So I'm talking Win. white box, Fed. American Eagle, Rem. UMC, Blazer, etc. Looking at reviews it seems for every 3 people who think a brand is the best there are 2 who say it's junk. Is it really that inconsistant ? I've got a case of 124 FMJ American Eagle on backorder, but after reading some reviews it seems hit or miss, but so do all the others. One guy said his CZ shoots one hole groups at 7 yds. but shot 7" groups with the AE 9mm, and yet another said it was the best ammo he ever shot in his CZ. Any thoughts ?
Opinions on "budget/target" 9mm ammo ?
- Thread starter kyron4
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Opinions on buget/target 9mm ammo ?
So I'm talking Win. white box, Fed. American Eagle, Rem. UMC, Blazer, etc. Looking at reviews it seems for every 3 people who think a brand is the best there are 2 who say it's junk. Is it really that inconsistant ? I've got a case of 124 FMJ American Eagle on backorder, but after reading some reviews it seems hit or miss, but so do all the others. One guy said his CZ shoots one hole groups at 7 yds. but shot 7" groups with the AE 9mm, and yet another said it was the best ammo he ever shot in his CZ. Any thoughts ?
So I'm talking Win. white box, Fed. American Eagle, Rem. UMC, Blazer, etc. Looking at reviews it seems for every 3 people who think a brand is the best there are 2 who say it's junk. Is it really that inconsistant ? I've got a case of 124 FMJ American Eagle on backorder, but after reading some reviews it seems hit or miss, but so do all the others. One guy said his CZ shoots one hole groups at 7 yds. but shot 7" groups with the AE 9mm, and yet another said it was the best ammo he ever shot in his CZ. Any thoughts ?
The_Armed_Therapist
Member
I never understood the strong opinions on this stuff... It's all fine. Occasionally one or two of them won't work well in an occasionaly pistol, but that's not a big deal. This is typically the case with smaller guns, too. If you have the time and resources, buy all of it and run it through what you have to double check. Also, it's typically the case with a new gun that isn't fully "broken in." The only gun I've ever had that was ammo picky was my Kahr CW40... for the first couple hundred rounds or so. Now it will fire anything.
callenlee
Member
I've shot several boxes of federal with zero problems. Also shot a box of independence which I think is made by blazer with zero problems (it was only one box though). I had some failure to feeds and failure to ejects with winchester white box, but I'm inclined to put that on the gun. I've not noticed a significant difference in accuracy between them. I'm just plinking though. If I were competing or using them for a carry situation I might be more cognizant of accuracy variations. For casual shooting and practice my limited experience is that one isn't significantly better than the others.
LiveLife
Member
I think ammunition selection is dependent on the pistol/recoil spring rate used. Some economy/target ammunition won't reliably cycle the slides of certain pistols.
I usually recommend that people try various ammunition and use ammunition that reliably cycle the slide and extract/eject the spent cases while producing accurate shot groups and that often depends on the particular brand of pistol/model.
I usually recommend that people try various ammunition and use ammunition that reliably cycle the slide and extract/eject the spent cases while producing accurate shot groups and that often depends on the particular brand of pistol/model.
beatledog7
Member
+ 1 on bds' comment.
Any round that doesn't consistently cycle and fire to POA in your pistol is "junk" in your pistol, even it functions flawlessly and makes 1/2" groups at 25 yards in mine.
Any round that doesn't consistently cycle and fire to POA in your pistol is "junk" in your pistol, even it functions flawlessly and makes 1/2" groups at 25 yards in mine.
Budget or Target ammo? Because the two are mutually exclusive. Also the velocity of the round and the *consistency* of the velocity is very important to accuracy. Therefore ammo's with better quality control will result in smaller group sizes. Federal's Gold Medal line is very good for factory ammo, so is Stan Chen's ASYM Precision.
You can also 'tune' your load to your particular barrel length. Every barrel length + type of rifling will have an ideal bullet and charge that produces the best accuracy.
But if you are just shooting, WWB is a winner for me.
You can also 'tune' your load to your particular barrel length. Every barrel length + type of rifling will have an ideal bullet and charge that produces the best accuracy.
But if you are just shooting, WWB is a winner for me.
Silent Bob
Member.
I literally have not seen a box of 9mm ANYTHING for a month now.
If you have no aversion to buying ammunition online, this is always a good site: http://www.ammoengine.com/
breakingcontact
Member
It has been pretty bad, local Academy finally has 40 and 45 but still no 9mm.
Hangingrock
Member
With S&W, SIG and Glock 9mm Luger semiautomatic pistols that I have used WWB, Blazer, and Federal all economy grades have not been problematic. Most individuals that I’ve witnessed shooting do it a close and closer with 25Yds being way out there. At a typical conventional firing range the 50Yd line is not much used. Yes on an occasion you may have an ammunition problem but more common it’s a firearm or shooter related problem.
BCRider
Member
I've shot a pretty wide variety of the cheaper 9mm through a couple of different pistols. CCI Blazer in both brass and aluminium, AE, Winchester and likely some other that I can't recall at this point. AT MOST there MIGHT have been about a 1 inch variation in group size by any one ammo over the other out at around 12 to 15 yards. Stories about one brand producing "one ragged hole" groups vs another being up at 7 inches are either gross exagerations or there's something quite wrong with the gun. The various brands all chambered in all the guns and it all went BANG! very consistently.
ArchAngelCD
Member.
In today's environment you will be lucky to find anything to shoot regularly. For practice it really doesn't matter how good an ammo is but that said, everything I've shot over the years has been just fine. Don't stress over brands, worry about shooting well with good form and trigger control. Have fun...
MedWheeler
Member
Until the current political situation, the most-readily available 9mm ammo around me that could be used as a defensive round (not a FMJ) and that was affordable for practice was the Remington-UMC 115-grain JHP load. That's what I run (or was running) in my Kel-Tec PF9, which is my EDC. Never had a failure with it except for one instance when an ejected case fell back into the port as the next case was being expelled.
The 88-grain .380 version has also run perfectly in my Bersa Thunder pistol.
The 88-grain .380 version has also run perfectly in my Bersa Thunder pistol.
Furncliff
Member
I'll bet 75% of the quote's on how poor an ammo of any variety is, come from shooters who don't test from a bench rest.
I love American Eagle. Couldn't tell you how long it'll take to get your case though. I ordered a 1000 round case in late Sept or early Oct and didn't get it until Dec 1. Who knows how long it'd take now, but it's good to have an order placed so you're in que.
U-235
Member
I have shot hundreds if not thousands of round of WWB, mostly in 9mm and .45. I haven't had any problems. I do a quick visual check the rounds before shooting for anything obvious like bullet setback, creased brass, etc... I've thrown away maybe 1 or 2 rounds for things like that.
My completely unscientific, gut-reaction view is that one has to be a very accurate shooter with a very accurate pistol before the inherent accuracy limitations of handgun ammunition becomes the limiting factor. If you're shooting lots of X's on 50-foot targets, fine, you can probably tell a lot of difference.
smalls
Member
There's probably small differences in accuracy, but if you're that worried about it you should be hand loading super accurate loads, and not buying off the shelf ammo.
smalls, I agree with that, too. (And I do handload, but not because I can shoot better than shelf ammo.)
Gun magazines contribute to the confused thinking on this point by shooting 5-round groups offhand and then posting the size of the resulting groups down to .01". Preposterous. You'd need to shoot hundreds or thousands of rounds off a bench rest before you could start making statistically-valid claims about one-hundredths of an inch.
Gun magazines contribute to the confused thinking on this point by shooting 5-round groups offhand and then posting the size of the resulting groups down to .01". Preposterous. You'd need to shoot hundreds or thousands of rounds off a bench rest before you could start making statistically-valid claims about one-hundredths of an inch.
Last year I shot around 3500 rounds of American Eagle, WWB, and commercial reloads. Out of that, I had one dud, a WWB 9mm. I also won the local Glock Indoor series stock class, shooting WWB 9mm.
Right now, it's really an academic discussion. Buy what you can afford when you can find it.
Right now, it's really an academic discussion. Buy what you can afford when you can find it.
We really discourage cross posting on different sub-forums. Since the 9mm is predominately a semiautomatic cartridge, I'm going to merge the thread from General into the one on that sub-forum
xjsnake
Member
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