Ruger Forum banner

Ammo brands to avoid

35K views 31 replies 28 participants last post by  savage shooter 
#1 ·
At the last local gun show it was amazing to hear the talk in the hall about ammunition that failed to fire. Are there brands that should be avoided?
 
#3 ·
I stay away from Winchester...Had 9mm ammo fail to fire and found out no anvil in primers..and some 10mm silvertip that would not allow round to clear barrel, had it not allowed the next round to go in far enough to go into battery, it would have been a mess...They do not have a grasp on what QC is.
 
#4 · (Edited)
I've had problems with Winchester White Box ammo and shooting them through a Glock 22. Must have been hard primers. They not would go off on the first try. My guess is the primers were bad on those rounds too.

When I tried some Speer Gold Dots they went off fine after that in the Glock 22.

So I just keep that in mind with Winchester White Box.
There is a reason it's so cheap..
 
#12 ·
I see some bad things mentioned about Winchester White Box Ammo, also I see positive thngs mentioned also. It doesn't mean that certain ammo is bad or good.....but for example I have a Springfield Ultra Compact 1911 in 9mm I have shot Winchester White Box, Blazer Brass, and also Indenpence ammo. But when I use Sellior & Bellot ammo in this same gun it jams! Does this mean that S&B ammo is bad no what it means is certain guns like one brand of ammo while other brands do not work. My friend and I went out shooting my 1911 didn't like the S&B ammo but my friends Glock 19 liked the S& B just fine. My Mini 14 has shot anything I have put thru it when it comes to the lower cost ammo. The Wolf Steel Cased .223 ammo I never have any problems yet I have read from owners of certain brands of AR15's have trouble with the Wolf Ammo. So what ever ammo works thru your gun I guess you can say its good ammo if you pull the trigger and your gun goes BANG!!!!!
 
#14 ·
I have never had a problem with Winchester WB 9mm - but I don't shoot a lot of it.

I have had terrible results with Remington 22lr bulk pack ammo. 1 out of 10 often fail to fire. Sometimes I can run the round back through and it fires, sometimes I can strike it 2 or 3 times and it will not fire. This happens in my Ruger 10/22 and my Ruger Mark III 22/45. I have been told that rimfire ammo can be damaged by rough handling during shipping that breaks the primer compound loose from the rim. Don't know, but this box is the last Remington 22lr for me.

I watched a friend shooting Wolf .223 ammo and having FTF on at least 20% of the rounds. He was bragging about the great buy he got before we starting shooting, then he was kind of embarrassed when there were so many FTF's.

I don't shoot Wolf or other low ball foreign ammo in any of my guns.
 
#16 ·
I have had lots of trouble with Winchester. This has been with their brass though not with loaded rounds. I bought 10 bags of brass that had 3 different lot numbers. Out of every 100 rounds loaded I would have 6 to 11 cases split. The splits were always in the sme general area approx. a 1/4" below the case mouth and the splits ran approx. 1/2". These were Black Powder Substitute rounds (APP 3f) I checked to see if it was in a particular revolver, cylinder, etc. It did not matter.
After several e-mails and a couple of phone calls Winchester sent me a package so I could send them the brass. 6 weeks later they sent me one piece of brass per piece I sent to them with a not stating that the brass suffered catistophic failure. I have been cutting up my Winchester brass to make litlle feet for some ammo boxes.
 
#17 ·
Remington is becoming the brand to avoid for me. I've had several FTFs in their bulk 500 pc (which was only 487 pcs) .22 cal and I had 3 FTFs with their 12 ga T shot NitroSteel shells from a single box of 25. No other brand has ever failed to fire for me.
 
#19 ·
Never a prob w/ WWB, Fed Champ or BB for me in 9 or 40

I stay away from the Magtech SJSP 158gr 357 mag because I've had a couple of crimp jumps that locked up the cylinder and negated the '5 for sure' philosophy in my Airlite Smith


* I still have a couple of boxes of the Mag 357, but will use it in my lever action 357 or a heavier revolver
 
#23 ·
For me, Wolf and CCI are the most suspect.

About 25 years ago I had problems with PMC in 10mm. They were - very - inconsistent. I was having problems with accuracy so decided to check some of it on the Chron'. I had (from the same box of new) velocities that ran from 650fps to 1200fps, from the same gun, same temp, same humidity, same day, etc. I was NOT happy. - - To their credit, I have not seen anything that bad in the last fifteen years.

Remington .22lr are VERY dirty, less than optimal accuracy and a higher rate of failures (to fire) than any other manufacturer that I have seen.

I had one batch of Federal .22lr that the point of impact at fifty yards was a full inch lower than Winchester Super-X from the same gun, on the same day.
 
#24 ·
i tend to stay away from the russian steel case ammo like wolf and the bear series but only because its dirty as hell.was out shooting wolf 9mm and after a while i started to get alot of failure to fires, broke down the gun and was getting ftf's due to crud in the striker channel. cleaned it up and all good. why i like hammer guns, not as likely to get crud duds.
 
#25 · (Edited)
:):)I've been thru cases of WW white box in .223, .45ACP, .38+P, .44 Mag, & 9mm with "0" issues.


:(:mad::(The only factory fodder I ever had problems was years ago, & it was P.M.C. It mis-fired, & lodged bullets in the barrels of my Son's .44 Mag. & my .357, but that was at least 15 years ago. I contacted them immediately with the Serial # on the box, & all other info. They wouldn't even respond, & I never bought another box of PMC ammo.

+1 on the Rem. .22 Rimfire ! Junk !!
 
#26 ·
I do believe this subject will be so highly subjective even God could not make heads or tails of it in the end.

I hardly ever pay too much attention to these sorts of posts due to that very fact....."subjectiveness".

What works for one will almost certainly never work out okay for 1 in the next 5 folks that buy it.

I say buy small amounts and find what you like best.

Good luck.
 
#28 ·
There is absolutely NOTHING subjective about real life experiences. When I have FTFs with a particular type of ammo, that either did happen or did not happen. When 3 of 25 12 guage Remington Nitro-Steel T-shot shells from a single box of shells do not fire, that is a fact. It happened. It's not subject to interpretation and therefore, not subjective.

As to whether certain brands should be avoided? Well, conclusions of that sort are subjective, but when you see post after post after post from people that say Remington .22 bulk pack stuff is crap... Well, it probably is. It would not take God to discern an overwhelming bias toward that conclusion. In my experience, not only is the Remington .22 bulk pack stuff crap, they don't even deliver all 500 shells that the box claims to deliver. Every box I've bought has been exactly 13 shells shy of 500.

My admittedly subjective conclusion: Remington is a brand that should be avoided. My non-subjective reasons: I have received less than the claimed number of shells in their bulk pack ammo and the ones that I did receive often (3 of the first 100 shells) don't fire when properly struck by a firing pin. 12% of the Remington shotgun shells I have bought have failed to fire. 0% of any other brand of bullets and shells that I have bought have arrived with less than the advertised number in the box and 0% of those bullets and shells have failed to fire.
 
#27 ·
I really like Winchester, the bullets are much higher quality than the Federal or UMC and I've never had a problem shooting in .38super, .45ACP, .40S&W, and a few others. UMC has been junk, the jackets seem really thin and they aren't formed as well. Federal .45 is really good, especially at 15$ a box. Federal .40 though is pretty much just for fun, the bullets have all kinds of craters. I've never had a Fail to fire or a KB from any of these.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top