


It is a tribute to modern manufacturing practices that we have achieved the level of consistency in ammunition products that we currently enjoy. No matter how hard manufacturers try to produce consistent products, there is always some variation in materials and tooling wear from lot to lot. In handloaders' quest for the best results, this is why it is always stressed to use the same lots of components. Many things go into determining how consistently ammunition will perform, such as case capacity and hardness consistency, neck thickness and diameter consistency, projectile weight and diameter consistency, primer performance consistency and perhaps most importantly, propellant charge weight consistency and quality.
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To reduce the variables that can impact the shooting results, we generally want the most consistent performing ammunition we can get or figure out how to load. The reloader or ammunition manufacturer can use very high-quality components, but if they are not loaded properly, the ammunition will not perform well. OK, enough of this math stuff, it's making my head hurt! What insights can you gain from the ES and SD measurements on your chronograph about the quality of the ammunition you are using? In the end, what really matters with your ammunition is how it performs. The bigger the SD, is the bigger the variation there is of the data points from the average. The smaller the SD, the less variation there is of the data from the average. Wow, what does that mean? Put in terms those of us that are math challenged can understand, SD is a measure of how spread out numbers, data or whatever we are sampling is from the average. The SD of a random variable, statistical population, data set, or probability distribution is the square root of its variance. To be technically correct and to satisfy all the math majors out there, let's start off with the mathematical definition of SD. The more consistent the components of the ammunition are and the more consistently they are loaded the lower the ES you would expect. You're going to get small pressure ES with a small velocity ES and vice versa. As it turns out, with ammunition, the pressure and velocity ES go hand in hand. Likewise, the ES of velocity would be the difference between the highest and lowest velocity. The ES of pressure would be the difference between the highest and lowest pressure. Let's say we test 20 rounds of ammunition and measured the pressure and velocity of each round. As it applies to ammunition, it almost always refers to either the velocities or pressures produced by a sample of ammunition. ES and SD are mathematical terms that define the extremes, uniformity and expected variation in a sample of data or numbers.ĮS is pretty simple, it is the extremes of values of a set of data or numbers. What exactly is ES and SD? More importantly, should you really care about them? And what do they mean to the expected performance of your ammunition? I will offer some definitions and examples for the first question and the answer to the second question depends on whether you are a handgunner or rifleman, a plinker or a precision shooter.įirst off, let's discuss the definition of ES and SD. With the increase in interest in long-range shooting, the terms extreme spread (ES) and standard deviation (SD) are being thrown around a lot.
