Nosler Custom Competition 77 grain Review

We like Nosler bullets. They perform well, and are less money than Sierra or Berger. Take these Custom Competition 77 grain bullets. You can find 1000 of them for under $250. Meanwhile, 1000 Sierra MK will set you back about ~$300, and if you want Berger OTM 77 Grain, that is going to set you back ballpark $350. We find these to be great performers. Great value. Of course, we are only talking about Accuracy. You can go to other sites and channels and see gel testing, etc. We don't care about gel testing with rifles, at all. We think anything gets hit with even a 35 grain varmint round out of an AR15, its better than any 45, 40, or 9mm. Well, statistically, its about 250-300% more energy dumped in a shorter distance, so yes, we will take the AR15. and twice on Sunday (if that is an option).

We want to thank Nosler for making great products. Thank you! We paid for all of ours, and nobody sponsors us. We run the site through donations from people. If any corporation wanted something, we would test it, but would let you know they provided it. That is fair.

Our only noticeable criticism of these, is the tips are not as uniform as say, Berger OTM's. We get a range of OAL about ~12k, versus Berger is about ~4k, and Sierra in between. This has no effect in performance, because every seating die seats by ogive, not tip. OAL's are always variable due to tip differences, especially in hollow points like these.

Nosler 77 Grain Custom Competition

See that drawn line through bottom left area to upper right middle area? Above that line is 6 shot groups from WOA Predator 20" Rifle W/Bushness 24x optic, and below, labeled, is 7 shot groups Proof Research 16" Carbon Fiber barrel using a LPVO at only 8x magnification. 8x magnification, is honestly not that great at 100 yards like this, to precisely, precisely aim, like the 24x was. But still, good result.

Lapua used brass was used, Gold Medal primers. 2.250 OAL to 2.255. Generally. Some were 2.246 and a few were 2.260 due to tip variation.

Folks, that Benchmark powder....wow is it good. We already said it was the best powder you can buy for 223/556, and more and more tests confirm its place as top tier. This is 100 yards. Also, these are AR15's. You will get flyers generally from the first shot or the last shot in the magazine, sometimes, as you can see. We marked those. Even with the flyer, its 3/4" group. Its HALF MOA without. As you can see, once it got past first shot, it stacked all the rest TOUCHING each other, which is as good as it gets in AR15 folks, at 100 yards. That is as good, as it gets.

Also of note, Accurate 2230, another top tier powder for 223/556, is super good too. Its like BM. That upper right group, without that first shot, is .4", 4 shots of that group was less than .2" Very very impressive.

So here is the question. If we use Sierra or Berger, we can get good results like this, I am sure of that. But for $50 or $100 more, is it THAT much better to where you feel its going to overcome these in value? Hard to say that!

The Data

As we noted on the H4895 review page, as you can see, Benchmark and H4895 is virtually the same load data result for this bullet. And also AA2230 is very similar to both of them as well, but ball powder. H4895 is a touch slower than benchmark and probably .1 grain of powder needed more to match benchmark or so in our tests. In our minds, this makes H4895 useless, because we think BM is more accurate (for us, maybe not for you).

Also of NOTE, this is a NEW batch of H4895. From 2021. The batch on the review for H4895 is 5 years old. And they have similar results. This batch produced about ~40-50 FPS slower with same load, but new batch was using LAPUA brass, and old lot was using NAMMO brass.

See initial H4895 Review HERE where we start seeing that H4895 is so similar to AA2230 and Benchmark.