Excel bullets ?? Sticky grimey mess!!

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CALIFORNIA

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I bought Excel lead SWC in .40 S&W, and in .44 Mag.from Le Baron. These bullets are awful, they dirty up the dies and cases with a sticky type of beewax which even causes the guns to jam up after 50 rounds. Anyone else out there experience this , or am I missing something??
 
I stopped using them a couple of years ago for exactly the reasons u stated above. That coupled with poor quality control put me off them for good. Gotta be the worst I have ever used ...Just my opinion.
dB
 
I've found Excel to be out of round.

As for the lube, if it stayed in place, it gummed up the dies, so I took them apart and run a Tornado brush through them.

The bullets that were (and there were a lot) lubeless, I used Liquid Alox.

The exception were the 200gr .45 bullets and they were OK. For 9mm, I would buy 125gr LSWC designed for the .38 Stupid (.357) and resize them to .356.
 
Those are machine cast and tumbled in lube, M.T. Chambers makes bullets by hand, to your specs, no mess, guaranteed accuracy.
 
Excel, heh that is why they cost half price compare to Montanas and others.
They still go through the barrel :)
 
Maybe tell Marty what you think about his bullets.

We told him about the poor quality 9mm last year and he really came back with some nice ones in the last batch we bought. He has taken the complaints seriously and updated many of his dies. I use copper wash so I cannot comment on his lead only. They are worth looking at again.
 
Redbirddog or anyone else here..

I am willing to give Marty another crack at it, especially the copper wash bullets. With my revolvers, I don't have feeding problems to worry about. So when you are buying 240 grain bullets, the cost savings are welcome. For IPSC, you need performance to be sure so excel(s) are out of the question.

I too would love to buy these anywhere else other than Le Baron which is an absolute exercise in frustration everytime I need to pick up something in their catalog. Either they are perpetually out of stock, or the clerks look at you as though you came from mars. They are geared for fishing, but mediocre for ammunition or reloading supplies.

Can someone tell me where else I can pick up excel(s)
in the Montreal area?
 
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piccolig said:
I too would love to buy these anywhere else other than Le Baron which is an absolute exercise in frustration everytime I need to pick up something in their catalog. Either they are perpetually out of stock, or the clerks look at you as though you came from mars. They are geared for fishing, but mediocre for ammunition or reloading supplies.
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Next time you enquire about stock and the item in question is not in, probe the guys and you may learn why they are just as frustrated as we are - their suppliers and distributors seem to be quite unreliable.

Also, when reloaders get a chance, to avoid future frustation, sometimes they'll scoop up everything a vendor has in stock. It happens.

I bought some Excel .44 mag once....
 
Yup, good ol' Excel. Leave so much crud in the barrels. Every try doing a random weighing? They vary in weight so much it ain't funny. Then there's the mess.

Goodwin Bullets in Ottawa makes great bullets. Consistant weight. Good lead. Good Lube. Nice guy, too. I don't know if he has a web site or not. Can give you his number and email last summer's price list if you want.

Note: he is not a full time manufacturer and does this in his spare time, so if he doesn't have a particular bullet in stock, it takes time for him to make them but well worth the wait.
 
RePete said:
I received some news that George (Goodwin bullets) is no longer doing this. I have phoned him to confirm yet.
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Oh, no. Well, I hope it's not because something is wrong. He's a nice guy. Hope it just got too much for him or something like that.

He did make good bullets. Was our fall back bullet when we ran out of ingots.
 
stormbringer said:
Hmmm

I just started using them..........the copper plated version..

They look great!!

Got the idea from an IPSC GM...............cant go wrong.
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Yes indeed. The copper plated Excel bullets work just dandy in polygonal barrels. I can't speak with authority on the Excel bullets as I opted some time ago to not poison myself (and they smoke too much for competition anyway) and so haven't used them in years. If you want a good lead bullet I can absolutely vouch for DRG. Frank Makes an excellent cast bullet.
 
I tried the Excel Plated bullets and they were out of round and different sizes. And that was 9mm.

I just got off the phone with George (Goodwin Bullets) and he has stopped making them (damn) , just to busy with family obligations, BUT there may be light at the end of the tunnel, he MAY get back to it after a year or so.

I did wish his luck.
 
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Maybe Marty got new dies?

I just randomly checked my .40 180 grain bullets.

Weight ranged from a low of 180.2 to a high of 182.1 over 10 bullets from 2 different boxes.


Diameters were ALL spot on .399
 
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