No bang with S&B ammo

S&B is one of my preferred brands of ammo. Its always worked well for me.

Do any of you know why they stopped putting the red sealer around the primers? Is that a sealer? Did the other calibers have it or just the .380?

Cokeman said:

Do any of you know why they stopped putting the red sealer around the primers? Is that a sealer? Did the other calibers have it or just the .380?

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9x19 I shot had red sealer around the primer. The WBW 9x18 did not have the sealer if I recall correctly.

What's its exact purpose and why did they stop using it?

While they are not always the most accurate, I never had any functional problems with S&B 9mm ammo in the various 9mm pistols I use (Browning HP, CZ 75, SIG P-210).
I also never had any indication that their primers were extra-hard.
I DO know their brass is extra-hard to prime, though, in any caliber.

chriske said:

I DO know their brass is extra-hard to prime, though, in any caliber.

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For me it varies from "snug" (in 9mm, .40, .45, .380) to almost too tight (.38 special). I have no doubt that S&B .38 special cases will split before the primer pockets get too loose.

S&B

I had a Ruger LC9. Had failures to fire from that ammo. Other ammo worked fine. S&B worked fine in a Glock.

I've never had an issue with S&B ammo. I find it is great plinking ammo.

I've only fired one of the two 9mm boxes I have and it was 100% positive. I wonder if quality is suffering due to high demand? I heard a star the other day that said that 16Billion rounds of ammo (all calibers) is sold in the US annually.


Dfsixstring
SR9c
LCP
RST4S

I have used it in 45 and 308 with no problems and accuracy was actually very good.

Anyone else experienced this?

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Not with that gun, but yes.

rtba said:

I got some S&B 9mm ball ammo for my SIG P226. Options are limited of late, but this seemed to be not the worst I could have gotten. But I had five out of the first box fail to fire during my last trip to the range! Two of them fired on the second try, but not the other three. I've heard S&B has hard primers, but I didn't expect this. Anyone else experienced this? Anything that can be done to help? Everything else I've tried has worked flawlessly, but this was the first time I've tried European ammo. I suppose I could try replacing the firing pin spring!?

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Look at the upside. Fewer bangs is better then no bangs at all. Rumor is 9x19 ball is made of UNobtainium right now.

I quit using S&B years ago because I a number of duds in multiple pistols.

To anyone still on this link that has sworn off of my favorite ammo (S&B), I would be interested in buying all of your "bad" ammo from you at 25% of cost lol.

Can't speak to their loaded ammunition, but their Large Pistol primers have rather hard cups in my experience. So much so that the few thousand I had were restricted to 44 Magnum revolver stuff.

Given the current pinch I'd buy more, but only in a pinch and only for my Ruger SRH and SBH.

I used a few boxes of SB 9mm 115g(around 300rds or so) at a recent training course. No FTFs. No FTEs. Seemed to be as accurate and clean as any other ammo I've used recently. Gun used was Beretta PX4 fullsized.

No problems to report with S&B pistol (9mm. and .38 Special), rifle (.223), or shotgun (12 gauge), ammunition; in fact I would rate it well above WWB for overall reliability and quality.

Coincidentally, I just came back from the range and after shooting on the 100yd. range I went inside to shoot some of my handguns. I looked in the basket of misfires and saw several S&B 9mm and .380. Knowing that S&B is quality ammo, I took them out examined them and then put them into the magazines of my handguns. They all fired. Some of the primers looked like they had been hit hard but obviously not hard enough. The same thing last time at the handgun range. I know my pistols hit hard because I have put extra strong Wolff hammer and mainsprings in them to avoid light strikes. I view all my guns as possible self defense weapons and won't tolerate a light strike.

Have shot lots of 9mm 115g S&B with red, green and no sealer. Never a failure in Glock 26 Gen3, Glock 17 Gen4, Ruger P95, Keltec P11 and Baby Desert Eagle II. I consider it one of the best range ammo. Cabela's brass 9mm is also S&B (printed on box). Have not seen any in these parts since the shortage started. I have seen hard primers from time to time with some imported ammo both steel cased and brass. Would not be surprised if every manufacture is not using what ever primers that they can get, there may be some quality issues based on shortages.

coalbed said:

To anyone still on this link that has sworn off of my favorite ammo (S&B), I would be interested in buying all of your "bad" ammo from you at 25% of cost lol.

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Sounds good to me. Mine is all shot.

No problems for me with 45 ACP & 9MM Mak.

Do the primers have deep, reasonably centered strikes/dimples? If they do, the primers in those rounds were faulty, period. If they are just barely dimpled, I would still not be too quick to blame the ammo. The French model I met on the internet did say this ammo has hard primers, but the SIG is a European pistol and should have no trouble firing European ammo. I never had any failures to fire with it in my old Kahr, which isn't even hammer-fired.

How long ago?

I could sure use some 7.62x25 and 7.62x39.