unveiled this week at rifle competitions at Camp Perry. In fact, some of the bullets are being shot in competitions for the first time today! ...

Berger recently released a new 6.5mm 130gr Hybrid bullet. Bryan Litz, Chief Ballistician at Berger Bullets, told me “This bullet was optimized for magazine length ammo based on the popularity of the 6.5mm cartridges in PRS competition.” 6.5mm cartridges like the 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5×47 Lapua, and 260 Remington are very popular in those types of competitions (see the full list of the most popular cartridges). In PRS events, multiple targets are engaged at each stage, often within a ridiculously short amount of time … so magazine feeding is a must. Bryan and the team at Berger created a bullet optimized for ...

As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. After all, we’re trying to hit relatively small targets that are so far you may not even be able to see them with the naked eye. While you might can get away with minor mistakes and still ring steel at short and medium ranges, as you extend the range those small mistakes or tiny inconsistencies are magnified. So, most things are important … but to differing degrees. There are so many variables that it’s easy to get lost, and most of us end up doing our best to spread ...

As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. After all, we’re trying to hit relatively small targets that are so far you may not even be able to see with the naked eye. While you might can get away with minor mistakes and still ring steel at short and medium ranges, as you extend the range those small mistakes or tiny inconsistencies are magnified. So, most things are important … but to differing degrees. This series of posts is taking a data-driven approach by using Applied Ballistic’s Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ) analysis tool to gain insight into how different ...

As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. After all, we’re trying to hit relatively small targets that are so far you may not even be able to see with the naked eye. While you might can get away with minor mistakes and still ring steel at short and medium ranges, as you extend the range those small mistakes or tiny inconsistencies are magnified. So, most things are important … but to differing degrees. This series of posts is taking a data-driven approach by using Applied Ballistic’s Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ) analysis tool to gain insight into how different ...

As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. After all, we’re trying to hit relatively small targets that are so far you may not even be able to see with the naked eye. While you might can get away with minor mistakes and still ring steel at short and medium ranges, as you extend the range those small mistakes or tiny inconsistencies are magnified. So, most things are important … but to differing degrees. There are so many variables that it’s easy to get lost, and most of us end up doing our best to spread our ...

As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. We think everything is important! After all, we’re trying to hit relatively small targets that are so far you may not even be able to see them with the naked eye. While you can get away with a lot of minor mistakes and still ring steel at short and medium ranges, as you extend the range small mistakes or tiny inconsistencies are magnified. So, most things are important … but to differing degrees. So if we have a limited amount of time and money, where would we get the ...

I regularly get asked by friends, family, and readers for rifle and cartridge recommendations. The answer depends on many factors, but it’s happened so frequently that it caused me to create a structured process to help someone narrow it down to a few great options. We tend to focus on the rifle first, but many under-estimate the role ammunition plays in consistent hits at long-range. So I start by picking the ammo first. Recently, I saw a video featuring Army Sniper Jim Gilliland, and he suggests the same approach. Most precision rifle shooters handload their own ammo. Mic McPherson tells ...