Perfecta ammunition issues

[DeadEye9]

I doubt judging an entire brand of ammunition over one experience is rational. No ruptured brass was found? You may have experienced a "Stall". A stall can occur in the timing of a semi auto pistol. The stall can allow the gun to fire with out the slide being in full battery. This can result in some blow back of residue and noise.

Some powders just don't aggree with certain pistol actions either. I remember reading a while back in one of my load manuals that AA#2 was giving Glock guys (or some big brand) a lot of trouble because it burns too fast and doesn't create enough slide velocity to appropriately cycle the action. Being that a company like Perfecta likely doesn't always use the same powder in various batches it is totally plausible that some powders are faster than others in the same caliber and therefore function differently in different guns/chambers. This could also be why a few people were swearing there was "rifle powder" in their Perfecta. My vote goes to either that or the poorly sized projectiles. The ones Ive mic'd were all over the map and as I said before, a tightly fitting projectile will create good velocity and shoot well while a loose bullet will lose pressure early, spit all sorts of fire and junk out the muzzle as well as effect accuracy and felt recoil.

 

[jjones45]

Strange, because I shot a case of Perfecta .45 ACP over the past couple of months through several .45s, including a SIG P-220, SIG P-227, FNX-45, SA TRP, Colt Series 70, Colt LW Commander and an Ed Brown ... 500 rounds, ZERO failures or malfunctions.

Yeah this was well over a year ago. The 9/40 have always been flawless, but something was definitely off about those 45's we had that day. If ammo chokes in one gun then one can say that gun doesn't care for that ammo, but when it chokes 3 or 4 guns up that all have been running reliably I can comfortably say we had a bad batch. I think maybe the tolerances were off a bit or something, who knows. It's not exactly unheard of that an ammunition manufacturer send some less than "perfecta" ammo out once in a blue moon

 

[Shaq]

At the first sign of such serious problems, I wouldn't shoot that brand of ammo. The stuff "hitting & stinging your face" is likely unburned powder - at high velocity. The inconsistent powder charges are another indication of the poor quality of the ammo & you may find out the hard way (destroyed gun, hands, fingers, eyes) that a case was overcharged or double charged. Not worth the few dollars you're saving. Remember what a gun is: An explosion that you repeatedly set off close to your face.

 

[JDR]

I like the Perfecta 9mm, .45ACP, and .38 Spl. No specific problems I can recall, and I've shot plenty of it in these calibers.

 

[Rubber_Duck]

I'm actually surprised to hear of so many problems with Perfecta ammo. It's been one of my favorite ammos for practice because it's brass cased yet I can get it cheaper than any other factory ammo. I've shot about 6k rounds of their 9mm 115 gr. FMJ through a West German P226 and didnt have a single problem or failure of any kind and I still have quite a bit left. I haven't used Perfecta in any other caliber yet.

 

[hemiram]

I've used Pefecta in 9mm 115gr, .40, 180gr, and .45 230gr. No problems. Lots of flash and some sparks though. I have gone through at least 1000 rounds of the 115gr 9mm. All my ammo problems were with reloads, some of those looked ok, but were really badly done.

 

[stevekozak]

Ive only used it in 9mm, but have had no problems at all in a Glock 19 and Ruger LC9s.

 

[armoredman]

Perfecta 9mm brass. Talk about poor manufacturing! If the brass is this bad, I can imagine the rest of the cartridge could be equally low quality.

 

[PabloJ]

If you want quality range ammo buy the American Eagle brand. Why do you expect consistent quality from something made to a cheaper price point?

 

[Pelo801]

I've used quite a bit of the 9mm ammo and a box or so of the 38 spcl. Never had a problem with it but have yet to try to reload any of it. I'm not holding my breath the brass will be all that great. I found this pic on another reloading forum.

 

[Ironicaintit]

Like I said earlier, My boss gave me a some perfecta 223 cases, and I saw absolutely zero problems with them.
nicely annealed, flash holes centered enough that my eyes didn't catch any problems, primers seated real consistent, and neck tension was spot on. I'd use them again, happily

So I'm kinda shocked to see all the bad impressions....

Reading this thread, you'd think it was a-merc being discussed!

 

[Tcruse]

Interesting that you had what seems like such incosistent rounds. I tried a couple of boxes back with it was hard to find 9mm and despite not expecting much out of it, it was very accurate, perhaps the best of the 4 or 5 brands I was shooting that day. I was not using a rest so results are totally unscientific. But shooting a CZ75b and a Zastava M88a it worked perfectly for me. But, as noted, if you had mixed or bad results, the minor savings are not worth it.
9 fingers

I have used many boxes in Glock 17 and Baby Eagle in 9mm and full sized and commander sized 1911 in .45ACP. Have no hint of any problems.

 

[Tcruse]

I think the Perfecta box I last looked at said "Tula" on the side? Felt a bit weak.

"There's your problem right there."

Tula is the importer/distributor in the US for this and a variety of other brands. The country of manufacture varies, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina seem to be the most common.

 

[Mikehrt7]

I've got 500 rounds of Perfecta 9mm through FNH FNS9 and Shield 9mm. I've got another 100 .45 acp through an old Ruger I borrowed that had week springs. I had one light strike on the Ruger (I blame the weapon, but didn't have another to test with, slide spring was flimsy so I figured the hammer spring was probably the same) and all 500 of the 9mm were flawless. Seems pretter good to me. My FNS and Shield eat every kind of ammo except range reloads. Those are always dimpled primers not going off, and I blame that ammo.

 

[1KPerDay]

I have a couple hundred perfecta .357 cases. The flash holes are off center. But they deprime/size and reload fine with my Lee dies and they all work fine.

 

[TheNaturalBornShooter]

I also had problems out of Perfecta in two different guns. Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 and Taurus 38 Special. Would do the exact same thing with the massive discharge of black powder fragments on my face and arms. Also out of a 50 round box through the 38 multiple rounds failed to fire. I also had a few fail to fire in the 380. Switched to Winchester FMJ that was stored exactly the same way and time and had no problems at all. Will not be using perfecta ammunition again.

 

[jjones45]

Went shooting a couple days ago and brought my p320c and Cz 75b out and shot about 150 rounds of perfecta 9mm and this is the first time I noticed totally different charges. Some were probably past NATO spec and others were very mild. All functioned flawless but I'd say about half were hot with very high muzzle flash, almost like 357 sig. I don't remember having 115g 9mm this hot and with this much muzzle flash in a long time. I'm not really complaining because I like hot ammo, but my wife on the other hand didn't care for it