AR15 destroyed by bad round of USAammo. (courtesy of The Firearm Blog)
The critical quote for me, attributed to the CEO of USAammo:
He admitted that some of his ammo has been overpressured due to “Western” powder supplier using powders with faster burn rates.
And you didn’t know this until after you loaded the ammo and sold it? That’s unacceptable. Even if your ammunition company of choice doesn’t go to the trouble and expense of testing canister powder upon receipt, at the very least it should be performing pressure testing on each lot of ammunition before sending it out the door. This is doubly true if you are buying powder from a company that has such wide deviation in burn rate from canister to canister.
Using ammo from major companies like Federal is no guarantee of perfection, of course, as I noted less than two weeks ago in one of the G17 endurance test updates. Even the big guys can make mistakes. But the big guys tend to have far more levels of QC and far more complex QC equipment which means their errors tend to be minor (like small differences in overall length) rather than exploding rounds that destroy expensive quality firearms.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Preach on brother. I spent too much on my guns to buy sketchy ammo. Federal, Speer, Remington, Winchester, is about it for volume pistol ammo.
Great. This after I jumped on the 50% off ammo deal through gearhog.com.
$50 down the drain is better than over a thousand, I guess. Rats.
I load my own ammo and there are definitely some powder manufactures with big lot to lot variations. Western Powders is one of those manufactures. I try to chrono every new lot or at least back my load way down. Why USAammo didn’t have their own QA/QC on products from their suppliers is beyond me? I guess everyone wants a deal and this is what you get for a lower cost.
Glad you posted this, Todd. At range practice this past weekend, my wife, a friend and I were laying out our gear, and a guy said, “For as many rounds as you have there, you’d be better off to reload.”
My friend (who is also my attorney) said, “Actually, I make about $400 an hour, so no; it isn’t cheaper for me to reload, as I can buy two cases of ammo for every hour I work.”
The dude scratched his head and walked away.
Like most things, “value,” doesn’t always boil down to economics. I think people forget safety and efficacy until, “it,” happens. Whether it’s a retread tire taking a dump or, “commercial reload,” ammunition, there is a reason it is less expensive.
And, “cheaper,” hardly ever means, “better.”
Sounds like someone should be getting a new rifle from the ammo manufacturer.
There is definitely a market for inexpensive yet QUALITY ammo. There are several cheap loaders/reloaders … but not much quality.
And I recently discovered that there IS a difference in 9mm ammo for “plastic fantastic” pistols and 1911’s. “Plastics” will run almost anything, but 1911’s are picky — longer C.O.L. I find the cheaper 9mm ammo won’t cycle reliably in 1911.
For duty/CCW use, I generally only use ammunition from major vendors with government contracts, such as ATK (Federal/Speer), Black Hills, Hornady, Remington, Winchester.
What Doc said.
For blasting away I quit using reloads some time ago, I have seen too many .223s go high order due to reman ammo.
IMHO even the Russian stuff that so many folks bad-talk is far better than risking the use of used .223 brass.
I had a bad experience with some USAammo a while back—six or eight years, come to think of it, blew the magazine right out of my 1911, cracked both grips and locked the gun up tight. Brr.
Todd, if I could be so bold, do you have a recommendation for standard pressure 9mm? I have a Browning Hi-Power I’m sentimentally attached to, and have read that its best not to feed it the +p stuff I usually use.
Lewis, I’m assuming you’re talking about defensive ammo. While there are plenty of good choices, if I were limited to standard pressure 9mm JHP I’d probably opt for the 147gr HST from Federal.
Many thanks, sir. I do appreciate it.
I shoot 380, which is more expensive than 9mm. Not a lot of shooting. Maybe 100-200 rounds every two weeks. I reload. It’s far cheaper, as accurate (in this little caliber), and I really enjoy it. $6 per box of 50 rounds vs. $18. It simple would not be affordable for me to go shooting if I didn’t reload. The payback period on the equipment was 900 reloaded rounds.