Apparently IVI CF AMMO Sucks

RobertMcC

RobertMcC

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Well according to someone on MSN ( wont say names ) That heard this from the Chief Armorer of the CF ( CF favorite Person ) IVI ammo 762x51 and 5.56mm that the CF forces are using overseas and in Canada sucks, Sorry SUCKS. Apparently its not as effect as when DA used to make it back in the 60's....When has anything new been built the same as olden?

Now this guy had dinner and stuff with this guy....Now this arm chair commando pulled bullets and check the grains of powder etc to find it was not the same.. My question was, does it Kill?, Does it do the job ? and he will come back to me with some science question about ballistic and math does not lie...
 
Having dealt with this last year while still in uniform....the rounds have to meet a performance requirement which has not changed. One of the members here use to work with ammo in NDHQ and can likely advise better once he is back from holidays...

Cheers

Jeff
 
I recall that there were some lots of IVI 5.56mm C-77 (one or more) in the early-mid 90's that did not meet the specs. That was sold off on the US Market, and was quite popular even though it failed to meet specs. (That is the ONLY IVI ammo that I've heard of making it to the Civilian market legally...no 9mm, no tracer, etc....)

That said, in about 2000 or so, there was a lot of ammo used at CFSAC which was....poor. I was scoring for the KF, QM7, and he fired 6 consecutive bull/V-bulls at 300 meters. His 7th shot sailed up into the helmet. We both did a double take on that (it wasn't the first such incident that year) but had to proceed. The next round dropped back into the V-bull ring, along with another 2 bulls after that. I think he only missed the bull on that one shot. There were a number of "fliers" in that lot of ammo, but there seemed to be no external signs of problems with the ammo. *shrug* not much you can do.

Now, WRT the terminal performance of IVI ammo, well, I cannot speak for that as I've not yet been called on to deliver the ammo that way.

The Dominion Arsenals ammo from back in the 60's (65 was a particularly good year if I recall correctly from the old codgers) was abnormally accurate ammunition. I do not recall what the NATO spec is for accuracy requirements of 7.62 NATO ammo, but the DA ammo generally was of such high quality that it far exceeded those requirements. The extra costs associated in producing such high quality ammo were probably part of the reason that DA ended up closing down (just my opinion)

Also....I don't believe that DA ever made any 5.56 ammo in the 60's, though they did make some of the Flechette ammo for the SPIW back then....so it may have happened.

Bear in mind again, that I'm just a shooter, but from my perspective, the issued ammo is accurate enough. I'll let others with more expertise wade in on this now.

NavyShooter
 
Don't know about the 5.56mm stuff--never had any. The Dominion 7.62 from 64 and 65 was probably the best made by them. I had about a half case of the 64 and in a heavy barrel bolt gun it would easily hold better than 1 moa.

I have used dominion from other years and IVI from mid 70's and none of it was in the class of the 64/65 stuff.

FWIW, 44Bore.
 
DA 7.62 was/is better than IVI. When the DCRA still issued IVI for the APM the 5.56 was superior to the 7.62. That only happened for a year or two until the QC at IVI went back to normal.
This is only from an accuracy point of view at controlled distances and bolt action target rifles.
 
When I joined the Army in the early '70's Canada had 3 different small arms manufacturers in the country. By the early '90's we had 1!! Guess who? Thank you Mr Trudeau! At one time part of the TQ6A course for Ammunition Techs included a tour of IVI facilities in Valcartier. Each course upon completion of their tour constantly brought up more and more quality control questions to the point where the invitation to tour the fascilities was permanently withdrawn.

During the late '80's, when IVI got into the mfg of 5.56mm, large number of lots failed proof testing to a point where the Jacket was shedding off in the barrel. As each lot of failed SAA could be as large as 2,000,000 rds, IVI was given permission to dump south of the border, it appears the americans will buy almost anything for a cheap enough price.

I was shooting Service Rifle out of Chilliwack at this time and was regularly talking with guys that were hopping south of the border and buying this stuff at US gunshows and bringing it back to Canada.

Recently SNC Lavalin has been bought out by General Dynamics (GD)http://www.gd-otscanada.com/html/en/products/ammunition-small.php Having worked recently with GD people on a regular basis on a number of DND projects, because they not only support the CF but the US Army as well, their quality control is number 1. One can only expect that GD does a house cleaning in Valcartier as the US Army won't accept garbage.

In regards to the "arm chair commando" remark, obviously some of your characteristics did not change because of your tour. Many people who work in the Ammunition and explosives field in the CF, have spent a large amount of time working EOD and have probably had their sphincter muscles far tighter than you can ever imagine. Also a surprising number "Log Wogs" these days are ex combat arms, who also have a wide variety of field experience and devoted to guys on the "pointy" end. A large amount of time and experimentation goes into the selection of the items that the average soldier carries into the field. If it doesn't work, you write a report, so that it can be investigated and improved upon, not just whine about it.
 
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Garand said:
When I joined the Army in the early '70's Canada had 3 different small arms manufacturers in the country. By the early '90's we had 1!! Guess who? Thank you Mr Trudeau! At one time part of the TQ6A course for Ammunition Techs included a tour of IVI facilities in Valcartier. Each course upon completion of their tour constantly brought up more and more quality control questions to the point where the invitation to tour the fascilities was permanently withdrawn.

During the late '80's, when IVI got into the mfg of 5.56mm, large number of lots failed proof testing to a point where the Jacket was shedding off in the barrel. As each lot of failed SAA could be as large as 2,000,000 rds, IVI was given permission to dump south of the border, it appears the americans will buy almost anything for a cheap enough price.

I was shooting Service Rifle out of Chilliwack at this time and was regularly talking with guys that were hopping south of the border and buying this stuff at US gunshows and bringing it back to Canada.

Recently SNC Lavalin has been bought out by General Dynamics (GD)http://www.gd-otscanada.com/html/en/products/ammunition-small.php Having worked recently with GD people on a regular basis on a number of DND projects, because they not only support the CF but the US Army as well, their quality control is number 1. One can only expect that GD does a house cleaning in Valcartier as the US Army won't accept garbage.

In regards to the "arm chair commando" remark, obviously your level of maturity did not improve because of your tour. Many people who work in the Ammunition and explosives field in the CF, have spent a large amount of time working EOD and have probably had their sphincter muscles far tighter than you can ever imagine. Also a surprising number "Log Wogs" these days are ex combat arms, who also have a wide variety of field experience. A large amount of time and experimentation goes into the selection of the items that the average soldier carries into the field. If it doesn't work, you write a report, so that it can be investigated and improved upon, not just whine about it.
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My Tour has nothing to do with this, But so for the person that never spent a day in the Military or never really carried our issued ammo or Rifle, Not talking about you Garand or others here ( The Arm Chair Commando )...Heard this info from apparently the chief Armorer or the CF. Telling someone that there ammo sucks, well thats like punching someone in the face.

IVI is much better then Brit and American 5.56

And going how Ballistics and maths does not Lie...But if its not as good as it used to IE super accurate, But he was sure it works fine etc back when DA made it... But When the last time that the ammo was really tested? Im not interested in the Scientific answer. The Answer I wanna hear is, Does it fire when you pull the trigger, does to go where you want to and does it do the job.

I know from my Experance the ammo now we using is good, It does what I asked.

I don't think that something that the Cheif Armorer, will tell just somebody...
 
"...probably the best made by them..." That's because IVI had nothing to do with Dominion ammo until after 1968/69.
IVI's ammo has always been inferior to Dominion ammo. It has always been reliable, but nowhere near as accurate. Even though, in the early days, the same people and machines did the producing.
 
Before each lot (approx 1- 2,000,000 rds) of SAA is accepted into to service it is subjected to rigourous proof testing by a DND Defence Research & Development facility. If it fails, the lot fails to meet the required standard (which you can look up on the DWAN under the applicable CFTO) it is deemed unacceptable and shipped back to the manufacturer. A number of the Weapons Techs that I met in my career were competitive shooters also, and have a high standard regarding ammunition, in some cases IVI didn't meet that standard. On a personal note, I prefer Lake City match myself.

In the past I worked with people from SNC Lavalin on development of ammunition for the failed LAV mounting the 105mm gun. They were quite a cross representation of the company from ex military to those just out of university with lots of letters behind their names.
 
shortandlong said:
ammo sucks compared to what ? is my question.

its not match ...........then its not supposed to be

people love to be critical
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IVI ammo apparently today ain't up to standard to when DA used to make it...

Apparently it not that bad, My Sgt major won the queens medal 4 times, BMW once so. The new stuff must be good and so what DA made 762X51, Well only thing that uses 762 now is the machine guns..
 
DA ammo was made as well as the guys could make it. It was better than the specs called for. Crown corporations can do that. When it was privatized, the new owners decided to make ammo that met the specs rather than far exceeding the specs. From a profit point of view, that made sense.

I have shot some lots of IVI 7.62 that were very poor for target shooting. The military spec is not very demanding ona ccuracy.

The old DA now varies dramatically from batch to batch because of differences in how it has been stored for the last 40 years.

As for the IVI 5.56, my impression of it has been that any lot shoots reasonably well and some lots shoot very well in my target rifle. DA never made 5.56 so comparisons cannot be made.

I have made ammo for the CF. Their specs deal with a lot more than just accuracy. It has to chamber and fire reliably. Smoke and muzzle flash are issues. Packaging is also important.
 
Da 65

44Bore said:
Don't know about the 5.56mm stuff--never had any. The Dominion 7.62 from 64 and 65 was probably the best made by them. I had about a half case of the 64 and in a heavy barrel bolt gun it would easily hold better than 1 moa.

I have used dominion from other years and IVI from mid 70's and none of it was in the class of the 64/65 stuff.

FWIW, 44Bore.
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That's very interesting. I'm currently burning off DA 65 in my Norc M-14 and it is giving me sub 2" 5 shot groups at 100 m with open sights. I guess the rifle and I have to share the credit with the DA 65 ammo.
 
DA 64+65 was outstanding ammo. Just picked up 60 rounds of DA58. This must be the first or second year of production, does anyone know when the first CDN 7.62x51 was made? I have some DA 56, but that is MK.V11- .303.
 
The 7.62 now is almost exclusively employed in the C6 GPMG, which is an area weapon so accuracy is not as essential as reliability (that said the one time I fired it live it jammed after 210 rounds).

I recently put 600+ 5.56 rounds through my rifle (after firing 600+ rounds of blank and only doing a few pull throughs) and had no issues with stoppages or accuracy. That was shooting at ranges of 100m to about 5m.

Last year I was doing 2-4 inch groupings from 200 with 5.56.

Don't know about killing power or anything like that, but I've never had an issue with IVI 5.56 blank or live in my C7.

GANDERITE said:
DA ammo was made as well as the guys could make it. It was better than the specs called for. Crown corporations can do that. When it was privatized, the new owners decided to make ammo that met the specs rather than far exceeding the specs. From a profit point of view, that made sense.

I have shot some lots of IVI 7.62 that were very poor for target shooting. The military spec is not very demanding ona ccuracy.

The old DA now varies dramatically from batch to batch because of differences in how it has been stored for the last 40 years.

As for the IVI 5.56, my impression of it has been that any lot shoots reasonably well and some lots shoot very well in my target rifle. DA never made 5.56 so comparisons cannot be made.

I have made ammo for the CF. Their specs deal with a lot more than just accuracy. It has to chamber and fire reliably. Smoke and muzzle flash are issues. Packaging is also important.
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I got a hold of some mid 60s DA 7.62 a couple years ago and let them rip through my M14. I gotta admit, I wasn't at all impressed 2-3" groups at 25 yards!! Could have just been a freak thing, but I was glad I only bought 30 rds.
 
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