How to Choose Match Ammo for Competitive Shooting

When you start competition shooting or change up guns, it is super important that you get the right ammo for your firearm. We all like to shoot hundreds of rounds of cheap practice ammo, but when it comes time to perform, we need the best of the best ammo that is going to be accurate and reliable. So how do you find the best ammo for your firearm? Patience and testing.

Practice vs Competition Ammo

Competition shooters need to practice a lot. Shooting is a skill like any other; it needs to be practiced time and time again. When we are practicing, we do not want to use our super expensive ammo. The cheaper bulk ammo will do just fine for practicing the fundamentals.

The bad thing about this cheaper ammo is that it is not nearly as accurate, and sometimes it is not as reliable. Cheap ammo is typically made with less quality control and the tolerances can be a little larger than we would like. 

Competition ammo is specifically made for competition shooters. This ammo is made with very tight specifications and is much more reliable. All and all, it is just better ammo that will perform better. We want the best ammo while competing, but there are many options, and picking one for your firearm can be daunting.

Using Reloaded Ammo

A lot of shooters use reloaded ammo, although many of them choose to only reload their practice rounds. This will save you a few dollars and is worth it if you plan on shooting for years to come. These reloaded rounds are not always as good as competition cartridges from the factory. 

If you are a good reloader and are able to reload rounds that work super well with your firearm, then use those. Many shooters do this, and it is how many of them reach the minimums of the power factor requirements. For example, a 45 ACP can be loaded a little light and it will have much less recoil than a commercial 45 ACP, but it will still pass the power factor requirement because the bullet is so large (which is favorable in the power factor calculation).

All and all, reloads are great but most shooters are only going to practice with them. It is an art to produce your own reloads that outperform manufactured ammo, an art that takes time and practice to get right.

Meet the Competition Requirements

The biggest thing about ammo is your competition requirements. There are dozens of different competitions and all of them have slightly different rules. So you want to make sure you know all the rules, especially the ones that relate to ammo. You definitely need to know the power factor requirements and be able to estimate your power factor based on the ammo.

Look For a Match Grade Label

When you go looking for match grade ammo, it should say “Match Grade” on the box. While this is a good sign that it is quality ammo, there are no defined specifications for what it means to be match grade. Different manufacturers are going to come up with their own definitions of match grade. So just because it says match-grade on the box, does not mean it is going to be the best ammo for you, but it is a good place to start.

If you have no clue what ammo you should try, ask around. Ask the people that are in your competition what they are using. Ideally, you can ask a few people that are shooting the same gun as you what they are using. If you ask five people and they all tell you the same thing, that should tell you something. Although if they give you a few different answers, you need to test all of them or at least a few.

Once you have a good idea of what other people are using, try to order a couple of boxes of each. This is going to be expensive, but at the end of it, you should have the best ammo for your firearm. You should not just go around shooting willy nilly though. Odds are that all of those cartridges are going to shoot fairly well. You are going to have to keep track and do a little math to figure out which one is truly the best.

Put Your Ammo to the Test

Testing ammo and finding out all the specifics about it is a whole field of science that we do not have time to cover here. There are a few great guides online, but here I will point out a few things you can look for if you want to do a basic test. If you want to get super into the science, there is a good article about it here.

The first thing you want to look at is the ammo itself. How does it look? Are all the primers level, are there scratches or anything abnormal about the casing? Probably not, but that’s the first step. You also need to note if a type of ammo produces a malfunction. Make sure it is caused by the ammo and not a magazine issue though.

Next, you need to shoot a few rounds and find out what kind of group you can make. You need to keep track of all the measurements and compare them at the end. You should also test out your cheap practice rounds as a control.

There are plenty of other things to test, but this is a good start and can really narrow down the field. If you are shooting rifles, then your testing may need to be more thorough. On the other hand, a short-range pistol shooter should be fine shooting a reliable cartridge, and may not need the most accurate cartridge possible.

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