SK Rifle Match vs Lapua Midas+

22 Long Rifle ammo is finicky. Tell us all about it here.
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Ghostofwar
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SK Rifle Match vs Lapua Midas+

Post by Ghostofwar »

So I took advantage of the bullets.com close out on Lapua ammo and bought some Midas+. I have been having some doubts about my latest lot of SK Rifle Match and wanted to see if it was the ammo, or the rifle. It seems that the new black box SK ammo has some consistancey issues as well as some unexplained weak rounds. I have had a few instances of low impacts (3-4") at 100m, including one low shot that caused me to miss a ram in a match. The older gold box ammo never seemed to have any issues and it shot wonderfully.

The testing took place late in the evening around 730-830. The wind was dead clam and temp was in the upper 70s. Daylight was fading, so I only used several passes with a bore snake to clean the barrel before testing each type of ammo. I went straight to 100m for testing since that's the main area of concern. I used my Anschutz 2007/2013 silhouette rifle. Here are the results.

SK Rifle Match
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Lapua Midas+
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I shot 20 rounds to season the barrel before shooting groups to measure. These are actually two, five shot groups that were scanned into the TargetScan app.

One thing I observed was that the SK required about 10 rounds through the barrel before it "settled down". The first 5 shots were about 2 inches low and strung out over about 3 inches. The next 5 shots were tighter and moved towards the center of the bull. The Midas+ also had to "settle" but produced a MUCH tighter group of around 1.5" for the first 5 rounds.

Obviously the Midas+ shot better than the SK, but the SK Rifle Match is still within what I would consider acceptable at 100m. I only had one round that I would consider a "flyer" with the SK and that happened while seasoning the barrel. It was about an inch low and to the right of the rest of the group. I did not observe the extreme low shot during this test. I will do another test in the future and use 25 shot groups to better test the consistency of these two types of ammo.

One final thought; The Midas+ was a pleasure to shoot. It just seemed to perform the exact same for every group. I can't wait to see what kind of groups I can get with it when I'm not in a hurry.
ywltzucanrknrl
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Re: SK Rifle Match vs Lapua Midas+

Post by ywltzucanrknrl »

Ghost, thanks....What lot # of SK do you have? Good information and a nice write up. I'm wondering if others have had similar experiences with the SK in the black box---I have a case but haven't shot any yet---guess I'd better try it.
Thanks again,
Jon
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Ghostofwar
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Re: SK Rifle Match vs Lapua Midas+

Post by Ghostofwar »

I've got SK Rifle Match lot number 194 50/2 354 4.

I still haven't gotten out to do more testing, but I will update this when I do.
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