AMERC Brass

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EddieCoyle

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I just paid $40 for over 400 rounds of factory .30 Carbine ammo (these are loaded rounds, not just brass). This ammo was made by American - the headstamp is AMERC.

I've read that Amerc brass is putrid. What is wrong with it? Should I bother hanging onto this stuff of just toss it in my scrap bucket?
 
I wouldn't know about AMERC brass in M1 carbine, but when I get a batch of range pickup .45 ACP, I immediately pull the AMERC and crimp the mouth of the case shut with a pliers. I don't use all headstamps, and I'll pass those along I don't want to other shooters- except for AMERC. I don't know what's wrong with it, but something sure is.
 
What I have loaded have split on the second third reloading. I have found off center flash holes. They are easy to notice as your resizer/decapper die will not go all the way down or you break or bend your decapping pin. Absolute trash. As Rico567 said. I have not had anything to do with rifle cases, just pistol. A waste of time to bend over and pick it up. I loaded some .357 magnum cases and found primer pockets to large and those that seemed O K split on the first reloading at mild charges.
 
Only one box (50) of .40 S&W, found absolutely no problems. The lead bullets must have had cheese for lube--worst leading I've EVER had.

My small sample does not disprove the occasional (and unacceptably high rate of) defects others have reported.
 
I wouldn't know about AMERC brass in M1 carbine, but when I get a batch of range pickup .45 ACP, I immediately pull the AMERC and crimp the mouth of the case shut with a pliers. I don't use all headstamps, and I'll pass those along I don't want to other shooters- except for AMERC. I don't know what's wrong with it, but something sure is.
Click to expand...

I know what's wrong with it, it's crap! 90% of the time I find AMERC it's .45. It goes into the scap brass pail.

Some of this new stuff MAY use IMI components which are very good. IMI is collaborating with American to recover military contacts (Don’t want to shoot at Muslim terrorist with Jewish bullets). I’m sure it was a good business decision, but I can’t help thinking they could have found a better partner.

David
 
EWWWW! A few pieces have snuck into mine, maybe 1 per 200. If I have a clip that will not drop smoothly into my 625 I can bet there is a piece of AMERC in the clip. Junk. Hate it, hate people who use it.

Not fond of *I* Independence either, their loded ammo is absolute crap with no neck tension, one light whack of a bullet puller or two shots in a 325 will pull a bullet completely out of the case. I suspect the brass. Other than those two I don't even read the headstamp on .45.
 
I had a bunch of it in .45 and I got rid of it all. The brass was too stiff, so it wouldn't re-shape well, it wouldn't bell well and it wouldn't crimp well.

The force required to run it throught the dillon SQ B i had was just a real hassle.
 
hmp32 sizing

hmp32 is right too the Amerc brass will not resize properly. Everything else said here is correct also but I tried to reload six rounds in .45acp figuring it can't be as bad as everyone is saying. Boy, was I ever wrong! Dump it and forget it! You'll be miles ahead.
 
So how do you guys really feel?

I tried some of the loaded ammo at the range yesterday and it shot OK. Not great in terms of accuracy, but I've had worse. It was a little hard to extract from my Blackhawk too.

Based on your responses, the spent cases are going into the scrap bin. Thanks for your input.
 
"So how do you guys really feel?"

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't find AMERC brass so bad. If you can scrape together about 100 cases of it from the range (I wouldn't let it touch my gun), you can screw them to a 2 X 8 (you'll need to enlarge the flash hole) in a rectangular pattern - makes a great boot scraper!
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Oh wait a second - you probably meant using them for reloading!

As they used to say in the early '60's, "Not this ace, baby!!"
 
When it first came out and everyone was remarking how crappy it was I had my doubts too. After all I shoot a LOT of Wolf ammo and love it. I have never had a problem with it in any caliber or version. But lots of people badmouth Wolf. So I said to myself, "Self, this stuff couldn't possinly be that bad could it? If it was that bad how could they be allowed to sell it? Why would Midway and other reputable distributors sell it?"

Then I started picking up empty AMERC casings at the range. And I started seeing deformed and defective AMERC rounds in the "brusedandbleedin" bucket. Needless to say I was not impressed. Should you be able to crush the mouth of an empry case with light to medium finger pressure? Drop an empty case onth a concrete floor and notice the difference in sound between an AMERC and a Winchester.
Then I saw a demonstration performed by a local dealer. He took a box of AMERC .40 S&W, turned it upside down, dropped it from waist level onto a concrete floor. as I recall the number was thirteen. Thirteen bullets did NOT move inside the cases. In this instance 23 bullets, ONLY 23 bullets held their crimp. Can anyone figure what the velocity of those rounds hitting the floor?
What is the velocity of a cartridge hitting the feed ramp? It must be more because heladed the 23 remaining rounds into magazines and then cycled all of them through an off the shelf Browning. About half of them chambered. All but TWO had bullet setback.
Has anyone ever heard of any problems caused by bullet setback in .40 S&W?

Three years ago I have personally saw several* boxes of AMERC .45 ACP ammo with which it was possible to push two or more bullets down into the cases with finger pressure. But I have also never seen it happen with AMERC .380 ammo that was produced in Europe.

I was at the range with a fellow THR member right after I was "sprung". He was having a lot of problems with a new 9mm. As I recall it was a Taurus Millennium. He couldn't get through a single magazine without problems. Neither could I. So I inspected the ammo. Yes it was AMERC. A box of PMC was procured and gun functioned perfectly.

What does all of this mean?
Based on what my eyes have seen. Based upon what I have heard from other respected shooters. And yes even based on what I have read on the internet,
it is MY personal opinion that AMERC can NOT be trusted to work properly.

Your methods may vary. YOU might be the lucky one to fire 5000 rounds of AMERC with nary a hitch. All I know is that it won't happen to me. I won't let that junk near my guns.




















*by several I mean more than a dozen but less than fifty
 
Picked up a couple of boxes of Amerc(cheap, happily) in .30 carbine to try out. Not as powerful as GI spec or Wolf, but did cycle the action and grouped fairly well at 50 yards.

At 100 yards, it wasn't even hitting the bloody target, so the rest of it is set aside for short range practice.

The brass I saved seems lighter than the GI stuff or Remington, so I've been sorting it out of my reload pile.
 
Never dealt with their .30 carbine ammo or brass. I bought 1 box of their .45acp stuff a few years back. It was the worst brass I have ever seen. Some of the case mouths where missing big chunks of brass. The empty brass looked like a hole saw!!
 
I did not know about this brand of brass having so many problems, but I noticed that several of my relaods in .45 ACP were misfiring. Upon inspection I noted the primer was missing. I thougt I just had a brain cramp and chalked it up to my error, even though I've been loading for alomost 15 years now. Anyway, I kept getting more primer-less rounds and was really kicking myself, until I realized they were all AMERC. The primers were coming out in the magazine. This happened to about 50 of them. Now I inspect the case before it goes in the magazine and throw the AMERCs away. No problems anymore.

Lenny
 
Man, I just love threads like this.
I love the fact that I sort all of my brass by headstamp.
I would prolly make a A-merc boot scraper just to have one, except that I wouldn't keep the amerc brass around that long.
I'm afraid that through a series of random, unrelated events that one of the cases might accidentally fall through the cracks and I accidentally load it.
I just crush them with a vise grips and be done with it.
I was going to say something similar to what was already said, except to me, the horse is a majestic animal.
Please find another animal whose fecal matter reminds you of poorly made brass with no quality control.
Maybe snake dung. It's pretty nasty and lowdown.
Nevermind, I like snakes, too.
 
I compare AMERC brass to USA brand magazines! MELT THEM. They are rubbish I don't know how they stay in business.
 
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