Let's see your...worst factory ammo

Academy sold this brand over a year ago.-------------------Far worse than any Tula ever used. Both Tula and Wolf (in my guns) are premium brands compared to this.
-----------No exaggeration at all. And I wish that the opposite were true.
The man on the "Military Arms Channel" (Youtube) stated that Forged caused the first malfunctions experienced in a few of his -- quality-- guns.

If the manufacturer doesn’t come through with my refund, I’ll post pics of the worst factory ammo I’ve ever seen. Two weeks ago I sent several boxes back to a major US manufacturer that had terrible crimps. I won’t bad mouth them unless they hang me with crappy ammo.

Hah, the worst I have ever had was about 4 or 5 years ago, a box of Rem Core Lokt 30-06 in 180 grain flavor. I had bought my new Tikka T3 and went to the range with 4 or 5 different kinds of factory ammo and got it boresighted at the range. I then shot a few rounds at the 50 yard target and could not get on paper. Back to the range staff for boresighting again, and then they sat at the bench with me with the rifle in a sled while I proceeded to barely stay on the paper. I think the range officer thought I was just incompetent, but I was on paper so his job was done. Scratching my head I decided to set aside the 5 or 6 Core Lokts in favor of a box of Fusions. Sure enough, the holes were touching at 50 yards with the Federal.

Not sure if its true, but I heard that the Russian 22LR in steel cases had corrosive primers.

Obturation said:

View attachment 944978
-mysterious chicken squirrel hybrid mascot

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It is member of the grouse family called a capercaillie, common in Europe and the Scottish Highlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_capercaillie

The worst ammo would be Remington Thunderbolts, a dirty, waxy, lead roundnose with a penchant for duds.

I got a 50 rd box of that Russian steel case .22 in high school. 47 rounds are still in the box, with 3 requiring a steel rod down the barrel to extract them from my Remington Model 33.

More recently, I splurged for a 50 round box of Buffalo Bore .44 Special 255 gr LSWC from Midway. 49 of the rounds were fine, except for the one with the primer in completely backwards. Midway gave me a $5 credit on my account for that one.

My worst ammo experience was with some PPU "NATO" 9X19mm yellow box a few years ago. I'd shot most of the first box of the case I'd purchased from a well known reputable internet retailer through an Astra A-100 when suddenly there was a much louder *BANG*, some smoke coming out of all sorts of places including the bottom of the grip / magazine, and the palm of my hand stung. I ejected the magazine and went to open the action but the slide didn't want to cycle. I called one of the range employees over to help out and explained what I'd experienced. He got the action open and this came out.


I didn't experience any injury, and neither did my pistol. I sent the info & photos to PPU USA and was able to escalate from the initial employee responding. PPU requested the remainder of the ammo back (it was all the same code numbers printed inside the boxes) and sent a prepaid UPS Ground shipping label, and reimbursed my costs for a gunsmith evaluation of my pistol. PPU USA also allowed 2X retail cost of the returned ammo in ammo in stock in their warehouse at that time as I made it clear I didn't want any more PPU "NATO" 9X19mm ammunition. Although I requested information on any findings PPU USA never responded with any insight (no surprise) and no recall was ever initiated by PPU on their "NATO" 9X19mm ammunition. I haven't had any problems with any other PPU ammunition I've used, handgun or rifle, including their standard commercial 9X19mm ammunition in both PPU label boxes or Monarch brand boxes purchased at Academy Sports and Outdoors. But I don't plan to ever purchase any other PPU "NATO" ammunition 9X19mm or otherwise, and I've noticed that 9X19mm is now no longer shown on the PPU USA website in their MIL-SPEC line, but it's still shown in their 2020 catalog.

https://ppu-usa.com/ppu/mil-spec/

https://ppu-usa.com

Mr. Zorg said:

My worst ammo experience was with some PPU "NATO" 9X19mm yellow box a few years ago.

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WOW!

As posted above, the absolute worse factory ammo I have ever experienced was A-Merc. The loaded ammo was complete trash, and the brass was unreloadable.

Mr. Zorg said:

He got the action open and this came out.

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That can only happen if the case was unsupported, so have to assume this was a glock or similar pistol with generous feed ramp. My suspicion would be a slightly longer case firing partially out of battery. Doesn't make the ammo good per se, but it's a combo of gun design and cartridge which caused this issue. Had the round been fired in a supported chamber very likely would have been fine.

Personally the worst factory ammo I've ever bought was a case of 223 from Ulyanovsk. They used to make a fantastic frangible 762x39 round. Their 223 55 gr FMJ was underpowered to operate a gas gun and regularly ripped the rim edge and occasionally the entire case head off in multiple rifles I choked through with it. Thankfully only bought 1 case and it was cheap (like $80 delivered ten years ago). Is the only times I had to set up and use the broken case extractor. I had other steel 223 which was.underpowered and not reliable in gas guns, too. Haven't encountered bad steel ammo since around 2015 so maybe they got the process down finally.

By a wide margin...

Not accurate, not consistent, not reliable to ignite, and when they did ignite they smelt like dust. Not a good thing I can say about it other than it was really cheap.

illinoisburt said:

That can only happen if the case was unsupported, so have to assume this was a glock or similar pistol with generous feed ramp. My suspicion would be a slightly longer case firing partially out of battery. Doesn't make the ammo good per se, but it's a combo of gun design and cartridge which caused this issue. Had the round been fired in a supported chamber very likely would have been fine.

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Gun was an Astra A100 as I posted with the pics.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astra_A-100

The Astra A80, A90, and A100 were colloquially known as "Spanish SIGs" back in the 1980's - 1990's.

The range employee that assisted me told us there had been asimilar incident a week or so prior to mine with this same PPU "NATO" 9X19mm ammunition and a SIG P365 with considerable firearm damage but fortunately nothing beyond first aid required. He took pics as well telling me he'd discuss with range management whether to disallow this ammo at that indoor range. I never saw any ban notice posted, and I have no idea on the credibility and details of that other incident as I wasn't present when it occurred. I was happy my personal choice of firearm was sturdy enough to avoid damage to me first of all, and the firearm itself as a second priority recognizing that had significant influence on the first priority result.

The worst rimfire ammo I’ve ever used is this Magtech junk. I bought a brick of it a couple of years ago, I still have a bunch of these greasy, dud-filled boxes left.



The worst centerfire ammo I’ve ever dealt with was about five years back with a bum lot of Win white box 115 gr FMJ that our office bought for training ammo.

Hidden in the 30-odd cases I bought that year were four known cartridges with the flash holes not pressed all the way through the web. When they were fired, the primer would touch off normally but the pressure had nowhere to go. The primer was driven back hard into the breech face and the soft metal would flow a bit into the firing pin hole.

This would completely tie up the gun, with the primer lifted partially out of the pocket and the metal of the primer face wedged into the firing pin hole. You couldn’t rack the slide, period. The only way we could untie an affected Glock was to drop the mag and “punch” the slide against the edge of a 4x4 post just to the side of the barrel. This would drive the slide rearward and break the stuck cartridge free by popping the primer out as the slide moved rearward.

The worst part is it was totally random, we could go three cases with no issue, then get two or three of these dud rounds mixed somewhere into the next case of 500. You obviously couldn’t tell what round was possibly compromised because the issue was inside the loaded cartridges.

We fired a few of the cases before we started running into the bad rounds, after we had four of these scattered in in the next two cases. I ended up taking 26 cases back to the distributor and got 124 gr fmj replacement ammo.

I still have a couple of the crappy rounds at home, the other two I sent back to Winchester when I returned the affected lot.



Stay safe.

brewer12345 said:

Hah, the worst I have ever had was about 4 or 5 years ago, a box of Rem Core Lokt 30-06 in 180 grain flavor. I had bought my new Tikka T3 and went to the range with 4 or 5 different kinds of factory ammo and got it boresighted at the range. I then shot a few rounds at the 50 yard target and could not get on paper. Back to the range staff for boresighting again, and then they sat at the bench with me with the rifle in a sled while I proceeded to barely stay on the paper. I think the range officer thought I was just incompetent, but I was on paper so his job was done. Scratching my head I decided to set aside the 5 or 6 Core Lokts in favor of a box of Fusions. Sure enough, the holes were touching at 50 yards with the Federal.

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Funny, this is all I shoot in my 30-06 for the last 50 years. I have the Tikka T3 too only difference is that it loves the 165 grainers and I shoot sub moa at 200 yards which is my zero for my rifle. It does not like 180's at all and the 150's shoot about 1.75 to 2.1 groups at 200.

I shot a Russian 22 pistol with that Russian Ammo and the gun went full auto. It wouldn’t do it with any other brand of ammo.

The gun wasn’t mine. Really! I promise! I don’t even remember who it belonged to. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

That Russian Junior ammo was the worst I have ever encountered. Mostly failure to fire.
I have shot Western brand ammo from the 50`s that was stored in the attic of a garage
for years that had no failure to fire or feed.

For SD ...
Worst, Unacceptable, Better than nothing, Okay

JohnKSa said:

I've only shot it in an old Ruger P89, but so far no issues. Sometimes you get lucky, I guess.

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I’ve found that with a Ruger P89, luck has nothing to do with the ammo it cycles. Probably one of the most reliable pistols I have any experience with.

brewer12345 said:

Hah, the worst I have ever had was about 4 or 5 years ago, a box of Rem Core Lokt 30-06 in 180 grain flavor. I had bought my new Tikka T3 and went to the range with 4 or 5 different kinds of factory ammo and got it boresighted at the range. I then shot a few rounds at the 50 yard target and could not get on paper. Back to the range staff for boresighting again, and then they sat at the bench with me with the rifle in a sled while I proceeded to barely stay on the paper. I think the range officer thought I was just incompetent, but I was on paper so his job was done. Scratching my head I decided to set aside the 5 or 6 Core Lokts in favor of a box of Fusions. Sure enough, the holes were touching at 50 yards with the Federal.

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I’ve had the same crappy luck with 180gr Core-Lokt. 165s shot great though.

One of the worse examples of factory ammo was PPU 240 gr 44 mag. It would shoot a nice tight group out of my 1894....until it shot a flyer 8 or more inches away on about every 5th shot.

This thread cracks me up after having people tell me for years to never ever use handloads in a carry gun. This is precisely why I would NEVER use factory loads in a carry gun (or a match gun either - I have seen guys lose big money matches from crappy Winchester ammo) It is very easy to handload ammo that is MUCH better quality than the junk being sold today. MUCH BETTER. Riomouse 911 - the headstamp on those "WIN" cases looks totally bogus to me. I have never seen a Winchester headstamp like that. I think somebody pulled a counterfeit ammo deal on your dept.

Drail said:

This thread cracks me up after having people tell me for years to never ever use handloads in a carry gun. This is precisely why I would NEVER use factory loads in a carry gun

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I can't afford most factory anyway. And I agree with you Drail.
One is able to visually inspect each phase of each loaded round and, in some cases such as my 93 grain FMJ .32acp loads
or the Remington 95 gr. scalloped HP (from pulled .38 Special factory) reloaded into .380 cases,
produce carry loads that are not offered.

Riomouse911 said:

The worst centerfire ammo I’ve ever dealt with was about five years back with a bum lot of Win white box 115 gr FMJ that our office bought for training ammo.

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A friend of mine had the same results (and cases with no flash holes) as well as most of the rims in the boxes he bought were WAY out of spec and just would not function.
The ammo was like the box ignition override shows however.

[QUOTE="WestKentucky, post: 11650787, member: 215823
Not accurate, not consistent, not reliable to ignite, and when they did ignite they smelt like dust. Not a good thing I can say about it other than it was really cheap.[/QUOTE]

Interesting. I have shot most of the case I bought with zero malfunctions I can recall.
Accuracy was on par with all of my other HV stuff.

No photos of it, but the Winchester '333' type .22s were the worst buy I made. Paid right about .04 cents for it.
Bullets that you could tip and rotate in the case easily led me to sell it for .02 cents during the height of the SH panic.
And yes, I did give notice of the quality (or lack thereof) to buyers.

JT

Drail said:

This thread cracks me up after having people tell me for years to never ever use handloads in a carry gun. This is precisely why I would NEVER use factory loads in a carry gun (or a match gun either - I have seen guys lose big money matches from crappy Winchester ammo) It is very easy to handload ammo that is MUCH better quality than the junk being sold today. MUCH BETTER. Riomouse 911 - the headstamp on those "WIN" cases looks totally bogus to me. I have never seen a Winchester headstamp like that. I think somebody pulled a counterfeit ammo deal on your dept.

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The cases came straight from Winchester, to the West Coast Winchester LE ammo dealer's warehouse, to me so they were not counterfeit... just reeeeeaaaally crappy. It was 5 (6?) years back, so it was post Sandy Hook / a year or two pre-Trump, probably right after the end of the Obama ammoscare if I recall right. I'll opine that the machinery that loaded these was wearing out or fell out of spec from running 24-7-365 for quite a while when that bum lot was hatched.

This isn't premium ammo by any measure as I've had other WWB 115 gr FMJ rounds before and after with an occasional OC issue, but these rounds were awful. Based on my conversations with the distributor and my call from Winchester, I know I wasn't the only one who had lemons from this era, either.

Stay safe.

JTHunter said:

The worst ammo would be Remington Thunderbolts, a dirty, waxy, lead roundnose with a penchant for duds.

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Remington Thunderbolts dont win any accuracy prizes for me but surprisingly I've been shooting them in a dirty Glock 44 .22lr and so far no duds or hangups. I wanted to get my gun a lil dirty and run notoriously crappy ammo through it to test reliability expectations with that specific gun and so far I'm pleased, especially since so many people quickly dismiss the 44 as a jamomatic.....