Justin
Moderator Emeritus
3-gun competition has really taken off in the last year or two, and with good reason. After all, what other game offers the spectacle of football coupled with the excitement of a first-person shooter video game, all in a completely real environment with actual guns?
Easily one of the most dynamic and fun sports out there, the only thing that stops a lot of people from getting involved with 3-gun are the up-front costs. Serious involvement requires a significant outlay of money on guns, gear, and most notably ammunition.
The reason I single out ammunition is this: it’s both expensive and a consumable. No matter how much you spend building the perfect rifle for 3-gun, once you’ve completed the build, you’re done. Ammunition, on the other hand, is something you’ll need to have a constant supply of, and in the the current economic climate, people are always looking to save money.
The most obvious solution is to set up a reloading press and get busy, but that requires a significant up-front cost, and not everyone has the time or inclination to put together a reloading setup.
For those who are left having to purchase their ammunition from commercial manufacturers, the pickings are fairly slim when it comes to ammunition that is both reasonably priced and accurate enough for a match with long-range targets.
Enter HSM, or Hunting Shack Munitions. They’re a small ammunition maker out of Stevensville, Montana whose blaze orange-clad boxes of ammunition have been predominately sold to indoor ranges. With a recent facility expansion, they’re now moving their brand into other outlets where it can be ordered by the box or in bulk. The particular ammunition for this review was graciously provided by Ventura Munitions. You can order this ammunition directly from them, and the item number is HS223-6.
The ammunition is packed in orange and black cardboard boxes with 50 rounds per box. The rounds themselves are loaded with a 69 grain Sierra hollow point boat-tail match round and have an overall length of 2.233 inches. The casings are remanufactured, but don’t have crimped primers, and all looked like brand new ammunition.
Primarily, I’m much more interested in seeing how a particular product performs under practical field conditions. So I decided to run this ammunition at the monthly Pueblo West Sportsman's Association Tactical Rifle match. This is a match designed to push rifles further than most, and the competitors overwhelmingly run AR-pattern guns with some sort of magnified optic. The gun I run for this match is a mishmash of components; the lower is Rock River, the stock and trigger group are both from JP, and the upper is a LaRue Stealth with a 20” barrel. The optic on the gun is an ACOG TA11.
Typical targets for this match are various steel plates, ranging from 8” circles at 120 yards, to ten-inch circles and USPSA-style MGM swingers, to a ⅔ size USPSA target at 400 yards.
With this ammunition, I made 400 yard hits with my first shot every time, and that’s not shooting from the bench, but from prone field positions. The ammunition shot to point of aim with the stadia lines in my ACOG TA11.
It also fed and ran reliably, with absolutely no stoppages or issues of any sort over a course that involved firing roughly 45-50 rounds per two stages, and 30 rounds on a “Standards” course that involves shooting five-shot strings on steel targets from standing, sitting, and prone positions.
Based on the results from this match, this ammunition is good stuff, and noticeably cheaper than similar offerings from other ammunition makers such as Black Hills. At the time of writing, a box of 50 rounds of the HSM 69 grain ammunition is going for about $37.50, while a similar load from Black Hills costs $46.41.
Now, before you freak out and tell me how ridiculous it is to spend seventy-five cents with every pull of the trigger, allow me to lay out a couple of cost-management strategies for getting the best bang for your buck when it comes to buying rifle ammo for 3-gun.
The first strategy requires a bit of effort, but for some competitors works very well. Buy a quantity of the more accurate ammunition and zero your rifle with it. Reserve this ammunition for use only on those rifle stages where the heavier bullets will be an obvious advantage.
For other rifle stages, especially those that are close-range “hoser” stages, use cheaper 55 grain ammunition that can be purchased in bulk.
The one downside to this is that you have to keep track of both kinds of ammunition, and make sure they don’t get mixed together. You also will need to confirm that your hosing ammo shoots to roughly the same point of aim as the long-range stuff, which requires a bit more setup on the front end.
The second strategy, and one that I’ve successfully used, is to shoot the cheaper ammunition at local matches, and before a major match, re-zero your rifle with the premium ammunition. When I first got into shooting 3 Gun, I’d use PMC rifle ammunition for local matches, and then before attending a large match like Rocky Mountain 3 Gun, I’d re-zero the rifle with premium target ammunition and run that for the entire match. Had this HSM ammunition been available at the time, it would have been my go-to ammo for big matches.
With all that said, for the times that you need an accurate rifle load, the HSM 69 grain match rounds will do the job excellently, and at a better price point than similar offerings from other manufacturers. This ammunition would be a good choice for those who don’t have a reloading setup, need good accuracy, and are on a limited budget.
Ventura Munitions
Easily one of the most dynamic and fun sports out there, the only thing that stops a lot of people from getting involved with 3-gun are the up-front costs. Serious involvement requires a significant outlay of money on guns, gear, and most notably ammunition.
The reason I single out ammunition is this: it’s both expensive and a consumable. No matter how much you spend building the perfect rifle for 3-gun, once you’ve completed the build, you’re done. Ammunition, on the other hand, is something you’ll need to have a constant supply of, and in the the current economic climate, people are always looking to save money.
The most obvious solution is to set up a reloading press and get busy, but that requires a significant up-front cost, and not everyone has the time or inclination to put together a reloading setup.
For those who are left having to purchase their ammunition from commercial manufacturers, the pickings are fairly slim when it comes to ammunition that is both reasonably priced and accurate enough for a match with long-range targets.
Enter HSM, or Hunting Shack Munitions. They’re a small ammunition maker out of Stevensville, Montana whose blaze orange-clad boxes of ammunition have been predominately sold to indoor ranges. With a recent facility expansion, they’re now moving their brand into other outlets where it can be ordered by the box or in bulk. The particular ammunition for this review was graciously provided by Ventura Munitions. You can order this ammunition directly from them, and the item number is HS223-6.
The ammunition is packed in orange and black cardboard boxes with 50 rounds per box. The rounds themselves are loaded with a 69 grain Sierra hollow point boat-tail match round and have an overall length of 2.233 inches. The casings are remanufactured, but don’t have crimped primers, and all looked like brand new ammunition.
Primarily, I’m much more interested in seeing how a particular product performs under practical field conditions. So I decided to run this ammunition at the monthly Pueblo West Sportsman's Association Tactical Rifle match. This is a match designed to push rifles further than most, and the competitors overwhelmingly run AR-pattern guns with some sort of magnified optic. The gun I run for this match is a mishmash of components; the lower is Rock River, the stock and trigger group are both from JP, and the upper is a LaRue Stealth with a 20” barrel. The optic on the gun is an ACOG TA11.
Typical targets for this match are various steel plates, ranging from 8” circles at 120 yards, to ten-inch circles and USPSA-style MGM swingers, to a ⅔ size USPSA target at 400 yards.
With this ammunition, I made 400 yard hits with my first shot every time, and that’s not shooting from the bench, but from prone field positions. The ammunition shot to point of aim with the stadia lines in my ACOG TA11.
It also fed and ran reliably, with absolutely no stoppages or issues of any sort over a course that involved firing roughly 45-50 rounds per two stages, and 30 rounds on a “Standards” course that involves shooting five-shot strings on steel targets from standing, sitting, and prone positions.
Based on the results from this match, this ammunition is good stuff, and noticeably cheaper than similar offerings from other ammunition makers such as Black Hills. At the time of writing, a box of 50 rounds of the HSM 69 grain ammunition is going for about $37.50, while a similar load from Black Hills costs $46.41.
Now, before you freak out and tell me how ridiculous it is to spend seventy-five cents with every pull of the trigger, allow me to lay out a couple of cost-management strategies for getting the best bang for your buck when it comes to buying rifle ammo for 3-gun.
The first strategy requires a bit of effort, but for some competitors works very well. Buy a quantity of the more accurate ammunition and zero your rifle with it. Reserve this ammunition for use only on those rifle stages where the heavier bullets will be an obvious advantage.
For other rifle stages, especially those that are close-range “hoser” stages, use cheaper 55 grain ammunition that can be purchased in bulk.
The one downside to this is that you have to keep track of both kinds of ammunition, and make sure they don’t get mixed together. You also will need to confirm that your hosing ammo shoots to roughly the same point of aim as the long-range stuff, which requires a bit more setup on the front end.
The second strategy, and one that I’ve successfully used, is to shoot the cheaper ammunition at local matches, and before a major match, re-zero your rifle with the premium ammunition. When I first got into shooting 3 Gun, I’d use PMC rifle ammunition for local matches, and then before attending a large match like Rocky Mountain 3 Gun, I’d re-zero the rifle with premium target ammunition and run that for the entire match. Had this HSM ammunition been available at the time, it would have been my go-to ammo for big matches.
With all that said, for the times that you need an accurate rifle load, the HSM 69 grain match rounds will do the job excellently, and at a better price point than similar offerings from other manufacturers. This ammunition would be a good choice for those who don’t have a reloading setup, need good accuracy, and are on a limited budget.
Ventura Munitions
