Anybody know the techniques that factories use to load rifle ammo? I was reloading a little today and got to thinking about it. I have taken both Remington and Winchester factory loads before and shook them to listen to the powder and in some of them you can hear powder and in others you can't...obviously a compressed load. And this is ammo from the same box. There would have to be at least a grain of powder variance between the different cartridges. I bet if you pulled the bullets and weighed the powder charge, it would be all over the place. It's no wonder that half of them you buy won't group worth a crap.

I've also heard that factories don't load ammo by charge weight but instead by pressure but I don't know if that's true or not because it makes no sense to me.

Id be pulling bullets and weighing charges. People that care more than me, weigh there brass and match weights together. I've fired 1000s of rounds and maybe 3 boxes of factory loads in 67 years.

I don't reload and still kill plenty of critters. I may feel differently if I was shooting paper or targets, but it works just fine for hunting IMO.

I'm sure "How it's made" has likely shown ammo production if you google it.

I believe it's measured by volume. I have some rifles that shoot factory loads better than I have seen some guys with their custom rifle and worked up handloads shoot. It's not common but my daughter 7mm08 and hornady North American whitetail are great together. Basic cheapest factory Remington 700 made and cheap ammo. It's one of my favorite rifle amo combos in the house.

Most people are hunters not shooters and don't have the equipment or shooting ability let alone Time to justify working up loads. 1.75 from the bench at 100 good enough to kill deer at 300 with 8" kill zone. Most deer are shot sub 100 around here. Few shoot 10 shots a year out of their deer gun.

something to remember the powders available to you are not the same that they load with. they can design anything they want and order a powder for each round to do exactly what they want, that loads fast , full and to a very set pressure curve.

match ammo are a little better bullet but more than likely not a slightly slower line so that they can better control charge weight.
factory ammo will often vary a lot shot to shot in velocity , it is safe pressure but not necessarily the best deviation numbers.

When I resumed hand loading a few years back, almost fell into that rabbit hole of chasing one hole groups. Then one day was perusing website of one of those high end gun makers.........standard rifle costing around $5k. They come with accuracy guarantee of sub-half inch MOA. Some 3/8" MOA. Only catch is you have to use match grade ammo. That would be factory made match grade ammo. NOT hand loads made to and for that rifle. That was when the light came on..........I don't have to spend all that time and burn thru hundreds of primers, bullets, etc shooting the barrel out...........if the rifle will shoot, all I have to do is duplicate the match grade ammo. For my use, if rifle will shoot 1 MOA or better, that is going to allow the shooter to do all rifle needs to do at normal hunting distances. So duplicating match ammo is all I worry about, which as it turns out, is pretty easy to do. Getting ammo running at factory level velocity and 1 MOA or better has been easy enough for all but one rifle. Now that the miscreant has a new barrel, it ought to get in line PDQ too.

Several of my rifles shoot certain factory loads pretty well but they almost always shoot better with one of my handloads. The way factory ammo is mass produced, it's surprising that it shoots as well as it does really.

Maybe I had a realization I don't need to be as accurate as possible or maybe I just got lazy. I like hand loading and love shooting groups you can't tell how many rounds went in the one hole. could be priorities and time avaliable changed. I have not loaded a single round in at least 2 years. And mostly we have been shooting factory ammo. The the exception is some handgun ammo like 357 and 40 s&w have been stuff I loaded probably 10 years ago.

Funny I have thousands and thousands of hand loads loads In stacked ammo cans but it's mostly calibers I'm not using much any more. I have components to load several thousand rounds for the stuff we have been using but found myself just buying a bunch when I find a sell and have been using it.

Always dreamed of having a longer range range have had a 500 yard range at home now for 9 years and have not bothered to shot a shot over 200 yards yet. Maybe someday things will slow down and I will get back to loading and shooting enough to need to set back and replace barrels again.

If you have ever been an observer at a shooting range, "sight in day", prior to deer season, you may agree, that factory ammo and rifles will far out -shoot, the vast majority of the people holding them. That's not a dig at the shooters, just that, being a true "Marksman" requires alot of trigger time and expense, that most shooters can't afford the time, nor money, or have the interest. Some do, or choose to spend the time and money, and build rifles or ammo to get the performance they want.
Factory ammo, like Pete mentioned above, orders or makes, powders, bullets, primers, and brass, that they can rely on being within certain specs, and also have testing equipment to ensure purchased components are what they ordered, and perform to certain standards. The real goal is consistency, in the end product, that they have found, through years of testing, to work well in the average hunting rifle. Will it shoot the same in a .30-30 with a 20" barrel as it will in a .30-30 with a 16" barrel? Not likely, but close enough the average hunter can't tell the difference shooting at a deer within 50 yards. Besides, the guy has to have something to blame when he misses one!

I don't handload for all of my rifles. I enjoy it but it can be tedious sometimes.

if you shoot silver dollar size groups at a 100 yards, that rifle will kill as many animals as the one with dime size groups. I handload. My stuff is old gathered over a lot of years. Gives me a lot of versatility and price savings.

Weird thing I've seen. Folk will bring a out how the old timers brought home all the meat with a 30-30 that (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) a pie plate @100yd ......but then turn right around and loose it if your happy with a gun that shoots a 1" -1.5" group vs 10round all in the same hole then turn around and say you should try only take boiler room shots instead of head and neck shots because there less error ....as a buddy of mine says " Like good sir a head shot kill zone is like 1.5-2" on most animals, if your gloating about a one hole rifle and shooting off of a steady rest under 100yd and not dropping the DOA ...........what are you doing?"
Man three freezers full of fox coyotes and deer so I reckon her kind knows something

Pulling bullets from Hornady ammo, has been different from 1-4 grains if you can believe that, but never over the max grain load for bullet weight.

For hunting it works just fine, if i'm off a bit at 100 yards it's not a big deal. I usually hunt with 3030 or 308. if im brush hunting 357 mag maybe. most of my animals are taken at 50 yards or less here in Nova scotia. second growth forest mostly with dense brush.

For me, i'm a cheapskate (ish) but I love shooting so I invest in a bit of gear and now I make ammo at maybe 50% of cost depending on what i'm reloading.

I kill deer with factory loads in a 30-30, never felt the need to handload , been using the Hornaday rubber tipped stuff and that is very accurate in my gun, My 243 is accurate with Rem 100 corelokts, maybe if I was shooting at long ranges hand loading might tighten things up but I don't really want to, lol

Motivation for me to resume reloading began the day I realized that all the primers made and sold in US were under control of only one company.........Vista group. Wrong sort ever got hold of that and shut things down, there would be no ammo. Idea put in my head by prior shortages, reinforced in 2020 and 2021 when shelves went bare........and stayed that way for nearly a year. So I became my own ammo factory. If stored properly, the components don't go bad and they attach to the gun. They will still be running hot long after most guns have gone cold and are just an expensive club to wave around.

During shortages is a horrible time to start. If you go down that road, the time to start is during times of plenty.......like now. Then when next shortage hits, you are already set.

Because the head has a good possibility to move as u squeeze the trigger. Ive seen first hand a live deer with a non fatal head shot. I was able to fix the mistake for the sake of the animal. I just see no reason to take unnecessary risk with no benefit just to help ones ego. Last six deer me and the boys have shot with a rifle have been dead within 2 steps of where they were shot at with no need for a head shot. The head shot is just a smaller more mobile target that has no benefit other than for ones own ego. Share ur personalexperience with head shots wolfie.

Here the other day wolfie u were posting groups you were shooting with Ur AR 10, how many shots did u want to disregard to make ur groups look better? I remember where u had a great group going then claimed u got excited and pulled the last one. Perfect example why I dont like head shots. That and most people disreguard their cold bore shot if their gun has a shift and couldn't tell were it hits compared to a warm barrel

95% of people over estimate their shooting abilities and that's why Im a proponent of taking the shot at gives u the bigger margin of error

Exactly, head shots no bueno
There's enough things can go wrong without handicapping yourself...

Yet a couple clicks away on another forum
it's ok to shoot em 500+ yds.

Always had good luck with federal factory rifle loads. No problem killing stuff, even out to 550 yards.