Federal M1A ammo
I got 2 boxes today.
Checked the ammo and found the bullet seating spotty at best.
Of the 40 I checked about 19 were consistant in seating depth. (within .002 either way)
About 10 were .004 over,
7 were about .005 under,
and of the last 2,
one was .012 over and the other was about .007 under.
So the possible extreme spread was about .019.
Thats a little bit much for me to be comfortable.
The powder was 43.0 and it sure looked like 4064.
The bullet was an exact match for the Sierra 168gr HPBT match but they showed various marks and dings on their surface. Not all but some.
Case length was longer than the Sierra and other books call for but only by about .005.
The primer had some kind of purple dye on it and I don't know
if it was sealant or just some kind of ID dye.
One strange fact came out.
I looked at the latest Federal ammo brochure and it said the primer used in this round was the 210 Large rifle federal primer but I have heard it said on a few blogs that they used the mil spec primer . I think it's the #34.
I tried to contact federal about this but so far, no response.
I haven't shot it yet but from what I've seen it's probably pretty acceptable within limits. Since there were some bullets that were over the norm in seating depth I was considering just seating them lower to match the others and using the rounds that were under for warm up or even disassembling them and reseating the bullets.
But thats a bit much.
I guess for about $14.00 per box, if you don't reload and buy in bulk they are a good deal.