Accuracy expectations with the old Montana Gold 55 grainers?

[Chills1994]

Montana Gold used to make or at least sell a 55 grain pro-jo for .223.

I bought a case of them probably back before the first panic, so like 2007 or 2008.

I loaded some up with Lake City once fired brass (processed by fastandfriendly). They were charged with 24 grains of H335, and Winchester Small Rifle primers.

These are my results at 100 yards with my 20 inch barreled AR with a 1:9 twist (from a tripod type rest on a sturdy permanent bench, and rear bunny ear'ed sandbag):

I bought some 55 grain ammo from Black Hills as like a "control group":

Just wondering if anybody else here had shot the old Montana Gold 55 grainers and what the accuracy was like???

[blairmckenzie1]

i sent mine back. your groups are considerably better than mine. mine were really bad, like 5-6" bad. it was a pain to get refunded. MG makes great pistol bullets but i think most people agreed that their 55's sucked

[RDA]

You may be interested in this:

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=174006

[Chills1994]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I bought them by the case locally.

When I got them home, I dumped them into an ammo can.

Just by looking at the ones sitting on top, I could see the bare exposed lead bases/bottoms. There were visually obvious differences in the amount of jacket extending past the base, so either the jacket is too long or the lead core is too short.

So, in my opinion, there are or were some quality control issues.

I am about tempted to buy a 6,000 count box of the Hornady 55 grainers, maybe from Brownells???

Anyway, my point to this thread: I was wondering if it would be worthwhile to load up some of the Montana Gold's over say 24.5 grains and/or 25.0 grains of H335 to see if I could get them to group any better.

Here was my best group, a 69gr SMK:

It was getting dark and my eyes were getting tired, but this is what I did with the 69gr Noslers:

I'll have to try both loads again in regular full sun daylight next time.

[Bamboo]

A while back I got 1k of the MG 55 grainers on sale and had so-so results, about like yours. Good enough for the close range blasting stages but kind of disappointing even at the 100 yard range. In all fairness, I heard they had good and bad and then really bad batches. I haven't had any vaporize so I guess that is good.

The hornady 55gr FMJBT are much better. Look at Midsouth and Widners besides Brownells. Right now they are 400/case at Midsouth.

[RDA]

I shoot the Hornady 55 grain FMJBT, I believe they are the best value in a 55 grain bullet.