Hey Guys,

As promised I said I'd throw up a few words on the Hornady Steel Match .308 155 gr Ammo that's now available here from some RFD's including Duffy's of galway at Shoot.ie (http://www.shoot.ie/hornady-steel-match-308-155gr.html)


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Hornady claim that the round is exactly the same as a normal Match round (Percussion cap, powder and Boat Tail Hollow Point) with the exception of the casing which is made from steel rather than brass. This they state dramatically reduces the price.
http://www.hornady.com/store/308-Win-155-GR-BTHP-STEEL-MATCH



I've read a few reviews on these and have seen good and bad. One of the issues people said they had was that they were getting hang fires so that after pulling the trigger the firing pin would strike the percussion cap and the round wouldn't go off.

On a few other websites people were saying that you should stay well clear of these rounds because of it. But I take a lot of what I read with a pinch of salt (especially seeing as the fella who said he'd had a problem had put "hundreds of thousands of rounds" through his barrel!)

I sourced the rounds for €52 for 50 rounds, which seeing as I was paying €46 for 20 Remington Premier Match 168 gr was an absolute bargain. It meant I was spending €1.04 every time I squeezed the trigger rather than €2.30.

But the value would only be worth it if the round was accurate so today I went to zero the round and true it on my Ballistic Calculator.

I was firing them out of a Remington 700 VLS in an AICS stock with a 6-24x50 Vortex Viper PST FFP scope.

The first three rounds out of the barrel....


This was at 100 meters and I was massively surprised at the accuracy and the consistency.

To true the ballistic calculator (iStelok) I fired at 330 meters. It told me my correction would need to be 2.2 mills but my group told me I only needed 2 mills. So after correcting the mussel velocity I fired another 3 round group and she was spot on with sub MOA groups. And then out to 587 meters and again she was on again.

For a quid a round this was good!

I didn't have any problem with miss fires and all the percussion caps were struck well and evenly.


There was no deformity of the steel casings at all.


And just in case you think it might have been a fluke my brother did the exact same with the Steel Match .223 in 55 gr with similar results.


All in, I couldn't rate these rounds highly enough.

The recoil was very manageable and lower than the Remmy Premier Match and I don't think that all this could be accounted for in the 3 gr difference!

They do a number of different rounds including the .308 165gr BTHP, a .223 55gr hp and a .223 75gr BTHP.

These rounds get a thumbs up from me. Cost very good, accuracy excellent, recoil superb, consistency brilliant.

Try em and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Everypenny.