[hottarod]

I shot some Tula and some Silver Bear. Last mod is still the 16 1/2" cut and crown on my barrel. I have my flash hider but my threading kit hasn't shown up yet.

The Tula was definitely not good and not even as good as it shot before I shortened the barrel. I thought at first it might be something with my gun or my scope but all screws were still tight and everything seemed ok.

I switched to Silver Bear which I had loaded up and my first one came right back on target. The rest were the same.

I searched around and found an AK review that also said Silver Bear was the best in accuracy of what they tested which was Wolf, Tula, Silver Bear and Golden Tiger. They did not have any Golden Bear which I have also found to be a lot more accurate than Tula. I don't shoot Wolf.

Just comparing as advertized ballistics the Silver Bear ran at 2430 fps mv where as the Tula was 2396 fps. I decided to weight check a few rounds(whole box of each) and it appears obvious why one is better than the other.

The Tula varied by as much as 2.8 grains and there was no significant majority median or average load. Some were high and some were low and there was everything in between. This could be as much as a 10 percent difference if it is a variance in the powder charge which I believe most of it is.

On the Silver Bear, the vast majority were at the majority average load with an occasional load that was minus .2 to .4 grains. However, I did still occasionally find one that was up to 1 grain short of the majority weight. I found none that were higher than the average load on the Silver Bear.

I forgot all about borrowing the range chrono to see what they were really flying at. Next time, another excuse to go to the range as if I really need one.

 

[tri70]

Did you weigh the empty cases to see if there was a difference? Sometime you may get a variance in the case weight or bullet weight.

 

[hottarod]

I didn't think of weighing the spent cases until after I got home. I plan to do that to rule out case differences although I don't believe it is the steel cases.

If it is powder charge or bullet weight the end result would be the same, a problem with accuracy. The chrono would also have detected the wider variances in powder or bullet weights but I forgot to get the chrono out.

I pulled out a box of Golden Bear tonight and found similar results to the Silver Bear. Most all the rounds were + or - .2 grains which would be a negligible difference. I found 1 round in the box that was a full 2 grains low. 5 were around 1 grain high. I ran the ballistics and 1 grain out of spec on the powder charge(approx 4 percent = around 93 fps) is not a tremendous problem until you get out at 200 yards. 2 to 4 grains would be a problem at any reasonable range.

I may have to start loading some of these myself for "non-plinking" purposes or to see just how accurate my gun really is. Another way to address this might be to weigh large batches of this ammo and group them by similar weights. At least then the groups would all tighten up.