Factory Ammunition or Custom Hand Loads

Another positive for reloading is the ability to tailor cheap practice ammo to match closely with your hunting load. In my 375s, Interlocks are way cheaper to shoot than A-Frames. Luckily, the 375 I am taking to Africa shoots them into the same group at 100. I will still have to shoot my hunting ammo, but I may only burn through 50 instead of the 200 I’ve already fired over the last month. I never thought shooting a 375 would be “fun”, but it really is.
 
Hunter-Habib said:
Or Geco 170Gr Plus ? He had instructions from me to supply you with Geco ammunition since you don’t like Sellier & Bellot.
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We had both options, but I used geco. thanks for checking up on me. Highly appreciated.
They took first class care of me.
 
For the most part I personally reload for my bolt action hunting rifles, 243 win, 308 win, 7MM PRC, 338 Win Mag and 375 RUM. But occasionally I find a factory ammo option that shoots very accurately in one of my rifles and I use it.

I only use factory Hornady ammo in my 500 NE and 470 NE double rifles. I have custom loads from Safari Arms for my Heym double in 450/400 NE. I have made the decision that I do not want to personally hand load ammo for my double rifles.

I use factory ammo in all my hand guns and all my shotguns
 
I want to hand load more than I do. Mostly because I'm not 100% sure of my skills yet. This troubles me, because I started hand loading because I have several rifles where you simply cannot find factory ammo.

What I did learn hand loading is I could increase the precision of my rifle. And that motivated me. It was a simple load though. .30-06, in my rifle, within what the loading manual said, Optimal Charge Weight, I pulled the rifle in from just around 1MOA to less than 0.75 MOA.

I used it to shoot a Bavarian Hunting Association Gamsnädel. I struggled just a touch, because what the online computer said the drop would be at 200 meters was not what I saw, but it was a tight group, and I was able to use "Kentucky Windage" to account for the drop and make the required shots.

Then I went hunting. The best I comparison I can make is it's kind of like tying your own flies. I felt much more involved in the process. I'm going to keep working on it. It's the only way I'm ever going to be able to hunt with that 9.5X57 MS. so I need to get better at this!
 
mark-hunter said:
I am happy with high quality ammunition made by factory.
It stands both for African and for domestic hunting. But it must be chosen wisely.

I hunted buffalo with factory Norma PH Line 375 H&H swift A frame, 300 grains. Performed fantastic

Norma diamond line, molly coated bullets is most accurate factory made match round I have seen.
(it will not however beat properly made handloads at high level competition match)

etc
I have handloads for roe bucks, in 30 06, with nosler ballistic tip, 180 grains.

So, I am having handloads and factory ammo. I pick from both worlds.

Factory ammunition which is to be avoided for African hunt, I would not reccomend:
PPU in 375 H&H. (The only DG caliber they have) and I would not use it for buffalo, but I would use it for any plains game, in their soft point version.

Sellier & Bellot. Avoid at any cost. And avoid for any application. Accuracy issue.
Their ammunition lots for last few years (since 2022) went to disaster in all calibers with accuracy.
I have some old stocks for training, because they are (were) cheap, but they are usable for nothing else except for punching papers off hand.

If you shoot them from rest you will think something is wrong with your rifle. (this is not exaggeration - this is my experience, with S&B in 30 06, 9.3x62, 308 win)

A range owner - a friend of mine, on the range that I frequent says he has clients coming to him to zero the rifle, and he has serious problems zeroing the rifles with S&B ammo.

S&B has some premium bullets on the line. For example Exergy and nosler partition bullets. While those are really premium bullets, their loadings suffer in accuracy.

For reloading, not even brass is of highest quality.

Thus, avoid S&B at any cost.

Regarding Africa: there are ammunition brands that have reputation. One is Norma, the other could be Hornady. Generally speaking, look for known African brends. For northern hemisphere good ammo is RWS, cheaper ones Geco, Sako. etc
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Sellier & Bellot...my god that stuff is abominable. Chrysler of the ammo world, fancy looking box hiding trash inside. The advertised velocity was clearly never measured by anyone. Not only is it the most useless factory ammo ever devised, the cases are trash because they make the flash holes either undersized or off-center. My cynical assumption is that this is some kind of poor man's Berdan priming system to prevent enslaved subjects from reloading them. Sometimes people will post problems in the reloading section and I know it's S&B cases before I even ask.

PPU - I have to admit I used to look down on PPU but I've come to appreciate them a lot. Their ammo isn't the most accurate in general, but there are exceptions. The bullets aren't fancy and I certainly wouldn't use on DG unless it were an emergency, but they do make for cheap practice or medium game bullet. What's to like? Well, you can often buy a box of loaded ammo for cheaper than other makes will sell you empty brass, and PPU brass is of high quality in many of my favorite rimmed cartridges (9.3x74r and 22 hornet in particular). Right now a box of 9.3x74R is $53, while Hornady "Dangerous Game" using a similar 286gr cup and core bullet is $135. Come on Hornady. In some instances PPU brass is clearly superior to Hornady brass, and near equal to Norma and even Lapua for a fraction of the cost. I have gone to PPU as my standard brass in many catridges now, because it is consistent enough and will last almost as long as Lapua at 1/2 to 1/3 the cost.
 
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You said it all. I forgot to say about PPU brass is above average quality for reloading as per my observations.

Unfortunately, in last couple of months, we are facing problems with PPU imports.
 
I hand load for all centerfire hunting rifles. Was forced to use factory ammo on one safari in 2023, other than that all hand loads for the last 20 years. Smallest caliber 308 win, largest 500 jeffery, 505 Gibbs, 470 ne, many many many in between.
 
Rimshot said:
I find that unless it's a very modern or popular chambering, factory ammo offers either inferior projectile choice, inferior performance, lack of availability, and/or insane price markup.

Example - one of my favorite all around cartridges, 9.3x74r. Federal Premium 286 A-frame, assuming it's available (currently not, surprise!) is ~$8/rd. A reloader even buying the brass and throwing it away is still only $4 - 4.50. Re-use the brass? <$3. $100+ savings per 20rd box once you've already got brass. Any time I swap a scope or sight a gun in, I'm shooting at least 20 and probably more shots to get a true POI. You think a 3 shot or 5 shot group tells you anything? It isn't an adequate sample size. It's fine for short range, but I want to be the limiting factor in my shooting system, not my rifle. If I need to make a 400+ yard shot with my 9.3, I want it to hit where I'm aiming. I have 1 DR and 3 singleshot/drillings in 9.3x74R. That's 5 barrels, 5 boxes of ammo for a minimum sighting in (not even counting fine tuning the double, the adjustable Blaser S2). I've now saved $500 just adjusting scopes. What about practice? The chances of a different cheaper factory load, say PPU, hitting to the same POI is almost nil. As a handloader, you can often monkey with powder/charge/velocity and make the same weight cheap bullet go to the same POI as your premium hunting bullet. Now you're saving over $6/rd. 50 rounds of practice through each of the 4 guns and we've saved 6x50x4= $1200 + the $500 sight in = $1700 saved. EVEN IF you just practice with your premium (Swift A-frame) hunting reload, it's still 5x50x4 = $1500 SAVINGS over factory.. Now, would you ever take just 1 20rd box of ammo on mulit-day/species hunt like Africa? 2 or 3 boxes, 40-60rds, right? Another $200-300 savings. $1700-2000 savings in one season, for one cartridge.

A lot of my rifles are either old, rare, classic, or obsolete cartridges. I don't know what my total savings is by reloading but I honestly hadn't done any math lately until the above example, because that isn't even my primary reason for reloading them. I could come up with even more extreme examples too. One of my other favorites, the 22 Hornet, can be reloaded for 1/4 or 1/5 the cost of factory, while using better bullets and with superior performance. I don't think there's ever been a 22 Hornet factory load that would have allowed me to take a klipspringer as effectively as my handload at 247 yards.

I make decent money, but saving many thousands of dollars per year while having the ability to highly customize my ammo for specific circumstances is well worth the time and equipment investment.

You'll get no argument from me about how good factory ammo is in the new and popular cartridges with mass appeal. These days it probably makes the most sense to shoot factory in those, and there doesn't seem to be much gained with handloading compared to how it was 20-30 years ago.
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I agree with everything in your first paragraph. When I started reloading 40 years ago it even saved me money. But with component and power prices today not so much. What I do get is load I know will do what I want it to do.
 
I have followed the same rationale as @MS 9x56 - factory loading for all calibers - .308Win , .30 - 06 Spg. Fld , .300WM , .338WM , .458WM, all of which are post-64 Win M70s , but the .458 is the only CRF.

Also, factory loading for Win lever action in .30-30, and factory loaded Garand ammo for a Rem 742

The caveat to not using factory loading is if a particular projectile anatomy/grain isn't offered , powder charge/loading is anemic , and/or accuracy is sub-par.

I primarily hand load for non-mainstream calibers like the .358Win we have.
I also hand load .38Spc , .357Mag , and .44Mag for pistol(s) Ruger(s) SP101 x2 , GP100 x1 , and Rossi lever action in .357Mag , I find that pistol calibers in factory offerings are anemic for "backcountry" defense. Any MFG pistol ammo that is loaded to a proper i.e. original development spec , the MFG designate that ammo as P , +P or +P+ and over charge. We also reload defensive carry ammo in .357Sig , .40 S&W , 10mm , .45ACP , .45LC ....

The only exception to not hand loading any of the above would be, and using a MFG loading would be Buffalo Bore.

The only other exception would be a custom AR 10 variant - 7.62x51 / .308Win that we use Garand factory loading and a custom handload that I put together. The other is a recent custom AR 15 variant - 6.5 Gren that I have used a factory loading to test function, but will be following a similar path as the AR 10, find a factory loading it likes and a hand loading.

I do have a Sig 716i that eats anything I've loaded it with. The only exception is hunting loads that give an occasional short stroke, but have never fired a hand loading through it.

Anything else - rifle & pistol - in the closet is fed factory loads. Shotguns are an entirely different mindset/topic.
 
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