Ammo Review

Today we shall review some ammo that I tried recently.

Hornady 75 grain "Black" ammo.

Abstract
A box of 20 was to be had from Academy for 17.99 (plus taxes, of course). Cost was $0.90 per round. The allure is this: 75 grain match ammo from Hornady is often 23.99 to 27.99 per box in retail outlets. Of course, ammoatcost.com has 75 grain match ammo from Hornady for $14.39 per box of 20 (plus shipping and applicable taxes, of course) at the time of this writing.

Would this ammo be comparably accurate?

Facts
It is important to note that Hornady advertises this ammo as having a muzzle velocity of 2790 fps and a bc of .395 - both identical to Hornady Match.

If Hornady obtained the muzzle velocity from a 20" barrel, then I should have been getting pretty close, based on my setup of the day.

Setup
My rifle, "Lucy." She has an 18" SPR (Special Purpose Rifle) barrel from White Oak Armament. The barrel is free floated. She has a Geissele trigger. I used a Vortex Strike Eagle variable power optic set at 6x for this evaluation.

The Standard
Prior to firing the test ammunition, I fired a 5 shot  group using Hornady 75 grain match ammunition.

As usual, the 75 grain match ammo from Hornady yields a group of approximately 1 MOA. Of note: this optic is zeroed using 55 grain Federal American Eagle ammo. The Hornady match has almost exactly the same POI at 100 yards.

The Evaluation:
A 10 shot group of the subject ammo was fired from 100 yards.

The Point of Aim (POA) was the middle of the diamond. As you can see, the group seems centered about an inch right of the POA.

The group measured an inch and a half in maximum spread. 1.5 MOA is the result.

Notes
Precision is better handled with Hornady 75 grain match, Federal 69 grain Gold Medal Match, or any one of a number of heavy loads available from reputable manufacturers.

So is this ammo worth the price difference?
Ultimately, only you can decide. It is not as accurate as Hornady Match. It is about 25% less expensive. If you would use this for, say, deer hunting, it would make sense.

But it only makes sense if you only buy in brick & mortar stores and if you do not buy online. There's no way I'd pay more for this ammo when I could get Hornady Match for less at ammoatcost.com .

If you only buy at brick & mortar stores, this ammo has some benefit. I'd suggest Academy Sports as their prices are low.