velocity spread?

[Mr. 16 gauge]

I was playing around with some of my more accurate handloads, as well as some factory loads, in some of my rifles & pistols (and a few slug rounds) last weekend, and I was just crunching the numbers. What do you consider an 'average' velocity spread, for standard hunting ammo?

BTW, and FWIW, I got everywhere from 10 fps to 127 fps (the first was a handload, the second was a factory load....think there may have been a problem with the chrony on the last one!).

[Jack]

Velocity spread can vary with the load and cartridge, as you've seen. Often, a low extreme spread is considered a sign of an accurate load - although I'm not sure that's really true for typical hunting. For very long ranges, where 100 fps may cause a slightly different drop at, say, 1000 yards, yes, but for typical under 400 yard shots, extreme spread won't matter much.
A low extreme spread is a sign of consistency in a load- just don't make too much of it.
It's worth keeping in mind that when the 222 cartridge was in it's benchrest heyday, it was famous for 2 things- extreme accuracy, and huge extreme spreads in those same bugholing loads.
I would consider 10fps to be a low extreme spread- something like 20-30 might be more typical. Anything over 50 or so, I'd consider high.

[Catfish]

100 fps. difference in velocity with tipically make a difference of 5 yrds. in max. point blank range. I have a friend that had a 243 varment load that he loved, untill he got a crono. The standard deviation of the load was 47, which means the extreem spread was about twice that. He missed very few groundhogs with that load under 250 yrds. In other words unless your going for very small groups at very long yardages go with the load youget the best accuracy from.