Guns that are "picky" about their ammo...

[goon]

For the longest time I've been of the opinon that a good gun should be reliable with pretty much any ammunition of reasonable quality that will fit in the magazine or slide into the chamber.
I've actually gotten rid of two guns because they were "picky". One was a SIG P-226 9mm that wouldn't eject a live round if it was over a certain length, eventhough that ammunition was within SAMMI spec. IIRC, it wouldn't eject unfired Remington Golden Saber or Winchester white box ammo because they were too long. Both seemed to feed from the magazine, fire, and eject spent casings fine but I was concerned that in the event I needed to pull a tap-rack-bang drill, I'd just wind up with a live round stuck somewhere in the action.
The other was a S&W M&P9 that seemed to work fine with everything but winchester white box ammo. It would consistently stovepipe with it. The guy who bought it from me was fine with that.
Both guns ran fine with most kinds of ammo I tried in them but it bugged me that ammo that was of decent quality didn't work in them and that's why I sold them.


Was I being too hard on these guns to expect them to work with every type of decent 9mm ammo I could lay my hands on?
Faced with a similar situation, would you just decide to stay away from the brand or two that your gun didn't like and be happy with it, or would you also consider it defective and repair or replace it?

 

[sarge83]

I have a couple of .22's that are picky about their ammo.

A remington 597 which only functions with CCI ammo.

A Ruger 22/45 that eats Remington Golden Sabers but hates about everything else...

 

[Phil DeGraves]

Was I being too hard on these guns to expect them to work with every type of decent 9mm ammo I could lay my hands on?

Yes, you were expecting too much. Changing the bullet (and therefore, overall length) probably would have sufficed. Now, if that was the round you generally shot all the time, go ahead and get rid of it, but many semi-auto pistols (especially .22 rf)are fussy about which ammo you shoot in it. If the ammo that functions well is one you would buy anyway, great. Just make sure that it works with your carry load.

 

[woad_yurt]

I agree with the OP....

I don't think he was being too demanding. If a certain pistol was "allergic" to specific ammo, shouldn't all pistols of the same model be the same way? But, on this forum, I've seen folks with the same pistol say that their example would feed ammo X but not Y while another says Y works fine in but not X. To me, that seems like there must be some tolerance/manufacturing differences in the pistols straight from the factory. If the ammo is the same, then the difference must be in the pistols.

This finicky-ness is one of the reasons I like Com Bloc semi-autos. They (mine anyway) are very openminded regarding ammo. I have two Norincos, a 54-1 & a 213, 2 CZ 52s, a Feg Pa-63 and a Makarov, and I have been virtually jamless for a long, long time while using any ammo available.

Regarding .22 semis, every one I've experienced in real life (and most I've read about here) have had ammo preferences. Except for one, that is, the original Wolverine. I have two and they reliably digest any ammo I throw at them. How come someone got it right in 1956 and we still must hunt for the "right" ammo in 2008? Aside from the Whitneys, it's revolver time for me when it comes to .22 handguns.

When I get a handgun, I don't want to go on a journey of discovery for the "right" ammo. I just want to shoot.

BTW, next to my bed is an old .38SPL S&W M&P six shooter. Sometimes you just gotta be 100% sure, you know?

 

[JERRY]

because some guns are picky about their ammo, i am picky about my guns.

 

[Purple95]

Pretty much any .22 semi-auto can be picky about it's ammunition, also about being kept clean. Luckily, these guns are seldom used for personal protection missions.

You'll occasionally encounter situations where a given semi-auto simply will not work with a given round.

I agree with woad_yurt, revolvers are really don't care about ammo.

Also, in may experience at least, Glocks work with any ammunition I've ever tried. Some other guns; not so much.

Cheers,
dan

 

[Phil DeGraves]

So all pistols have to shoot crap ammo like Wolf in order to be able to trust it? I am more picky about my ammo. Just like some cars like different octane levels of gasoline. If you want to put crap in it, fine, but don't blame the car or the gun when the problem is the gas or the ammo.

 

[NG VI]

My Kadet kit actually is totally reliable with all types of .22 I have used in it, from yellow jackets and stingers, aguila interceptors to sniper subsonics, remington subsonic to thunderbolt, it reliably cycles everything. Sometimes the slide does not lock open, but I can live with that, it is on a PCR frame so it does what it can.

 

[Lou22]

I've gone through several subcompact autos looking for ones I trust for concealed carry, and are fairly accurate and easy to shoot. My Kahr PM9 and PM45 have handled all ammo I've tried. Some less expensive polymer handguns have not. I believe some of the subcompact autos, because they are on the leading edge as far as design just cannot be expected to handle all ammo. I always try self-defense rounds in a CC gun to make sure they are reliable.

On the other hand, you would think, with a few exceptions, revolvers would handle all loads. The exceptions being some very light-weight designs that might have bullets jump their crimp because of recoil. Again these tend to be CC guns that should be tried at the range first with new loads.

Lou

 

[goon]

So all pistols have to shoot crap ammo like Wolf in order to be able to trust it? I am more picky about my ammo. Just like some cars like different octane levels of gasoline. If you want to put crap in it, fine, but don't blame the car or the gun when the problem is the gas or the ammo.

Nope. The only handguns I've ever expected to run with Wolf ammo are Makarovs (and they have).
My problems were specifically with half decent US branded stuff.
The SIG even had a problem with Speer Gold Dots. The bullet would get caught on the edge of the slide during ejection and cause a live round to fall back down into the action.
As for the WWB, I found that it ran just fine in most of the 9mm's I've owned or shot. I figured that any gun that wouldn't work OK with it had something wrong with it.

 

[Jst1mr]

You may find that the more expensive and finely-made a firearm is, the more finicky it may become. Military weapons are commonly made to loose tolerances to compensate for a variety of conditions. A purpose-built arm may only perform adequately with ammunition made to the same tight tolerances. Whether that's good or bad is up to you and what you expect of the piece...

 

[againstthagrane]

i expect any gun that i intend to use in a self defense situation to be able to use any ammo flawlessly, which is why i'm all about HK, glock and beretta when it comes to defensive handguns.

with my 1911 which is pretty much a fun gun, i don't mind a FTF or stovepipe here and there. i have yet to shoot a 1911 that runs 100% with every kind of ammo. don't flame me, it's just what i've experienced.

 

[goon]

No flames here - I've also never owned a 1911 that was 100%.
My brother owns one (in 9mm no less!) but he won't sell it to me.
The bastard...

 

[Mad Magyar]

No flames here - I've also never owned a 1911 that was 100%.

I was going along with your statements, until this....Just because FTF problems occur at certain times and not at others doesn't necessarily pin-point directly to ammo. All this means is that certain ammo is triggering a problem area inherent in your pistol. I suspect there are issues regarding maintenance/cleaning, mag variables, springs, etc....
goon, read your response below, you have good points and I understand your dilemma....

 

[goon]

Mad Magyar - that can be the case but I was dealing with brand new handguns from companies who claim to know how to build them using brand new factory seven round magazines.
FTE's were the problem with the Kimber - with any type of ammo but only very rarely.
Still, 95% isn't good enough for my defensive uses. Plus, this slams into "brand new gun and it should work" mentality. I paid $1100 for it so was it really asking too much for it to just work?
I love the 1911 design and know that it can be built to work - my problems were with the execution.

In the case with the SIG, it was simply the OAL of the cartridge. It was just too big to come out of the ejection port without smacking into something and SIG was adamant that there wasn't anything 'wrong".
Seemed strange to me that a "good" gun wouldn't eject live rounds so I stayed on them until they sent me another one (then promptly sold it to recover my money), but I suspect that if others tried ejecting a live round of WWB from their P-226's they'd likely experience the same problem.
Just seems like they didn't design the gun to be able to eject ammo up to the maximum length. Maybe their 9mm ammo is shorter in Europe...

 

[againstthagrane]

my STI doesn't go into battery on the last round of almost every mag using WWB and wilson combat 8 round mags.

i'm also a cleaning freak and i've been known to clean my guns after 50 rounds at the range.

it doesn't really bother me though, it's not a defense weapon and honestly i'll probably buy another 1911 soon.

 

[Steve C]

I've actually gotten rid of two guns because they were "picky". One was a SIG P-226 9mm that wouldn't eject a live round if it was over a certain length, eventhough that ammunition was within SAMMI spec. IIRC, it wouldn't eject unfired Remington Golden Saber or Winchester white box ammo because they were too long. Both seemed to feed from the magazine, fire, and eject spent casings fine......

I have a similar issue with my Glock 19 and factory Remington GS 147gr bullets. I simply load it with different ammo vrs getting rid of the gun since factory Golden Sabers would be for SD carry only and I'm not married to one brand of ammo or bullet weight for that purpose. With my handloads I can adjust the OAL so they work in all my guns.

 

[searcher451]

+1 on .22 caliber handguns. I picked up a really nice Walther PP with British proofs this summer and have run 500 or more rounds through it thus far. The first 100 or so were with Federal bulk ammo, and I experienced a goodly amount of miscues. I took the gun to the local 'smith, who did a polish job and tuned up the magazines (I trade him spent brass, which he reloads -- a good deal). Next time out, the gun was much better -- much improved -- but was still experiencing the odd hiccup from time to time. So the last time out, a week or so back, I left the Federal at home and took along a couple of boxes of mini-mags. The Walther was 100 percent perfect this time out: no runs, lots of hits, and no errors.

Not to say that the Federal ammo doesn't have its place. I run it in a Ruger Bearcat all the time, and it always works perfectly well.

 

[goon]

Steve C -
Wondered about that - I thought it was SIG specific. Good to know that it's not just limited to that brand.

Searcher - that problem might solve itself after you run some CCI through your walther.
It's something I kind of expect with .22's but with a centerfire "combat" handgun...
Not so much.

 

[woad_yurt]

Phil DeGraves:
Higher octane is more resisitant to pinging (detonation.) A low performance, low compression engine will not benefit from high octane gas. If a car needs higher octane, it'll ping if you use regular. The gas isn't crap, it's the wrong gas for the engine. It's not a valid analogy.

Pistols of the same make & model should perform the same with the same ammo. That is often not the case. If the ammo is the same, then the difference lies within the pistols. That should not be, not with new weapons anyway.

 

[thebaldguy]

I always try numerous brands of ammo in my guns to see what works and what doesn't.

 

[Mad Magyar]

I always try numerous brands of ammo in my guns to see what works and what doesn't.

Now, this is where I have a disagreement. Many of us have a sufficient inventory of ammunition, sometimes in very few brands. I can't justify the cost & time to accommodate a pistol to the ammo on hand. Maybe this is what the OP is stating. If it will not fire reliably and ammo is definitely the culprit: the pistol is heading to the aisles of the next "gun show" for someone else to tinker with.....I look at it this way. If the pistol is so precariously set up with such strict tolerances as to determine which bullet it will fire, then it's matter of time when the "favorite" becomes the victim.

 

[goon]

That too, particularly with the M&P.
I KNOW this WWB stuff I have on hand is good ammo. I've used it in several guns and never had FTE's with it or any other failure that I can remember in thousands of rounds of shooting.
Since I was sitting on 500 rounds of it AND WWB is the most common plinking ammo in my area, it was very irritating to have a gun that wouldn't work with it.
So I put the M&P up for sale, informed the buyer that it didn't like WWB, and gleefully rid myself of it.

I don't like guns that tell me which ammo they're going to work with. If the gun is good and the ammo is good, it should just work. My logic is that you never know when the only box of ammo you can find might be the one brand your gun won't work with.
I'm not uber-tactical or anything but I do take my guns very seriously, especially CCW/HD guns. The just need to work.
For that reason, I'm leaning hard on ridding myself pretty much totally of autoloaders (except for the Makarov) and going straight with revolvers.
I've had very few ammo problems with revolvers.

 

[Prepster]

I only have one gun that's picky, my Cobray M12. It chokes on certain hollow points, but since it's a fun gun I don't really care. However, I'm just as "picky" as you are about my carry guns.

 

[Deanimator]

i expect any gun that i intend to use in a self defense situation to be able to use any ammo flawlessly, which is why i'm all about HK, glock and beretta when it comes to defensive handguns.

ANY ammunition?

That's simply completely unreasonable.

So you expect it to work as well with crappy Amerc as you do Federal Gold Medal Match?

Sorry, guns aren't computers, nor are they software. They're analog devices. No two are exactly the same, nor can a reasonable person expect them to be.

I don't know ANY serious firearms expert who expects any semi-auto firearm, especially handguns, to work with ANYTHING you put into it.

Now if it won't work with ANY reasonable ammunition of an appropriate type for the application, then you certainly have a problem. On the other hand, if it prefers Winchester White Box to UMC, or Ranger SXTs to Federals, and is 100% with what it likes, that's perfectly acceptable to a reasonable person.

If that's not good enough, you probably need to think about a revolver (and even those aren't accurate with every load) or better a single shot.