legitimately post a range report on my romak-3 (I only
started shooting high-power a few months ago, I'm still on
the skill-building curve).
range: 100 yds, bench rest weather: 65F, cloudy, moist, no
wind ammo: 70 rds russian 60/85 copperwashed steelcase FMJ
10 rds czech 85/bxn silvertip FMJ (lacquered steelcase)
The russian stuff as I've found before tends to scatter somewhat, on shots that I would call as consistent. I got groups of 2-3 MOA on my various targets, no obvious stringing, or deviation, even after my barrel got warm. I'm still working on consistent trigger pull & shot followthrough, I expect I can tighten up results with this ammo somewhat (interestingly, I've repeatedly seen one or two 1 MOA 3-shot groups with this ammo within my first ten shots on a given day, but then this performance fades. Don't know if it's because I start to "work" on my shooting and interfere with my body memory, or because the gun heats up or what...)
I only shot 10 rds of the czech stuff because my supply is low. Did this halfway through the 70 rds of russian, so I'd hope that would lessen shooter and gun effects on the results. With this, I got notably better results than with the russian I shot before and after - I got two nice 1 MOA groups, one of five shots and one of three. It was not exactly one ragged hole, but still nice little patterns within 1 inch. I've seen this before with the silvertip, though at the time I hadn't shot enough to even comtemplate whether it was more than luck. Since this stuff is cheap, it seems like a winner to me.
More later - I think I'm seeing what's been said before here, that ammo makes a significant difference, and that with good stuff you can get quite consistent performance out of the gun. It's not a no-effort sub-MOA out of the box deal, but then half the fun is figuring out what you need to do to make it go right. And also noticing another instance of East bloc practical technology (ever notice how the production values vary on different parts of the gun, ranging from the receiver cover at one end (love that thin sheet metal) to the gas piston at the other ? These folks made functional stuff, they just expected the human using the tool not to be lazy.)
Enjoy,
StG44