Monarch Ammo

[Blkhrt13]

I went to my local indoor range. I had not been in this facility yet as my other place recently closed. The counter person said they don’t allow monarch ammunition due to catastrophic failures. I haven’t gone through all my ammo yet to see how much I have. I know I have some 20 gauge buck and some 7.62x39. Would it be smart to weigh the ammo I have to look for overcharging? I will not shoot any of it until I can figure out if it’s safe. Anyone here seen failures personally? I looked for posts but saw none here. May be I didn’t use the right key words.

 

[Hartkopf]

I’ve shot some 223 and 45ACP recently with no problems. I haven’t heard of any kabooms with it.

Most of it’s made in Russia so it’s probably part of Putin’s evil plan to blow us up with our own guns!

 

[arsterling180]

I think this is some range trying to get people to buy their ammo. Monarch is just different manufacturers under Academy's house brand. They do not make ammo, just put it in their own boxes.The steel case for years has been barnual. Check your 7.62x39 box. The barnaul symbol will be on there along with Made in Russia. The brass is a mixed bag. A lot of it used to be PPU, but now the .223 is armscor. The worst I'll ever say about armscor 55 gr .223 is the accuracy is meh compared to american eagle, ppu, and even winchester white box.

 

[Bazoo]

My buddy has shot some of it with no issues. I don’t have any personal experiences except shooting his guns occasionally when he comes over.

 

[Speedo66]

I would venture to say that every ammo manufacturer has a bad batch from time to time, we see reports here every so often.

If Monarch was consistanly dangerous, I'm sure we'd of heard of it here. Maybe it's steel bullets, like Wolf, and it's just range policy for steel.

 

[Hooda Thunkit]

I've never shot any Monarch rifle ammo, at least none of which I am aware.

I have shot some Monarch handgun ammo over the years, never had any sort of problems with it.

I cannot imagine why the range help is saying that, but then I'm not running that range.

 

[ms6852]

I've used Monarch in the past without incidents, as stated the range could be manipulating shooters to buy from their inventory.

 

[Insignificant bill]

Sounds fishy to me. There is nothing wrong with monarch ammunition.

 

[Meeks36]

Yeah most ranges do not allow steel ammo. Could hurt the backstop or hurt them selling scrap brass. Or they could be miss informed.

 

[cslinger]

Used to shoot a fair bit of it handgun and rifle and never had any issues. I mean not thousands and thousands of rounds but I would grab it from Academy fairly often.

 

[skfullen]

I picked up half-a-dozen boxes of Monarch 30-30 and fired it in several lever actions. It has accounted for at least two deer over the last 2 seasons. I think mine is headstamped PPU. I will continue to use it.

 

[bdickens]

The counter person said they don’t allow monarch ammunition due to catastrophic failures.

Bovine Excrement.

 

[Blkhrt13]

I feel much more calm about the amount of it I have laying around at the moment after speaking to y’all. Often inexpensive can be fraught with issue. I wondered if I’d made a mistake. There was times Monarch was all there was to be had.

 

[GBExpat]

~15 years ago I bought a case a Monarch-branded, commercial 7,62x54r ammunition.

As I recall, I tried it in 2 or 3 of my SVT-40s and it would only shoot patterns, not groups.

I had beaucoup milsurp 7,62x54r that was quite accurate & reliable in my SVTs ...

... so I decided that it was probably a simple issue of differences between bullet & bore diameters and sold all of the Monarch ammo to someone locally who was happy to get it.

With the exception of the accuracy issue (in my rifles) the Monarch ammo seemed to be of good quality; good brass, not too smoky, the loads seemed equivalent, etc.

 

[FL-NC]

I've fired a decent amount of that stuff in various calibers with no problems. This is the first I have heard of any.

 

[wesmonster]

Every bit of Monarch pistol & rifle ammo I’ve bought was made by Barnaul and shot well compared to other brands of imported steel case. No issues.
I can name several brands of domestic ammo that had recalls due to manufacturing defects. Never heard of any range banning a brand due to a malfunction.
MKS who owns Hi Point is also importing ammo from Barnaul.

 

[DustyGmt]

Like somebody else said, probably a range trying to offload their higher margin for profit brand and being deceitful about it while management probably justifies it under the guise of virtue.... it's a total reach but sounds plausible...idk. our governor in VT took all Russian vodka and spirits off the shelves, virtue.

 

[FROGO207]

Not sure about the newer stuff but the old Monarch in 303 British was imported from Canada and made there. Itwas fairly accurate as well. It was brass case with boxer primers and FMJ. It was half the price of US made ammo at the time (30+ years ago).
It was also packaged as Imperial. Same headstamp.