Project Appleseed

I shot a KD event in Tennessee last summer and did not score as well as I wanted.  My sole competitor out shot me using Wolf Gold ammo.  We were both shooting AR 15s.  Now his 20 year youth age advantage and military training may have had an effect, but I still think my American Eagle 55 grain ammo may have been a factor.

So, now I am planning to shoot another KD event in Alabama and would like to improve on my ammo choice.  Wolf Gold is cheap and seems reliable but has any one done any accuracy testing with it?  PSA has Speer 64gr Gold Dot for $10/20 reds and this seems like a possibility.  I want the best accuracy without going to $1 a shot match grade ammo.  Suggestions?  Thanks for the help.

For AS KD, I pretty much always used m855 or m193 in whatever surplus deal I could find. But, the only way to know what will shoot in your rifle is to test it. Without knowing the twist we can't even make general suggestions.

I have qualified KD twice with 55gr Reloaded ammo. about 40 cents a round.
The misses were my fault not the ammo. Your federal should be fine. Lord knows it better then the Cheap 22 stuf we all use for regular appleseeds.

Good luck.

Thanks for the input.  I am shooting a PSA standard rifle, 1 in 7,  with a CMC trigger and free float tube.  And I realize the operator is the problem.  But, I am just trying to minimize the other factors.

I shoot KD regularly. I use my ar-15 out to 500 yards and shoot Federal Lake City m193 55gr. I do not use American Eagle or any other than Federal Lake City. Just my, and my rifle's, preference.

I did a kd event last year.  Scored rifleman 4 times.   All with wolf gold 55gr.

My first kd qual (2 years ago) was with wolf gold.

I also shoot American eagle and do fine at distance.   

MOst modern ammos (including the cheaper steel cased)  will shoot adequetely well out of a quality rifle.
I have even shot 1980's 5.45 Russian surplus at a KD and got 2 moa groups.

An exception to this is US M855 manufactured since about 2003.  The QA seems to have gone downhill.  Whereas other M855 such as PMC and PRvi Partizan is sub two MOA.

Frequently, the limiting factor in accuracy is the barrel.



My question to you at this point is what is a standard PSA barrel?



I can tell you that not all PSA barrels are created equal.  Some of PSA's rifles/uppers have the disclaimer "Rifle is expected to group within military specifications" there for a reason.

My experiences mirror DEH's.  We shoot a lot of KD in the Tennessee valley.

If you're struggling at KD, look at these:

1.  Fundamentals.  A good session of ball & dummy can help diagnose and sort out issues.  If you're dry firing with a flinch, buck, or jerk, it's not going to help you.  Only effective dryfire reinforces good habits.
2.  Validating the come up data for your rifle.  Confirm your come ups the way you shoot - prone with sling, not a rest, block, or bag.
3.  Materiel issues.  Confirm your scope has no cant.  Is everything properly tight, including the barrel nut?  Is there damage to the crown?  I own several PSA barrels and an happy with most of them.  Their Premium line is excellent.  Others vary from okay to blech.

The best ammo cannot compensate for poor fundamentals or a barrel with issues.  Solid fundamentals and a quality barrel well make supposedly cheap ammo shoot well.  My one perfect KD score was shot with surplus Soviet steel case ammo packed in 1980 from a boring AR assembled from spare parts and a used 3-9 scope.  (If I sound like a tightwad, you got the right idea!  )

Rusty

P.S.  I invite you to sign up for our KD at Talladega in May.  The CMP marksmanship park offers shooting out to 600 yards with no walking with their electronic target displays!   

(Edited to correct my dumbphone-related errors)

Thanks Rusty and everyone else for the advice.  I am painfully aware of the fundamentals and my need to practice them.  I do plan to attend the Talladega KD in May.  And I would like to stop by the range next week just to see the set up. 

So, now I need to practice, dry fire, check my equipment, improve my eyesight, and quit shaking.

Quote from: MikeMS on March 17, 2016, 09:40:59 AM

So, now I need to practice, dry fire, check my equipment, improve my eyesight, and quit shaking.

You also need to improve your attitude. You need to start thinking that it is like you to shoot well at KD. If you do well on an AQT, the main thing keeping you from doing well at KD is in your head. I have seen this many times and practicing shooting won't solve it.

You always need to check your equipment before an event and if you can't quit shaking through holding drills you will need to use the shaking as a tool rather than a reason to "not perform."

Quote from: DEH on March 17, 2016, 06:47:52 AM


An exception to this is US M855 manufactured since about 2003.  The QA seems to have gone downhill.  Whereas other M855 such as PMC and PRvi Partizan is sub two MOA.

I got my first distinguished points shooting M855 Green tip for the SAFS at the Eastern Creedmoor Games in 2013. I think that batch was date 2006 or 2007. While it was definitely not as good as hand loads or match loads it was around 2 moa ammo. None of my stash is as new as 2003 so, that was my only experience with it.

Mike

Quote from: jmdavis on March 17, 2016, 03:12:49 PM

Quote from: DEH on March 17, 2016, 06:47:52 AM


An exception to this is US M855 manufactured since about 2003.  The QA seems to have gone downhill.  Whereas other M855 such as PMC and PRvi Partizan is sub two MOA.

I got my first distinguished points shooting M855 Green tip for the SAFS at the Eastern Creedmoor Games in 2013. I think that batch was date 2006 or 2007. While it was definitely not as good as hand loads or match loads it was around 2 moa ammo. None of my stash is as new as 2003 so, that was my only experience with it.

Mike

Depends on the batch.

I'll offer a slightly different perspective.  For me, I always want to shoot the best ammunition I possibly can anytime I shoot, and the reason is simply the fact that I learn more, and learn faster, with ammunition that goes where I point the rifle.

This is obviously less of a concern in the less stable positions like standing and possibly sitting, where my wobble may far exceed any inaccuracies of my ammunition, but especially when shooting prone if a shot lands somewhere other than where I intended it to, I can't learn anything if I'm wondering "was it me or my ammunition?"

In my experience M193 style ammunition usually shoots to around 3 MOA in an accurate rifle.  Match grade ammunition usually shoots to 1 MOA or less.  With match grade ammunition I know that if a shot lands more than 1 MOA or so outside of where I called it, I made an error I didn't see, and can correct it.  With less accurate ammunition this margin is much, much larger, and I can easily break a perfect shot and have it come up on the target well outside of where I expected it to go.  Remember that 3 MOA at 400 yards is a full foot.  I find this extremely frustrating, and counter productive to improving my marksmanship skills.

When you consider the costs of preparing for an event, paying for the event, traveling to the event, and so on, the cost of match grade ammo is insignificant.  Event fees, food, travel, gas, maybe a hotel room, they all add up, and if I'm spending hundreds of dollars to be at an event, I can't imagine why I would want to save 20 or 30 cents per round by using cheap ammunition.  KD events vary in round count, but trying to save money by using cheap ammunition seems counter productive to me.

From what I see, cheap M193 ammunition runs about 30 cents per round right now.  Last I checked M855 was running about 40 cents per round.  Decent match grade ammunition looks to be about 55 to 60 cents per round.  I'm looking at 75 grain match grade Wolf Gold and/or 77 grain match grade Freedom Munitions when I do that comparison.  I can't see why I would want to shoot M193 or M855 when I can use decent match grade ammunition for 20 cents per round more.

http://ammunitionstore.com/products/223-5-56x45-ammo-75gr-hpbt-match-wolf-gold-1000-round-case.html

Appleseed:  Rack grade rifle, surplus ball ammo, rock solid fundamentals, making hits out to 500 yards.  You can do it in a t-shirt, a suit, or a fancy shooting jacket.

Don't overcomplicate or gold-plate it.  ;-)

I have not had very favorable results using 55g at ranges much beyond 300. My preference would be 69g SMK's, which have worked very well for me out to 600, (after that forget it) in a 1/7 twist barrel.

I scored on a KD using cheap American Eagle 556. The few misses I had was my fault.......

Quote from: Rusty on March 18, 2016, 09:21:43 AM
Appleseed:  Rack grade rifle, surplus ball ammo, rock solid fundamentals, making hits out to 500 yards.  You can do it in a t-shirt, a suit, or a fancy shooting jacket.

Don't overcomplicate or gold-plate it.  ;-)

I don't want to be controversial, but is the point to "do it" or is the point to improve marksmanship?

There is no question it can be done with a rack grade rifle and surplus ball ammo. I've done it and I'm sure you have too.  There is also no question (in my opinion at least) that if you're shooting a 4 Moa rifle/ammo you can't learn much from most of your shots.  Such a huge dispersion of shots means I can make all kinds of small errors and never see them, as they are obscured by the width of the shot group the rifle is capable of.  With a more accurate rifle and ammo I can see these small errors and correct them.

I'll offer a real example from my own shooting.  Last year I realized that I was pulling some shots right when pulling the trigger. What was happening was my grip was too loose, and when squeezing the trigger my hand would sympathetically contract and pull shots about a minute right. Not on every shot, but often enough. This error was easy to see in my shot groups with an accurate rifle, and it was easy to correct.  With a rack grade rifle and ball ammo odds are that small occasional error would have been lost in the 4 Moa dispersion of the group and I'd have never seen it.

Is it not worth correcting these small errors too?  No question a rifleman can hit targets if they can hold a 4 Moa target, but if the goal is to improve marksmanship, better is better.

It boils down to asking the question, what is the purpose of Appleseed?

There's nothing wrong with pursuing excellence  in shooting. However, we aren't high power shooters. We are field shooters.  We don't let perfect get in the way of good enough.

We are history and Heritage program sharing the message of Liberty. Shooting is how we get people to the live to hear history. We want to get people to Rifleman, Inspire them to volunteer, and put an orange hat on their heads so they can do likewise! 

When is your next Appleseed?  What Strike well you tell?  We have IBC's  coming up in Alabama in April and July. You're welcome to come on out. 

Please excuse grammar or syntax errors as I'm dictating this on my phone.

Rusty,

Please don't define who "We" are. Because "we" are not "thee."

Agrivere has offered some good advice that will help people to be better shooters. Having shot with him a number of times in the past few years, I can say that in Appleseed terms he would make one of the best marksmanship instructors in the program.

Because here is the absolute bottom line, a good precision shooter will beat the 4 moa field shooter every day on paper, on steel, and on popups. The same is true with pistol. Hits count, sure. But good hits count more than marginal ones. Reaching 4 MOA isn't the end of training.

Shaming good shooters because they focus on the act of shooting and are trying to help others to be better shooters rather than story telling is wrong and one of the reasons that many good people have left the program.

For the record, I helped teach the first ever IBC in Alabama and Shoot Bossed the first event at Steel City, both back in 2009.



Here's what Crossman had to say,

"After all is said and done, successful rifle shooting on the range is nothing more than first finding a rifle and lot of ammunition which will do precisely the same thing shot after shot, and then developing the same skill in the rifleman."
~ Capt. E.C. Crossman (The Book of the Springfield)

Agrivere, you're more than welcome to come border raid here in Alabama.  There's plenty of opportunity to advance to a red hat if you choose. 

Quote from: sluggo on March 18, 2016, 09:26:26 AM
I have not had very favorable results using 55g at ranges much beyond 300. My preference would be 69g SMK's, which have worked very well for me out to 600, (after that forget it) in a 1/7 twist barrel.

69's work well out of 1/9-1/7. They were the absolute most accurate bullet in my Bushmaster HBAR (1/9). But the only way to shoot them economically is to reload.

With the 1/7 that rifle could do well with Black Hills Blue Box 75's for available ammo. I shot a personal best score and offhand at a match a few weeks ago with them and a 1/7.7 barrel. 188 for offhand and a 470 total for a Navy style match (20 offhand, 10 sitting, 10 rapid prone, and 10 slow prone). 77 handloads will shoot better in my rifle but sometimes you have to go with what you have on short notice.

But I really think that the original poster needs to spend more time thinking that it is like him to shoot well on the KD. I've always thought that KD was easier than 25m. It's a huge target and if you can perform at 25m, you already have the physical skills to perform well at KD.

Pretty nice shooting-
Yes I typically reload 69 SMK's in IVI brass crunching down on Varget- Going to try some benchmark this year.

My experience with ARs has been that barrel twist/ammo matching will make a HUGE difference. I've spent a fair amount of time and money trying to work up the "perfect" load for about five different ARs (yes, one load that would work very well in all). My ignorance of barrel twist being a major factor in such about drove me to the point of insanity.

My wife and I had rifles with 1:9 twist barrels and I found it relatively easy to find something that shot well. I was not looking for one hole shot groups, just decent 2 MOA or better. As Rusty points out, this is beyond the scope of Appleseed, but I'll tie it back in shortly. It's just a data point.

Testing was at 100 yards from a Caldwell Lead Sled. I had hundreds of loads that were tested over the period of a couple years. Different powders, amounts of powder, different projectiles, different loading techniques, etc. It was hard to find something that shot just awful out of the 1:9 twist barrels. There were lots of them that weren't acceptable to me based on my 2 MOA goal, but most kept everything on a cheap paper plate at 100 yards. I had very few that were over 6 MOA. Projectiles ran the gamut from top of the line to mechanically pulled (marks on the bullets). All were in the 52 to 55 grain range, mostly because that was what was cheapest to load.

My father bought an AR because he saw all the fun we were having. He bought a 1:7 twist, though I didn't know that mattered at the time. I couldn't get "anything" to work with that rifle. Now, I was doing well to keep those same loads on a paper plate at 100 yards. I finally considered the barrel twist and realized the difference. We bought some 77 grain Noslers and loaded them up. The difference was amazing! I now have several loads that will consistently shoot under 2 MOA in that rifle. But, you either have to reload or buy some high priced stuff to do it.

Those 77 grain loads also made a Ruger Mini 14 finally shoot minute of pie plate. Lo and behold, it has a 1:7 twist barrel, too. It has major mechanical issues due to age, though. So don't take that as a Mini-14 slam.

I now have a 1:8 twist barrel. It seems to be less picky than the 1:7, but I haven't spent the time with it that I have the others.

I highly recommend 1:9 twist barrels to Appleseeders that ask my input when buying/building an AR. They are just easier to find decent ammo for at a reasonable cost. There's nothing wrong with a 1:7, as long as you understand that it prefers a heavier projectile or don't care about group size.

In my father's case, we just got him a 1:9 twist barreled upper for routine shooting and use the 1:7 when we want to use the heavier stuff. For some reason, he didn't want to just give me all the 55 grain ammo.

http://www.gunsandammo.com/ammo/pair-barrel-twist-rates-ammo/

this may help someone too.

I had no idea my post would result in some many responses and such good information.  It is great to have the variety of opinions on bullet weight, barrel twist, technique and mental attitude.  I will consider all of this and put it to use later this month in Talladega.

Rusty, I look forward to meeting you at the KD.

Thanks to all!

I like HXP M2 ball in spam cans from the CMP.
Wait...
I think I might be off topic.

I haven't had much luck with pairing twist rate with bullet weight in my AR.  It's a LMT 1:7.5 5R barrel which should put it in 75-77gr territory, and yet it likes Lake City M193 (55gr)the best out of the readily available surplus ammos - M193 gets about 1.5 MOA off bags.  More than good enough for Appleseed certainly.  It actually does worse (~2MOA) with M262 77gr which is the match ammo for the M12 special purpose rifle.  But it does best (repeated 0.5MOA groups with a big scope and bags) with Federal Gold Medal 77gr, which has the exact same projectile as Black Hills M262.  Go figure.

Guns like to eat what they like to eat.  They're like small children in that regard.

Are you shooting real Mk 262 Mod 1 or one of the various copies? Real Mk 262 is a bit hit or miss on accuracy. It's never really bad but some lots are better than others, and many different match ammo choices will regularly outperform it, as you have found. Out to 100 or even 200 yards 55 gr ball ammo can do okay, but as you move to 300 yards and beyond wind effects can be much more of a factor and the 77's will outperform every time. Creedmoor makes a newish match ammo that shoots real well, and is often a bit cheaper than black hills. Black hills of course makes good stuff and actually makes the ammo for the AMU Service Rifle team, which is essentially similar to Mk 262 only held to MUCH higher accuracy standards.

Good question.  I guess I don't know 100% for sure.  What I shot was made by Black Hills with 77gr. SMKs and I think was labeled Mk262 or Mk262 mod1.  It had non-polished cases & sealed primers and "looked" military.  It was not a winner, so I never really followed up on it.

I will give Creedmoor ammo a try.  They have several offerings that look interesting.  I don't really think I can improve on the 77g FGMM but I might be able to save a few bucks for the same performance.   The .308 Scenar loads look interesting too.  I'm shooting 155 Amaxes in my AR10 and accuracy is good but the Scenars will reach farther.

For 400 yards, I don't worry much about the specific ammo on a target that is as big as the D Target. 55's usually shoot fine in everything. But when testing ammo, I try to shoot from a sling and compare to a standard. So, I know that in reduced matches the difference between 75gr Black Hills blue box and my Nosler 77 loads is about 1/2 MOA. But that 1/2 MOA may result in a significant number of points.

Most of my KD Appleseed shooting was using IMI M855 and old Black Hills White Box seconds 68gr. Either shot just fine, but neither would turn in a clean for me at 400 yards. The rifles were a Bushmaster HBAR A2 1:9, and a 16" Midlength Carbine 1:8.

For the M1 I shot HXP 72 as the best. For the M1A I found German 147gr Nato MEN to be the best of what I tried (as good as Federal Gold Medal Match in my rifle).