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Old March 24, 2007, 07:18 PM   #12
Unclenick
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Join Date: March 4, 2005
Location: Ohio
Posts: 21,063
155, 168, and 175 SMK's all shoot, though the latter two tune in a bit tighter in my M1A. I've tried a number of 147 grain FMJ's and had pretty crummy (for match shooting) results from them all. Shooter John's 5-6" at 200 yards seems to me to be about as good as I've been able to make any 147's shoot, and I've sampled a lot of Winchesters that shot almost twice that wide. Part of the problem seems to be the insistance by the manufacturers on putting a cannelure on the short bearing length of these exposed base bullets. This distorts them too much. If you can find some smooth ones, I don't see why they should be any worse than other smooth bullets in the 150 grain range (for their type). You want to get more like 2" or better at 200 yards for most match shooting.

Before you get too hung up on the 147 grain bullet-based NATO load, you will want to check this archived article out. In summary, it states that "standardizing" the 7.62x51 between NATO nations was the first attempt ever to do such a thing, and it didn't go very well. The article examines 7.62 NATO ball ammo from 12 NATO countries. The external dimensions are pretty consistent, but that's where it ends. They found bullet weights anywhere from 122 to 186 grains. Pretty wild charge weight variations, too. Ballistic were no match to one another.
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