Monarch .45 ACP Steel: Purchase only if you like failure drills

[ClickClickD'oh]

If you haven't encountered it before, Monarch Ammunition is a house brand for Academy Sports. This particular version of Monarch is Russian manufactured. In the past, I have extensively used their brass line, mostly 9mm, for practice ammunition because it is cheap and decently reliable. I have now however found the exception to the rule:



This is their steel line of .45 acp. I had purchased four boxes of this ammunition on sale at the local Academy last month. When I took it to the range last week, it failed so extensively that I advised some friends on Facebook to never buy it. I was lucky to get through a full magazine without a failure. Most failures were a failure of the gun to fully return to battery. I know that in many cases this can be a sign that the springs need replacing, but that is usually coupled with brass being thrown a country mile. These cases were piling up on my boots. To me, that tends to indicate slow slide velocity. This ammunition repeatedly failed in by my Sig 220 and a 1911.
Then we have this:



The light colored flecks are unburned powder inside the slide. I have another picture of unburned powder inside the chamber. Yes, you read that right. Unburned powder inside the chamber. The only way I can figure that gets in there is if it falls out of the case during extraction. So, not only are we not getting enough ignition to reliably cycle the action, but we are also fouling the chamber making it harder for the next round to be seated. At that point I was willing to publicly declare this ammunition to be encapsulated turd sandwiches, but I still had an unused box laying around and got curious last night. So, I pulled out my micrometer to measure the cartridges to see if the were physically in spec. It turns out, they are. 100% SAAMI spec externally. So, that eliminated the possibility of the failures being attributed to poorly sized ammunition. Then I got out my impact puller to check what was inside the cartridge. I pulled two cartridges randomly from the box. The first one had 5.2 grains of powder inside. The second had 5.9 grains. Now, since I don't know exactly what this powder is (light gray color, cut rod shape), it's impossible to say if 5.2 is light loaded or 5.9 is an overcharged, but it is safe to say that one of those number is out of spec. So, there's your problem... powder that burns inconsistently and throw weights that are inconsistent.

Garbage ammunition.

On a side note, I did find something else interesting when I pulled the bullets:



There appears to be a small metal disc either set into or laid on the back of the lead portion of the bullet. This caused some curiosity so I got out a magnet. These bullets are very strongly magnetic. At first I just intended to test the disc on the back to see if it was steel, but the whole projectile sticks to a magnet. I'm going to go with copper washed steel jacketed.

 

[DaisyCutter]

Charges vary by powder, but 5.2 grains is light and a range from 5.2-5.9 is gross.

I load a lot, A LOT, or cartridges, so I can see where reducing a load 0.2 grains per shot will allow you to stretch your powder.

I use 800X, and my charge is 6.8-6.9 for a 230 grain 45 ACP.


Cam you borrow a chrony and get a speed?

 

[Tirod]

Annnnd, I just bought a box for an incoming gun. 456TSW, which reputedly will shoot garbage all day long. It's used so it may have spring issues yet to be determined, but a heads up is helpful. I also purchased some American Gunner which is strangely left out of tests these days.

Shooting Monarch .380 I found it functioned well and the only symptom of its inexpensive nature was to fail to lock back the slide, where AG would consistently in the Kahr. It's not surprising that similar issues would surface shooting their .45ACP.

On a side note I was trying to select carry ammo in .45ACP at our local Academy and those shelves were the most picked over and barest in the display. More so than 9mm or some popular rifle cartridges.

Sounds like a fun day off next week at the range when I take out the new to me gun.

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

Cam you borrow a chrony and get a speed?

I do have a chrony that I could put some over, but honestly at this point I don't know if I want to put any more through a gun I own. The fouling in the barrel was quite horrific to clean. I'm accustomed to barrel cleaning after a day of shooting being a couple of squirts of Remoil, a couple passes with a nylon brush and a few runs with a bore snake. This is the first time in a long time that I've had to get out the bronze brushes and the foaming bore cleaner. There were quite a few soak and scrub cycles before the bore was clean again. Nasty, nasty stuff.

 

[buck460XVR]

Thanks for passing this on. I seldom, if ever buy .45ACP factory anymore. If I do, it's for when others come to shoot and then it's generally Winchester 100 round value pacs cause I like their brass for reloading. I'm always leery of the cheapest ammo on the shelf and won't buy more than one until I know it works or works well enough.

 

[Fiv3r]

I shoot a lot of Monarch. Academy has some good prices on it, and I generally pick up a range session's worth shooting for about what I would spend at Wal Mart. They also seem to stock it in other flavors in regards to bullet design. My Glock and LCR really like their 115 jhp brass ammo. I like mixing it up to experiment on what performs best out of my guns instead of bulk buying a bucket of 9mm.

I have never tried their steel stuff, but I generally only buy it out of desperation.

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

My experience with the 115gr 9mm has also been very positive. My understanding of Monarch is that it is actually several different ammunition companies in several countries that Academy re-brands under the Monarch name for sale in their stores.

 

[skoro]

I had a box of Monarch 357 ammo a few years back. When fired, the cases were EXTREMELY difficult to extract from the cylinder. I mean, like having to tap the extractor with a small hammer. The brass cases were obviously thin and expanded on being fired. So no more of their handgun ammo for me.

I've used their 223 rifle ammo w/o a hiccup, though.

 

[Prince Yamato]

Monarch is normal Russian Steel case ammo.

I call it "animal brand" because it's always named after animals:

Monarch, Golden Tiger, Wolf, Barnaul, Brown Bear, etc.

If you have a pistol with tighter tolerances, it may not shoot so reliably. If you have a Glock, it will shoot fine.

I've never really noticed any issue with it in my Glocks, other than it shoots a little hotter and smells a little funnier.

 

[HB]

How much does it cost?

 

[Tirod]

It's not milsurp bargain basement cheap - a 50 box ran mid teens where a box of 20 mainstream rounds cost about the same. You could say you get 2 1/2 rounds of Monarch for the price of one American made round.

The reason I buy it is that I'm not reloading yet, and "because work and life" don't shoot as regularly as others. Collecting brass on a public range that hasn't been swept or digging it out of the sandy mud at the 7 yard line isn't why I go to shoot. I can leave the steel case and it's not a material concern.

 

[commygun]

It's never occurred to me to buy sub-par ammunition just so you could practice failure drills, but I could certainly see how it could be considered a legit practice strategy.

 

[MIL-DOT]

By odd coincidence, I shot up a box of Monarch 45acp just this morning. I got it as part of a trade deal with a buddy of mine a few weeks ago, and finally got around to shooting it up.
I shot it through a US-made Springfield Stainless Mil-Spec 1911A1 (with very tight frame-to-slide fitting), using both factory magazines, and it not only ran 100% flawlessly, I was getting some of the best groups i ever shot with that pistol. And, neither me or my buddy noticed any variations in power, they seemed very consistent.
The only other Monarch I've used was a little .223 i got back during the brief 223/5.56 panic last March, and it was also fine.
I've been perfectly satisfied with numerous brands and calibers of Russian ammo over the years.

 

[pblanc]

I believe that the steel-cased center fire pistol ammunition branded and sold by Monarch is made by Barnaul. I have actually had pretty good luck with it in the past. I did have some light primer strikes with their steel-cased 9mm ammunition but that was in a pistol with a reduced power mainspring. I have used their steel-cased .45 ACP in my model 1911 A1 and my full-sized SIG P320 and I do not recall having any issues at all.

But I believe that Russian made ammo does suffer from inconsistent powder quality and tends to have hard primers. It also tends to be dirty. The brass-cased pistol ammo that Academy sells as Monarch is made by Prvi Parizan. I had shot many hundreds of rounds of PPU 9 mm ammo branded as either PPU or Monarch without any problems. Then last year I bought 200 rounds of PPU branded 115gr 9mm Luger ammo and it was all under-powered and would not cycle two different pistols that had digested every type of ammo I had tried in them .

I have a new box of the steel-cased Monarch brand .45 ACP Barnaul ammo and I hope to get to the range tomorrow. If so, I will see how it works in my three .45 ACP pistols.

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

I believe that the steel-cased center fire pistol ammunition branded and sold by Monarch is made by Barnaul.

These boxes do indeed have the Barnaul logo on the back.

The batch information from inside the flap is: AT25 2016.05. Interestingly enough, one box has this information stamped in blue ink and another has it in black ink.

 

[H&R Glock]

so, how much did you pay?