It must be, because just about every beer sold nowadays is touted as “craft” beer, although what that really means is probably up for debate.
I think of craft as something made on a small scale, like the hobbies Jeannine and I enjoy. No two items are alike, and every craftperson approaches their craft in a different style.
What about handloading ammunition? That is something that is done in small quantities by an individual. But we don’t want variability – we want every load to be the same.
So, that begs the question – Is factory ammunition better than handloads? Possibly. Factories are designed and run by engineers using machines that can repeat the same process over and over without error. On the other hand, a hand reloader can weigh each load of powder to a hundredth of a gram, ensure the bullet is seated exactly, purchase the highest quality bullet and primer, and so on.
Because of the debate over lead-free ammunition, some researchers in Montana investigated the accuracy and characteristics of factory versus handloaded lead-free rifle ammunition for 19 factory/handload combinations (.223 Remington to .308 Winchester).
The full article is available online but here are the highlights:
- Bullets of the same manufacturer and model had similar precision regardless of how they were loaded.
- An exception was the .223 handload was more precise than factory loads.
- They found that more expensive rifles had greater precision than the cheapest rifles. However, the authors note that the owners of more expensive rifles may have more shooting experience, and the difference in precision was quite small with lots of variability.
- In general, they found that handloaded ammunition had greater velocity
- And handloads were more consistent in velocity.
The good news is that lead-free, factory-loaded ammunition is accurate and reliable. Thus, for hunting, probably the only necessity for handloading ammunition is because of the unavailability of less common calibers. I can relate – I rarely ever see any .30-40 Krag or .358 Winchester ammunition (of any kind) in gun shops, which is why I reload my own copper ammo. However, reloading your own ammunition comes with it’s own rewards.
The authors also noted that they “designed [their] study to determine whether differences in precision could be discerned using the techniques hunters actually use when sighting in their rifles and practicing, so that they may have confidence in their equipment under field conditions.”
–Duane Diefenbach
*If you are a first-time commenter on the blog, your post will not appear until it has been approved by the moderator. This is to prevent spam overwhelming us. If you do not see your post within 24 hours, please email us at deerforeststudy@gmail.com