My Pistols Groups

[Chuck D]

I've owned my SV for 5 years now, runs w/o a hitch and still has the original Nowlin barrel in it. When I bought it, the gun would shoot under 2 inches at 25 yards w/factory ammo. I never really did a ton of testing with my reloads.

Now, having a bit of spare time on my hands, I've decided to test.

Choosing once fired brass, a quality jacketed bullet sized .452, an undisclosed amount of WW powder and CCI primers, the gun groups 3 inches at 25 yards for a 10 shot group off on a sand bag rest.

Now, switching to cheap, garbage range brass, a fairly decent lead bullet of the same weight , same undisclosed charge weight of WW powder and the same CCI primers....the gun now groups 1.5 inches at 25 yards for a 10 shot group off the same sand bag rest. Both reloads make major p.f. (170 p.f.)

Smoky lead bullets...nasty...sticky bullet lube...really trashy "worn out" brass outperforms the best bullet ...best brass combination.

So much for "quality components".

[EricW]

Mine's exactly the same. Loves crappy lead, hates Montana Gold.

[Kimberkid]

Awesome feeling to find out your gun shoots crap better than "match" ammo. My first Bianchi Gun, a bone stock 586 with a Tasco dot, with a 158gr. roundnose, 3.5 grains of Bullseye and Federal primers in whatever mixed brass I could scarf off a range of steal out of a trash bin shot under 2" at 50 all day if I did my part.

[Patrick Sweeney]

Interesting. I just shot a truckload of S&W guns last week, and the best group of the bunch was the least expensive gun: a bone-stock 910. (Single ragged holes as groups, with any 9mm ammo I cared to feed it.)

However, your tests (and most of mine, for that matter) are not statistically valid. One group of one ammo type, fired over sandbags is not declaritive. You may have fired the best group of your life that day, aided by the ten best rounds of that production batch.

The only true test would be out of a Ransom rest, and then you must average a set of groups, like five, ten shot or ten, five shot groups.

But I know the phenomenon of which you speak.

[Nik Habicht]

Six years after I bought my 910, I'm still amazed by its accuracy --- it's tied for second place with a used Colt 1991A1 that had to have been traded by a former USPSA shooter, just behind the BarSto built 6" Glock 21. S&W's performance center cleaned up the trigger pull a few years ago. I still like the gun, though I shoot it rarely...