Dirty Ammo

[chaoslord]

As I am still new to shooting I am still figuring a few things out so i have an ammo question.

I have been going to the range to put 200 rounds through my P94 religiously for the past month and it has been a blast (pun intended ).

The last 3 weeks I was using Winchester 9mm Value packs. Well this week the local Wal-Mart was out so I bought a few boxes of Remington 9mm 115gr FMJ (can't remember for the life of me exactly what it was but it came in a Yellow box). Anyhow the Remington stuff left my gun (and also a friends S&W .357) disgustingly filthy after just 150 rounds.

So is this Remington stuff just crap or is the Winchester exceptionally clean?

Thanks for any input.

 

[QB]

I never considered Winchester clean ammo. I've used S&B, Federal American Eagle, Aguila, MagTech, CCI Blazer, Gecco, Winchester, UMC (I believe that's the yellow box???) & probably a few others and thought they were all dirty. I'll have to re-evaluate the Winchester ammo since you think its cleaner. I had stopped using it because I had problems with it in several guns...guns that didn't have a problem with any other ammo including CCI Blazer. But for range use if its cleaner I might just go with it again.

 

[444]

So what ? Does this hurt anything ? Did you have stopages because of it ? Do you clean your gun after you are done shooting anyway ?

Not an attack, not a shot, I am just curious. I see comments about dirty ammo on-line all the time and I never figured out what difference it makes. I could understand if it was so dirty as to cause malfuntions. I could understand if you normally fire 800 rounds a session and this dirty ammo only allows you to fire 500 a session. But if you normally fire 200 rounds per session and your gun functions fine with that ammo for all 200 rounds, then who cares if the gun is dirtier with load X as opposed to load Y ?

Again, I am not calling you out, I would just like to get your take on the subject.

 

[QB]

Well I go with what is reliable however if there were a cleaner ammo that was reliable and it cost the same (or cheaper) I'd go with it. Not because of any stoppages or anything but sometimes I take a bunch of guns to the range at one time. I really like cleaning my guns and do so after each range session but if they cleaned up faster that would be nice. No big deal though. I'll use whatever is reliable and inexpensive.

 

[Randy63]

I'm with you. All things equal I like to use clean ammo.

I use the white box Winchester ammo in my Hi Power. I think its cleaner than both the PMC, UMC, and Fiocchi.

I like Winchester's WinClean and use it in my P7M8 (a gun that doesn't like being dirty). It really is much cleaner burning than anything I've ever used.

K22

 

[Mike Irwin]

It was an all yellow box with black lettering?

Remington-UMC?

If so, I've never recommended ANY of that "value" brand ammo. It's filthy, it's prone to misfires and bad loadings (crimpled cartridges, torn case mouths), etc.

REALLY poor quality control.

 

[444]

Obviously anyone would like cleaner burning ammo. In fact, wouldn't it be nice if it was so clean that the whole ritual of gun cleaning was a distant thing of the past ? I have handloads that are exceptionally clean. Clays powder seems to be very clean in the calibers I use it in, and in the particular loads I am using it in. However, these loads don't give me the full spectrum that the caliber has to offer. I also have handloads that take the caliber to it's peak of performance. Often times these loads arn't anywhere near as clean as the Clays loads. But, this doesn't make them crap. They serve a valid purpose. And, at the end of the day, I clean my gun as normal. It may take a couple extra patches, but I don't consider this to be a big issue.
In factory ammo, I certainly think that if you have a choice of several different loads that all provide the performance you are looking for and one of those loads is much cleaner than the others, sure, why wouldn't you use it. In the example you gave, you were offered one choice of ammo and found it to be dirtier than what you had previously used. I don't think this makes it crap. I would be more interested in it's performance as far as accuracy, reliablility, velocity etc. I would never base my evaluation of ammo simply on whether it seems to be easier to clean my gun. In other words, no, Remington ammo is not crap. They have been making ammo for somewhere around 100 years. They have it down pretty good.

 

[chaoslord]

I probably should have offered more options than just the extremes of "remington being crap" or "winchester being exceptionally clean" but none the less you guys understood what I was asking.

The ammo didn't have any malfunctions and while I was nowhere near as accurate as I was last week I won't blame that on the ammo having only used it once. I may well have had an off day.

In the .357 however the ammo was firing so dirty that the cylinder was almost solid black from the front to about half way back (on the OUTSIDE of the cylinder mind you) and it was getting to the point of the cylinder sticking.

Performance and accuracy are, of course, more important than being super clean as like most of you I clean my gun every time I fire it anyways, but all things being equal I would prefer the cleaner stuff.

All in all it was just an observation and a question that I had in relation.

Thanks guys.

 

[sm]

UMC, I'm not comfortable with the QC, regardless of caliber. ..."sooty" comes to mind...I don't use it.

I found 2 Win White Box value packs in 9mm I didn't know I had. I shot them all today. Ran another 50 rds of Fiocchi 115 gr FMJ, then a box of 115 gr STHP.

Keltec P-11 never missed a beat, no failures of any kind, ammo being "dirty" ??...couldn't tell a difference. Well the Fiocchi is a tad hotter, I really like the Fiocchi ammo. Have used from centerfire to shotshells-good stuff.

I pipe cleaned chamber and extracter ( my only concerns in anything ) wiped off exterior , loaded with carry loads and has been on my hip since. I didn't find 300 rds fired today "dirty". This is all I'll do until I shoot again, its one of my CCWs also.

 

[taoshooter]

I agree that Remington seems dirtier than Winchester - first time I used it I was amazed at how black my ss guns were after a trip to the range. Actually used three different ammos that day and had to do some later research on it to find which one was the culprit - It was the Remington. Won't use it anymore since there are so many others (American Eagle I like best) available that are the same on the accuracy scale for me.

 

[Berg01]

UMC stands for "U Must Clean"!

Is UMC and Win USA ammo really that much dirtier than American Eagle, CCI Blazer or Speer Lawman? When I clean my guns, I use Shooters Choice FP-10, a CLP, because I was told by a handgunner friend of mine that regular use of the stuff would make it easier to clean the gun, and I guess he was right, because cleaning isn't that big a deal for me anymore.

 

[444]

Mike Irwin is the man to ask about this, but I have read a few articles over the years about how the big ammo companies load our cartridges. As I understand it, they have a performance standard they want. In other words they want a load that gives them X feet per second at no more than Y pressure with a given bullet. They then either find a powder they already have, or buy a powder that will give them the numbers they are looking for. This is called cannister powder and is not something that is available to the home handloader normally. Again, this is just my understanding, they don't try to get the best possible performance out of a given load as long as it meets their criteria. Remember, these are businesses. They are trying to make the load do what they want and still make a nice profit. They might load .38s with a given powder until it is gone and if they get a good deal on another powder that will work, they buy a lot of that and use it until it is gone etc.
The point to all this is that from what I understand, there is no one load recipe used by the factory. They use whatever powder is convienient and the cheapest. A given lot of ammo may be dirty, but a year later they are using a totally different powder that is cleaner burning. Brand W may be cleaner than brand R today, six months from now the whole thing may be different.

This may all be BS, but that is my understanding of what goes on. Someone like Mike probably knows.