Quality ammo

[sdkidaho]

Originally posted by wallhanger54:

Well I'll tell you that with many years of professional gunsmithing and machining under my belt I can say that the Remington ammo is substandard. As a matter of fact there is alot of junk ammo out there...

Hoping that wallhanger will chime with what he knows about ammo as I'm curious what people have seen to work the best.

 

I've always used Remington ammo in my Nova, and I've never had an issue with it. I ran some Federal through it once because I noticed that's what they were always using on Benelli's American Bird Hunter, but it was the worst stuff ever. It jammed every shell out of an entire box.

 

Anyway, I'm always open to good information. Thanks.

 

[ 01-06-2006, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: sdkidaho ]

[mudhen]

Federal has always worked flawlessly for me, but I've only run about 20,000 rounds of Federal through my SBE, so that is not really much of a history.

 

No problem with Remington either, but I'm not hearing anything good about the new cheap steel.

 

No problems with Win HV steel either, just the price $$.

 

I've had nothing but problems with anything from Kent, steel or TM. I've seen 20-25 Kent misfires just in the last few months. Hard primers is the #1 cause of the ftfs that I have seen. Expanding hulls are another infamous Kent issue.

 

I won't shoot any of the true crap shells like Estate, etc. Don't care who makes the cheap shells, just don't want to shoot them. Shoot them if YOU want to though...

 

mudhen - CA

[wallhanger54]

The one main thing that really jumps out to me is people comming in complaining about misfires. All things being equal I'll honestly tell you that with cleaned and oiled guns comming in with this complaint, the customer was shooting Rem Gun Club or some sort of Rem ammo. In my own personal tests I used 5 different brands of ammo (Rem, Win, Fed, Kent, Fiocchi) on 5 brands of shotguns (Rem, Brown, Ben SBE, Ben Nova, Moss). Winchester had the deepest strikes followed by Fed, Kent, Fiocchi and Rem. I know I only fired 3 rounds per gun of each brand but hey, this was for my own curiosity. No great scientific method or meaning is expressed or implied...wife is laughing reading this part. The Win AA shells had the deepest strike followed by Fed, Kent, Fiocchi and Rem. Having only 1 misfire on the 1100 (go figure). End result, I did see that the Rem ammo did have the hardest primer on average leaving the shallowest dimple and distortion. Probably would be fun to see what some gun magazine writer could run with this and do. I dare them!

[tucker301]

Here's a question from left-center, if not left field altogether.

How do we know that the shallow dimples are caused by hard primers as opposed to say thicker rims or deeper pockets?

Just asking.

 

I guess the proof would in loading equal hulls with the different brands of primers?

[War Wagon]

I was pattern testing the new Remington Hevi-Shot Nitro Magum Waterfowl Loads and shooting them through the chonagraph several months back. I had one of the loads hang fire, I pulled the trigger heard a sizzle and one second later a pop. I recorded a blazzing 540 fps and could see the shot and wad go down range. I have never had a loaded round do that before. By the way the clamed velocity of 1575 fps was close to what I saw, my average was 1548 fps for 5 shots when they went off as they should, LOL.

 

Jim

 

[ 01-07-2006, 10:21 PM: Message edited by: War Wagon ]

[Butch-M]

Good Morning and Happy New Year. I have had zero problems with thousands of Winchester shells, nor any with Remington ... both fine outfits. I often seek out and use Federal ammo too. Federal is an excellent company with a patriotic vein to it; which I support wholeheartedly. (Ra, Ra) LOL I can understand your ire with the results you received when using Federal, BUT ... without sounding adversarial ... the firearm should be able to digest ANY factory ammunition; so I'm guessing there's a little something amiss with the gun, rather than the ammunition. (Unless you were trying those ancient cardboard shells your grandpa willed to you) I know pumps are pretty straightforward & bullet proof; but personally, I'd be afraid that the firearm would suddenly start rejecting yet another brand, so I'd either send it in to Benelli or get it a checkup at a competent gunsmith. I don't remember seeing any other Nova/Federal complaints???

[tucker301]

I've had no problems with any of the following brands of shells in my SBEII.

Winchester, Remington, Federal, & Kent.

 

The only Remingtons I've tried have been Hev-shot 3.5" turkey loads.

Federal and Winchester have been numerous turkey and waterfowl loads, & the Kents were Fasteel.

[wallhanger54]

I myself have had no misfires ever in any gun of any kind I own no matter the ammo. I do stay with the major brands and prefer them based upon their use and performance. Some of this off the wall stuff in magazines I just have a hard time trusting, especially in a semi-auto. Pumps, O/U's it's not such a big deal. As far as why the Rem ammo does what it does...1. The primers are set deeper on average. 2. The metal of the primer is thicker sometimes by .001" sometimes not (could be a QA issue with the manufacturer of the primer). 3. Different alloy of metal for the primer. I'm not the chief metalurgist here I know, so I cant tell you what the difference is.