Ever had problems with factory ammo?

Since I purchased my first center fire many decades ago I have reloaded and have purchased very little factory ammo. This summer I purchased a new M1A and also bought (15) boxes of 7.62 x 51mm Winchester Service Grade ammo. Enough to tide me over until I could find primers, bullets, and primers. This factory ammo is Lake City brass. So far I have had (4) neck splits on the first firing, (4) primers blow out, and three that failed to chamber. The cases with the blown primers had a primer pocket that measured .020" bigger on the I.D. than the diameter of my primers. The (3) that failed to chamber also failed the case gauge and had to be resized. Thank goodness I only have 30 rounds of this left.

 

I had a 40 smith and Wesson, federal brand that had a rim that was about twice as thick as normal. It jammed my gun at the time is how I noticed it. I don’t remember which gun. Either a glock 22 or a smith 4006. I had both at the same time. Anyways, it would chamber in the other gun.

I contacted federal and they wanted the round back badly. I sent pics for them. I suggested a case of ammo would be fair trade and I never heard back.

I had a 223 with the primer upside down. It was brown bear brand I think.

I’ve had two issues with 22s lately. One Remington new production thunderbolts with a case head separation, the other was Winchester super x from 10-15 years ago with a ruptured case.

 

I had a couple of boxes of 6 mm Rem ammo that had rims too thick to fit easily in the shell holder of my reloading press back in the 70's.

When the 35 Whelen was standardized I order a couple of hundred Remington unfired, unprimed new cases. The problem was that the shoulder was set too far back, leading to misfires. Remington eventually replaced them for free.

 

**THIS HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISSUE OCCURING***

But… dang, Winchester loaded ammo with Lake City brass - how long ago was it that ATK took Lake City over from Olin/Win?

 

They still have more for sale.

https://www.sgammo.com/product/308-...rain-m118-long-range-sierra-matchking-bthp-la

 

About 10 years ago I had issues with Remington ammo having bad primers.
They would have a serious dent from the firing pin. But no boom with multiple tries.
Other than that poor accuracy with cheap ammo was the only issue.

 

If the ammo was that bad already I would be concerned about finishing the last 30 rounds. Maybe a jaunt over to the M14 forum will be needed for more information. There are guys that live and breath the M1A there.

 

I'm a member on the M14 forum. Just another reason that I glad that I reload. I did not realize that factory ammo had become so sloppy.

 

Same for me.
About 20 years ago I bought a few 250 rd. bulk packs of Remington 9mm for use in 'just for fun' sub gun matches
so that I would not have to chase my sharpie marked brass down.

After 5 or 6 rounds thru the MP-40, I had a stoppage. Normal procedure was to flip/roll the gun to the right to let any un-ejected empties out.
I instead saw something small shake out - a primer.
Inspecting the fired cases on the ground, all but one had totally blown out primer pockets. Enough of that in the MP.

So I tried and got the same results in the Uzi. The blown out primers just fell back in the cases that
showed no other signs of damage (no blackening around the primer pocket). Really puzzling.

Not to be deterred, I loaded some in the Colt 9mm sub gun (closed bolt blowback firing). Fired and functioned perfectly
with no cases abnormalities. The primer pockets were fine as testing them back home proved out.
Same reliable function in a handgun I had along.

Gave up trying to figure it out.
That was my last foray into store bought ammo for savings. LOL

JT

 

They are under a lot of pressure to meet demand. Neglecting QC a bit, id imagine.

 

I had a round of Wolf 7.62x39 that didn't have a flash hole. The spent primer fell out into the action when I opened the bolt.

 

I recently had a problem with Remington .38Spl. ammo from the same box during a HR218 re-qual session.

One round was hit hard in the primer, but no ignition. The other one, the neck was wrinkled back in one place, causing the round to be too wide to be chambered.

 

Yes.

 

Got a bad batch of Federal Automatch .22lr several years ago. Contacted Federal. They sent me a refund with no questions.

 

I had a box of 25-06 that was loaded way too hot. Only fired 2 or 3, with serious pressure signs. I think it was federal ammo but don't recall for sure. I just pulled the bullets and reloaded them.

 

I have reloaded for over 25 years, and only buy factory ammo for new weapons, for the warranty and to break the barrels in,
and some weapons have shown factory defects or complete lack of grouping with any factory ammo, so they get sent
back.
However, I do have a stash of 7.62X51 and 556 and even a few cases of 30.06 in clips for that Garands.
All others seem to do fine but the 30.06 in clips group really well but leave the barrel so dirty I hesitate
to use them.
I only buy new Hornady factory ammo to test new stuff and even compare my groups to theirs, sometimes
hard to beat in mag rifles.

 

Yes.

my excellent German Sig P225 and CZ PCR have only malfunctioned a little with Win. “White Box”,

and Much more with that true —authentic crap— known as Win. “Forged”.

Thank God i bought only one box of Forged.

With Russian Wolf? Perfect operation in these guns. But this goes against the conformist “ mantra “.

 

Seems Remington, Winchester and some Russian Wolf/Bear ammo is listed here. That tracks with my experience as well.

I buy a lot of Brown Bear and Barnaul 7.62x39 ammo and rarely have problems. If I'm buying American, I scratched Remington & Winchester off my list years ago. I still have some WWB leftover in my stash, but haven't bought any new in like 10 years.

 

I never had any major problems with factory ammo,except for a few duds here and there. Military surplus is a different matter. About 25 years ago I bought some 6.5 Carcano that had hangfires and significant duds. I threw the rest of it away for safety reasons. There was also some 7.62X25mm of Polish military origin that reliably shot out of my CZ-52 but never hit paper, ever!

 

I hunted with a rifle for 10+ years and never had a problem with factory ammo, except accuracy. And I don’t think that’s a factory problem making ammo that fits every gun.

I think once or twice some cheap plinking handgun ammo didn’t go boom.

22LR I have had some I had to strike twice. And some that never went off.

Overall, I think factory is fine for what it is.

But it’s not tailored for a specific rifle so I believe it’s pure luck if you get outstanding accuracy with it.

All that said, I shoot very, very little factory. I do carry factory CCW ammo for litigation purposes.

 

One first morning of deer season I had 16 out of 20 that didn’t fire first try, out of that 16, 4 or 5 didn’t fire at all. You guessed it, biggest white tail buck I’ve ever seen got lucky at about 55 yd.

 

It's not new! The worst I've ever seen was some Remington .45 ACP ammo I purchased in the late 80s or early 90s. The bullets were seated but in 1/4 of the rounds the case mouth was smashed so far down towards the base that powder was trickling out! No pics unfortunately, I took a few but they were actual film, digital cameras didn't exist yet much less cell phones. Remington replaced the ammo but to this day I've had more trouble with Big Green than any other brand (although WWB is a close second). The current Remington shares nothing with the old company save a name and the trade dress so far as I know, so I've no idea if whoever makes their stuff now is doing it well or not.

 

Yes around 2005 or 2006 I had .284 projectiles in Winchester factory 300wsm ammo.Called Winchester and they sent a replacement box.

 

The only issues I`ve had were with 2 or 3 rounds of .223 from Frontier ( Hornady ). They fired on second try. My understanding is that they are loaded at Lake City and have harder ( military ? ) primers. Other than that, no issues with other brands. Frontier`s OTM rounds, especially 55 grain, shoot really well in my 110.

 

I had a box of 44 that had several bullets upside down. I did the dumb thing and shot them after much debate. Lol.

I had some 10mm that was weak brass. Had 2 cases blow out. I contacted the company on that one for safety reasons.

I've also found several 45 that won't fit in a sig p220 mag. Probably more of an issue with sig than the bullets but I wonder if the suspect hollow points aren't designed just outside of spec.
I bought a case (either 5k or 7500) of golden bullets once. Box wasn't damaged or anything but the first brick had over 100 duds. I wrote the company and they gave me another brick and told me to contact them if they continued to not work. They took the lot number and all. I knew they would all be bad.... but oddly the rest were ok.