What went wrong?

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robertham1

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I got this ammo from a local gun shop about 6 years ago for very cheap and just got around to shooting it. This is out of a weatherby vanguard. I had my eye in the spotting scope while my brother pulled the trigger. It was about 2ft low at 275yds. I look over and smoke is come out of the floor plate an my brother is wiping residue from his shooting glasses. Make sure gun was not damaged and chalked it up to a single incident. We Stand back and decide to try one in his contender. Same result. Pack that box up and will be taking it to the police department for destruction in the morning. Anyone have any ideas other than a bad batch? ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338787651.786483.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338787667.196131.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338787679.081626.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338787690.827138.jpg
 
It happened in two different guns, so the chances of a headspace issue are astronomically low. Are these commercial reloads? Was the brass exposed to ammonia? What do the primers look like?

It's either bad brass or overpressure loads.
 
The pics are hard to see, but it looks like one has a pierced primer, and possibly a blown case in the web section. Were these factory reloads? It almost seems like a dose of pistol powder was used. Don't fire any more; can you pull one of the bullets and post a larger, sharper picture of the powder used?
 
I believe them to be commercial reloads as the bullets have markings indicating they had been pulled. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338788387.430839.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338788422.700072.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338788449.313561.jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1338788464.899112.jpg
 
Get rid of them since that happened.
The powder looks a lot like AutoComp to me. I been using it for 2 days straight and it looks almost exactly like it. Im thinking over pressure rounds.
 
Attempting to identify powder by its appearance is a fools game. Count your blessings that neither your or your rifle were damaged and dispose of the ammo.

FWIW, I'm guessing bad brass.
 
Never thought of mil-spec as being written in brush script. Dump that stuff or pull the bullets and dump the powder and brass.
 
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I wouldn't trust "mil spec" 62 gr SS109 that doesn't have a green bullet tip and come sealed in an ammo can. I don't know where that came from, but it obviously didn't meet the standard.

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"Mil spec" would be 5.56x45, not 223 as the boxes are labeled. The boxes and ammo look like an rather poor attempt at counterfeiting. I wouldn't trust them at all.
 
You can see the markings on every bullet which I assume is from being mechanically pulled. Look back at some of the pics and you can see what I'm referring to.
 
Kind of hard to tell due to the pic being slightly blurry, but, it appears from the primer pic that the crimp has been cut out. If that is true, this is, with 110% certainty, a box of reloads (could be commercial or bubba). Definitely not "milspec" except for possibly the bullet.

Going two for two on web failures, I would absolutely NOT fire even one more of those for any reason.
 
A perfect real-life scenario for those who think they want to get into reloading for resale - luckily here, no one lost anything more than a few dollars - all limbs and eyes are intact.

Pull it all reuse the bullets and primers with new powder in new brass
 
oneounceload said:
A perfect real-life scenario for those who think they want to get into reloading for resale - luckily here, no one lost anything more than a few dollars - all limbs and eyes are intact.

Pull it all reuse the bullets and primers with new powder in new brass
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Interesting....I've never heard of reusing primers...
 
I agree with pulling the bullets and only using them. Throw everything else away just to be sure. I'd rather be out a couple boxes of ammo than to damage a gun, or worse yet, my eyes.
 
Mil spec" would be 5.56x45, not 223 as the boxes are labeled
Click to expand...

This is dead on! Not to mention the SS109s tend to have colored tips like green and black. I would NOT use this ammo in any of my weapons, not even my WASR!
 
I have Radway Green (British M855) surplus without green tips on the bullets. They might be SS109 bullets (ogive shape looks right to me) but probably reloaded with who knows what in the rest of the load. I've never seen M193 or M855 with a primer that bright/silver colored either.
 
The picture in post #4 showing the bullet. It may just be the photo angle but that bullet looks wrong. Seated to low or somthing. It just don't look right to me.

WB
 
Here's a tip: Lake City has never used silver colored primers. Always brass primers. Definitely reloads. And yes, the bullet doesn't look right. What is the measured OAL? Looks like it's seated too deep which could have caused pressure problems right there.

And there are definitely really bad marks on that bullet. I use a lot of pulled bullets, but if I had any that looked like that one, I'd toss them. Definitely looks like it's probably too damaged to use and very likely out of round. Throw the whole thing away and count yourself very lucky.
 
Hot shot

Had HotShot ammo that did the same thing, bought 1000 rounds and have 990 collecting dust. Boxes had the same thing print on it "223 mil spec".
 
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