5 thoughts on “Mail Call Mondays Season 2 #35 – Optimal Charge Weight (OCW) and Optimal Barrel Time (OBT)”

  1. John, Federal Gold Medal Match is extremely accurate ammo. I believe that it has won many national and international matches. The longest sniper shots in US Armed Forces history were taken with M118LR. Both of these are examples of mass produced ammunition. Neither of these examples have been meticulously tuned to a specific rifle, barrel length, or chamber dimensions. OCW, ladder testing, jump distance to the lands, etc.; what is the actual difference that these additional measures really make in an accurate shot? Great show on the web. Thanks, Jim

    1. Jim,

      Thanks for your comment. The answer is simple. How many world benchrest records have been held/broken by Federal Gold Metal Match or M118LR? None that I am aware of. If you are shooting on your hind legs (high power, service rifle, etc) then factory ammo is good enough. When you are attempting to put all your shots through the same hole, it isn’t. I will leave the long range Sniping out of it because there is a totally different dynamic at work there.

      1. John, thanks for the speedy reply. It looks like I didn’t frame the question correctly. I was asking for a measurement…does the testing represent a gain of 5%, or .5% or whatever. Anecdotal evidence, as you pointed out, certainly indicates that there is a gain in accuracy. But without supporting data the counter position might be that nobody shoots Federal ammo because everybody shoots their own loads. I’m not arguing against hand load, I do it myself. My son shot a 1 inch group of seven rounds at 300 yards this summer out of his Savage FT/R. That was our from our hand loads. That might be a show for you…ladder or OCW test the match ammo. Thanks for your time. Jim

Leave a Reply to John McQuay Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.