P1130150

When it comes to reviewing firearms, you’re only as good as your tools. We here at TTAG are known for our no-holds-barred approach to gun reviews, and while we’ve done our level best to use quality ammunition for the accuracy testing portion of these reviews, the fact is that we can do better. Eagle Eye Ammunition is the most consistent ammunition I have ever tested, and now they are teaming up with us to become our official test ammunition supplier for gun reviews. Going forward . . .

we will be using Eagle Eye ammo for the accuracy testing portion of all our reviews, meaning we will finally have a consistent yardstick with which to measure every firearm and a means to directly compare them to one another. Even as this post is published I’m out on the range testing some new rifles with ammo they’ve provided, and I’m really looking forward to the results. Stay tuned.

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72 COMMENTS

  1. Womp wa waaaa… well ttag can continue to get worse! Stay tuned for loads of praise and advertising for Eagle Eye.

    • Give TTAG a little more credit. Nick already independently reviewed this and it was good stuff. Why not accept a sponsor that makes consistent ammo? This site doesn’t run on our comments and neither do guns up for review. And having consistent ammo minimizes a variable in play while testing the guns.

      • You mean just like Nick bashes any gun he reviews that isn’t from FN despite the conflict of interest that he’s sponsored by FN for shooting competitions?

        • Clearly it’s been awhile since you’ve read his reviews. Also, for some idiotic reason they occasionally give him AK’s to review, despite the fact that he hates AK’s and will thus give them bad reviews.

        • FN hasn’t sponsored me in shooting competitions for going on two years now. Since then we have had no ties to FN that I am aware of, financial or otherwise (I make a point not to be included on ad related conversations, and even then all ads are handled by a 3rd party). Even so, I haven’t reviewed any FN products since they were a sponsor and will continue to avoid reviewing them specifically to avoid even the appearance of favoritism.

          Call foul all you want, there’s nothing going on behind the scenes. We lay everything on the table and tell it how it is. If you think that we are biased you are welcome to your own opinion, but the facts don’t support your conclusion.

          We reviewed the ammo, and then approached them about being a sponsor based on those results. Not the other way around.

        • Whatever you say, Nick. It’s not like we can all go back and read your reviews or anything…. Also, as you’re well aware, I’m far from the first person to call you out on your horribly biased reviews. Everyone else writing for TTAG does a pretty good job of being balanced, but you’re like the gun blogger equivalent of Bill O’Reilly in the All-Spin Zone.

        • Plz Pubes…you aren’t fooling anyone here. Whats your beef with Nick? Jealous?

          Start your own blog if you like.

    • You must be new here.

      Did you read the article they put up last time they got an ammo sponsor?

      They used the ammo for gun reviews only, and explicitly stated that they would not be reviewing that ammo while that company was their sponsor, and for ___ amount of time after the sponsorship expired.

      • Lol no…. been a daily reader for over 4 years. I love how you come out with instant condenscending voice. And yes I did read the last review. However, the last time does not mean this time. Furthermore, the site continues to degrade from the ads in the beginning to now the horrible browser hijacking ads, to ammo sponsors, to the increasing lack of proof reading and general lack of a editor being a real editor.

        • I agree the ads are particularly terrible at the moment, we are working to fix it.

          You’ll note that we reviewed the ammo before asking them to be a sponsor. We asked them based on the results, not the other way around. And even though they will be coming out with more calibers and loading soon, we won’t be reviewing any of that or making any statements about the quality of the ammunition while using their ammo for testing. They get mentioned in the article as the ammo of record and their box in the pictures in exchange for free ammo, that’s the extent of the deal.

          If you want slick editing, go read the New York Times. If you want to read our truthful and honest opinions about firearms and their performance, then pardon the typos as none of us are English majors.

    • Nor do I believe it means this is the exclusive ammo used for testing. What it does mean is that every gun reviewed in a caliber EE makes ammo for will have that ammo as one of the types used for testing and used for accuracy groups. That will help compare accuracy between multiple guns. I know I have a few 5.56s and at least two .308s coming my way over the next 6 months and if I can do a 100 yard group with Eagle Eye plus whatever other ammo I have on hand on all of them, that’s going to be a good thing for comparison purposes. Plus, ammo is expensive (it’s by far and away my biggest cost for reviewing firearms) so EE helping out with however much for each review means we can put even more rounds through each test gun for each review.

      …I just wish they made more calibers…

  2. Fvck yeah!

    Looking forward to trying this out of my LTR .308 and seeing if it can beat Federal Gold Metal Match. It’s too bad they only make .223 and .308 ammo. I’d like to see .338 Lapua, 300 Win Mag, and match handgun ammo as well.

    With that being said, .223 and .308 probably comprise most of the rifles being made these days.

    • All the sceptics should go out and buy a few boxes and test themselves already. Not one person had bad experience, as far as I know, shooting their stuff and I see folks post their results on EE facebook page all the time. Finally a company that offers new ways with proprietary cases and bullets.. definately beating my handloads. Am done loading myself, rather use the 5 hrs playing with my kids or at the range down here in Florida

      • I just got three boxes of their .308. It isn’t much but if I get a chance to share results I will. Not sure if I can make the 1,000 yard range next weekend.

        I asked a question on their website and got a response an hour or two later. Impressive.

  3. So does the 1/2 MOA guarantee work only if you have a 1/2 MOA rifle or what? I totally get if youre using a really fancy bangstick, but what about some basic entry level AR?

      • My understanding is that they couldn’t (or didn’t want to) keep up with the demand for ammo. Don’t take that as a slam against them, it’s not meant to be. Sometimes things just don’t work out for a bunch of little reasons that add up.

        • Matt I am using Pale Moon v25 (stripped down Firefox) with Ad Blocker, and Ghostery.
          No ads or autoplay making it thru…

          If you really want to get detailed, and picky, you can use NoScript- but I find it more of a waste of time tuning it.

          • I use AdMuncher on my PC, and have no problems there. However, most of my browsing of this site lately is done on my Galaxy Tab S, and it is there that I’m getting 4-5 seconds of sound on most page opens. Unfortunately adblockers for mobile devices are minimally effective at best, and at worst are memory hogs with no discernible effect.

          • I would love to, I simply don’t have the time. When I was writing it, I was reading every post that published here, and I still duplicated a story every once in a while. Now I don’t even have time to read all the headlines, much less the full posts, so I think redundancy would repeatedly be an issue. Thanks for the thought, though.

            Oh, and also, there’s the fucking autoplay music, which I’ve heard three, wait make that four times now while I typed this, because it played again as I typed the word three.

            Now five. It’s about five seconds long, and it’s a piano playing over strings. FFS, it’s ridiculous.

            Six! And seven! Back to back. This is why I’d no longer care to come here much, even if I had the time. I’ve never in all my internet years seen a site with as many and perpetual ad issues as this one.

            Oh, and eight.

        • Matt, I use Opera Mobile and somewhat ironically considering the name, I’ve never experienced the autoplay music issues you’re talking about. Check it out, maybe it’ll sort things out for you.

        • @Matt in FL

          The iPhone 5, 5S, 6, and 6 plus are decent TTAG mobile devices. Ad Blocker Plus on Google Chrome speeds things up nicely when using a laptop. Works like a champ on my 2007 MacBook Pro.

          Good luck, and hope you can stay!

      • I imagine theyve never been to the Czech Stop then 🙂 After that, you gotta know kolaches are a must have.

        • For decades I could honestly not tell you whether I-35 actually had a bridge over 2114/TMW Parkway because I never crossed it. Going south or north, I HAD to stop at the Czech Stop for a couple Hot-Spicy Chubbies and Big Peach soda!

    • Liberty Ammunition makes some cool stuff, but it’s not within spec. Its loaded differently than normal ammunition, and therefore using it for reviews wouldn’t give us accurate results about how the guns worked with normal off-the-shelf ammunition. We still use their ammo for function testing, but accuracy and reliability testing needs to be done with ammo that is within the normal range of pressures — not 9mm +P.

    • Probably not. Each rifle is different. It may be 1/2 MOA in Eagle eye’s custom rifles – doesn’t’ mean it will be in ours. If you want the very best accuracy you need to work up a load that matches your chamber, your headspace, throat, barrel twist rate, and barrel length. A $5000 rifle helps too.

      • Which the Axis is not, however every rifle is different, and it is possible that one gun out of a hundred guns that are not known for their accuracy, may shoot quite well, but don’t hold your breath.

  7. Yay, so you will only be using this one brand? Seems like using multiple brands may be smart.

    • Some guns have preferences as well; if a gun just doesn’t happen to like this stuff, buts loves cheapo tula or something, it will get a bad review for accuracy, even if it was sub 1/2 MOA on crap ammo. Not sure if being bound to a single ammo supplier makes good sense for reviews. Perhaps always including that ammo in reviews would work, but it seems like always testing a variety of common commercial loads would be the most enlightening.

      • Judging by the way TTAG’s on-staff reviewers usually do things, they’ll be testing with any and all brands of ammo they can get their hands on, both for reliability and accuracy. If a particular gun happens to hate the Eagle Eye stuff but does really well with some other manufacturer’s ammo, they’ll be sure to say so. After all, the goal is not to test one kind of ammo, but to find out how a gun behaves — and a consistently available supply of high-quality testing ammo is just one part of the process.

    • You have to understand what they’re testing.

      For reliability testing, using many different types of ammunition is a good idea.

      For testing accuracy, you only need one proven accurate load. Thus, you eliminate your choice of ammo as a variable and can focus on what the rifle itself brings to the table as far as accuracy.

      • I suppose if you mean precision by accuracy (as opposed to meaning accuracy), then using a single, very consistent, load COULD work. But, if a gun hates that load, you’re also likely to suffer precision issues with it, not just accuracy ones.

      • The “proven” load that has showed excellent results in several rifles, may show poor accuracy in one particular rifle, even though this particular rifle shoots well with other ammo.
        As it has been said, rifle and ammo must be matched together just like people. Some time you find out right off the bat, what works well. Other times you can spend several hundred bucks, and not find a brand and bullet that does the job.
        Handloading with precision, then, is the answer, although the rifle may have issues which must be corrected first.

        • This is exactly why the Eagle Eye guys do what they do. Consistency from lot to lot. Now we, the average shooter, can get ammo tested to an accuracy most cant shoot anyway. Why is that bad?.. no more guessing. I wonder what Lapua or Federal test their ammo to? I had Federal Gold and Lapua from extremely well to 1.5 MOA and different results from box to box. I say it’s time for guys like Eagle Eye and their precision match ammo..

        • L.R.S.
          It’s not bad at all! It’s just that there are so many variables that nothing is “cast in stone” The Eagle eye ammo will probably shoot better in most guns, but then there might be a time that it does poorly in a particular rifle, and the same rifle does better with a much cheaper brand of ammo.
          Most folks looking for precision accuracy, handload. There are very few, if any, rifles that wont shoot smaller groups, after a careful load has been worked up.
          If you don’t have the patients to handload, and you can afford expensive ammo, and you find a brand that shoot well enough for you then I say “Go for it”

    • Why? Aren’t we testing the rifles not the ammo? All they need is ammo that shoots consistent and accurate. And 0.5 ain’t bad ammo to use. I read that their velocity deviation is at 13fps vs Lapua loaded match which is at 23fps…

  8. I was very skeptical about Eagle Eye’s 1/2 moa claim so I bought a box of the 308 and shot three 5-shot groups, the average group size was something like 0.52 moa. Yep, works as advertised.

    I’m still interested in seeing tested BC numbers for the projectile because the bullet meplat is much larger than other otm designs.

  9. Their ammo is tested to 0.5 MOA and they use the Tikka and R700 for theither tests. If a lot does not test 0.5 MOA or better thy don’t package it. New production and their entire case is annealed, not just part of it. Their 308 bullet is also new. Consistent performance no matter the lot number. Now that is fantastic and we should be jumping all over their stuff. I got a few boxes from Ventura Munitions and also saw them at Targetsportsusa. I zeroed in once and I agree. More accurate and consistent than I am capable of loading myself using the Lapua case and Sierra Matching bullet. Seems to be a different shape vs the Sierra 308 bullet. Am sold and can only say it’s freaking amazing.. not many can shoot 0.5 MOA but good to know that it’s me not the ammo messing up..

    • Just curious, I wonder how many R700’s and Tika’s they went through before they found one’s that would “consistently” shoot 1/2 MOA??

      • I talked to the guys behind Eagle Eye. They are buddies with the Tikka guys, and regularly swap out rifles. It’s not a set single rifle that works, they keep using new ones.

      • Probably not many Tikkas. With the Remington’s they’re probably just happy they didn’t shoot themselves.

    • Jesus, LongRangeShooter, it’s good but its not the second coming of Christ. About as good as FGMM or BH, but I suspect their bullet has a lower BC than the SMK or the AMax.

      Annealing the whole case? No. That would be a terrible idea. Who told you that?

    • Is this advertised consistency *within* a given lot, which seems reasonable, or supposed to be *across* lots, as well? You know, one BB from each of 5 lots, do they claim that would be 0.5 MOA? Because that seems to me pretty close to impossible.

  11. Is everyone who complains about ads using IE as their browser? If so, (insert short bus rider comments here) after all how hard is it to Bing and decide your workaround for that?

  12. Will you shoot 1000+ rounds and work out the statistical spread and Standard Deviation and etcetera, or just the typical 3 or 5 rounds from now on?

  13. I wonder how having an ammo sponsor on TTAG influences their approach to reviewing other ammo?

    Don’t mind them making money and who else wants to sponsor a gun blog than gun related companies. But hope (and trust) they don’t become like the typical gun mags.

    • They’re already saying this stuff is expensive, looks to me like it will be helpful for comparisons between guns, but cheaper ammo will be tested too, so those of us religiously averse to $2 bullets will have an idea of how it compares.

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