The first good barrel I owned taught some important lessons - that gun had groups half the size of any factory rifle I’ve ever owned, and it was with basic RCBS setup bought when I was 13 or 14 - full length dies unscrewed a full thread so it’s just neck sizing. No tumbling, no neck turning, bullets .020” off lands, cheap federal brass, CCI250 primers, Nosler Partition bullets, basic beam scale, basic RCBS lube/pad, light case lube inside necks, primer pocket brush, and only annealing every 5 shots with propane torch to prevent neck splits. If I had more money for brass I probably wouldn’t have annealed at all.
My takeaway from that rifle is, unless a gun shoots LESS than 1/2-3/4 moa, anything special is probably not doing much.
With age we develop interests in fancier equipment and invest in the option for “best practices” - I have a neck turner, brass tumbler, ultrasonic cleaner, expensive Lapua brass, Redding bushing dies, mandrel expander, expensive bullets, primer pocket uniformer, anneal every reload, fancy Wilson seating dies with a cute little seating press, imperial neck lube, sort cases, measure runout, but for most factory barrels non of that is used.
I’m as guilty as most hunters to want to do things to our ammo that doesn’t actually help, especially with mediocre accuracy that makes seeing small benefits hard to see, but we imagine it must be helping. If any one thing improved accuracy by 1/8 moa I’d probably do it with every rifle, but I don’t see it and haven’t read anything that suggests fancy techniques help that much.
The #1 thing I think is a waste is cleaning brass - I stopped altogether other than brushing out primer pockets. Just wiping with a cloth works with minimal effort and it encourages closer inspection of each piece of brass - mainly I like the idea of keeping a uniform carbon layer in the neck, or so I’ve convinced myself with very little evidence that it makes a difference. Lol
