In “action” pistol matches, it’s common that a competitor’s ammunition must make a particular power factor (pf), a number derived based on the projectile’s weight and velocity. There are standards for what that number must be, and not making pf carries with it penalties. While we rarely see a chrono at club matches, at a major match – state championship or above – invariably one of the stages – the “chrono stage” – will test every shooters’ ammunition to ensure it makes pf.
It’s generally accepted the best approach for setting your ammo to a particular pf is “power factor plus 5.” For instance, let’s say the pf in our particular division of competition is 125, we’d want our ammo turning in a 130. If it’s 165, we’d want 170. And so on down the line. With factory ammunition, if we’re lucky, we can find a load that makes power factor but not much more, so we don’t pick up a lot of excess recoil, and with velocities consistent enough we can be sure that any rounds fired over the chrono at a match make pf. As handloaders, we can control all those variables, which takes a lot of the stress out of the chrono stage.
Much factory ammunition has velocities significantly higher than what we really need as competitors. For instance in USPSA (the United States Practical Shooting Association) Major pf is considered 165 or above. Classic .45 ACP ballistics are a 230-grain bullet at 830 feet per second. Do that math, that’s a 190.9 pf. While the true manly-men may puff up and say, “Well, I can do it with factory ammo,” it’s amazing how briefly that attitude survives much in the way of real match experience. To make a 165 pf with a 230-grain bullet only requires 717 feet per second. A 170 pf requires 739. As handloaders we have much more flexibility than those poor folks firing factory ammunition; we’re not stuck, velocity-wise, with whatever comes out of the box. We can set our ammunition exactly where we want it.
Inevitably, of course, it’s all a bit more complicated than that. I actually run my match ammo a bit hotter than 5-over, because to me how the gun cycles and moves in recoil is more important than any preset idea of reaching 5-over and that’s it. Also, you have to take into account the consistency of the ammunition; a load that make pf on average, but with a wide variance in shot-to-shot velocities, might give you a string of shots at the chrono station that just happen to fall below where they need to be.
Having said all that, “power factor plus 5” remains the rule of thumb in “combat” pistol matches, and adhering to it serves most people just fine.”
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