factory ammo and long range hunting

[nmarchr]

So, I bought a 6.5 PRC two years ago and I bought a bunch of boxes of factor Berger 156 EOL's. Well over the last two years we have killed a pile of critters with this combo and the gun shoots great every time we take it out. shooting great out to 800 yards, which is as far as my kids and I have shot it. Well this weekend we were shooting and we were running out of our original ammo that I bought two years ago. I told my son to open up a new box for us to try. I ordered 3 new boxes a couple of weeks ago. So he shoots one shot with our original ammo at 500 yards and its in the baseball size bullseye. Next shot with new ammo 1 foot low at 500. I thought he yanked it so I told him to shoot again and his next shot was about an inch left of the previous. I get on the gun with the new ammo and my shot is there with my sons. I let the barrel cool, put an original round in there and boom, bullseye. I check the two boxes and lot #'s are different. All of my original boxes have the same lot #, my new boxes are all different lot numbers. Do any of you guys that are consistently successful hunting at longer ranges use factory ammo? Are you resighting in every time you get a box with different lot #'s? I have never really thought about reloading until this happened to us. I am a bow hunter that is just now getting into serious rifle hunting because that is what my kids enjoy. 1 foot low at 500 yards is a miss. My son has a tag here in about a month that is almost a once in a lifetime type of tag. This kind of has me freaking out a little bit.

 

[cowdisciple]

I had an issue with some factory Hornady 6.5PRC 147ELDMs that were close to 200fps slower than the box velocity, and that sounds like what you're describing.

I bought a chronograph and will now measure velocity each time I change lots.

I bet if you shot those at 100 yards they'd be fine - mine were. And after I adjusted my ballistic solver my slower ones worked great on my hunt - just had 6.5 creed ballistics out of my PRC.

 

[Formidilosus]

Do any of you guys that are consistently successful hunting at longer ranges use factory ammo?

Yes.

Are you resighting in every time you get a box with different lot #'s?

Absolutely. It is a requirement. Each lot # will have a different zero, and different MV.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

So, I bought a 6.5 PRC two years ago and I bought a bunch of boxes of factor Berger 156 EOL's. Well over the last two years we have killed a pile of critters with this combo and the gun shoots great every time we take it out. shooting great out to 800 yards, which is as far as my kids and I have shot it. Well this weekend we were shooting and we were running out of our original ammo that I bought two years ago. I told my son to open up a new box for us to try. I ordered 3 new boxes a couple of weeks ago. So he shoots one shot with our original ammo at 500 yards and its in the baseball size bullseye. Next shot with new ammo 1 foot low at 500. I thought he yanked it so I told him to shoot again and his next shot was about an inch left of the previous. I get on the gun with the new ammo and my shot is there with my sons. I let the barrel cool, put an original round in there and boom, bullseye. I check the two boxes and lot #'s are different. All of my original boxes have the same lot #, my new boxes are all different lot numbers. Do any of you guys that are consistently successful hunting at longer ranges use factory ammo? Are you resighting in every time you get a box with different lot #'s? I have never really thought about reloading until this happened to us. I am a bow hunter that is just now getting into serious rifle hunting because that is what my kids enjoy. 1 foot low at 500 yards is a miss. My son has a tag here in about a month that is almost a once in a lifetime type of tag. This kind of has me freaking out a little bit.

Yes, but I purchase my ammo at least 200 rounds at a time and ask for it all to be the same lot number. If I have to check zero with each new lot, I want it to be as infrequent as possible.