From: Me
I purchased a case (1000 rounds) of Magtech ammunition for a revolver class. While using HKS Speedloaders (587), my partner had a problem getting the ammunition to fall free from his speedloaders. Almost every speedloader had at least one or two rounds that would fail to fall free from the speedloader. This became a tremendous hindrance during the qualification portion of the course and caused a very low score that is now on his record. At that time we thought the problem was the speedloaders.
After the class was over, several persons assisted in analyzing the problem. It was discovered that the base of the casings are out of spec for about 30% of the ammunition in my case. The diameter at the headstamp is slightly large enough to cause the ammunition to hang up in the speedloaders. Numerous other brands of factory ammunition were tested in the speedloaders, including Winchester (White Box), Speer Gold Dot, Remington UMC, Federal, American Eagle, etc. We even tried other Magtech ammunition supplied by other students (I found out later that my friend did NOT try other Magtech ammunition). The only ammunition that hung up in the speedloaders was the Magtech ammunition from my case.
I have a little over four hundred rounds from this case remaining and I just spent a couple hours testing my speedloaders with the unfired ammunition as well as all the spent casings from the class. My non-scientific testing seems to confirm a 32% ratio of out-of-spec casings that will not work in HKS 587 speedloaders. Since the ammunition will still fire in my revolver, I am not exactly looking for a refund of my purchase price for the case of ammunition.
However, I was wondering if I could expect any sort of compensation for the degraded training and sub-par qualification score? It’s very hard to learn the course objectives at a revolver class when you have to continually remove rounds from your “speed” loaders.
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From: MAGTECH Ammunition
I have received your incident report and need some additional information. Can you please tell me what measurements you were finding on the 32% of ammunition that you claim is out of spec? I have the tolerance measurements and I would like to start by comparing those numbers. Once I get those numbers I can start solving the problem. I will wait for your return email.
Thanks
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From: Me
I separated the ammunition by testing the rounds in two of the speedloaders. If they did not immediately fall free, they were separated from the ammunition that would fall free. Some of the rounds required a little bit of shaking and some had to be manually removed from the speedloaders. I then measured ten randomly selected rounds of the ammunition that did not fall free.
The measurement range for the ammunition that will NOT fall free from the HKS 587 Speedloaders:
10 rounds tested: .436 in - .438 in
(1) .438 in
(4) .437 in
(5) .436 in
I then measured ten random rounds of the Magtech ammunition that did fall free. The measurement range for this ammunition was:
10 rounds tested: .432 in - .435 in
(2) .435 in
(6) .434 in
(2) .433 in
(1) .432 in
I then tested a random sampling of my carry ammunition, Speer Gold Dot HP 135 Grain.
10 rounds tested: .432 in - .433 in
(8) .433 in
(2) .432 in
I did not measure all of the unfired ammunition. I only measured the random sampling as noted above.
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From: MAGTECH Ammunition
I have looked at the numbers you have found versus our tolerances and everything looks like it is in spec. Our tolerance range is from .428 to .440 inches. There is nothing wrong with the ammunition you have. Contact HKS and let them know there 587 speed loader does not drop 38 special ammunition that is with in SAAMI specs.
