Federal or hornady

I got a chance to go to the range and try out the hornady and the federal ammo. As with almost all my rifles, the xbolt 6.5CM liked the federal power shok… and it wasn’t as much of a fan of the hornady custom international. The federal shot under and inch, and the best I could do with the custom internationals was 1.25”. Still not bad for deer hunting by any means, but the federals shot better
 
We were shooting Federal Fusions…. Then started getting too many squibs. Wife missed out on a deer due to a squib. I switched to Hornady Superformance for my 30-06 and Leverolution for her 30/30. I have since switched to hand loads
 
^I hate squibs. What year was this ammo bought?

CaribooBC said:
We were shooting Federal Fusions…. Then started getting too many squibs. Wife missed out on a deer due to a squib. I switched to Hornady Superformance for my 30-06 and Leverolution for her 30/30. I have since switched to hand loads
Click to expand...
 
CaribooBC said:
We were shooting Federal Fusions…. Then started getting too many squibs. Wife missed out on a deer due to a squib. I switched to Hornady Superformance for my 30-06 and Leverolution for her 30/30. I have since switched to hand loads
Click to expand...
One is too many, and you say you had several?

With today's quality controls, I would start looking at the rifle.

Fusions aren't my first choice for most of the shooting I do, simply because I usually only use hand loads.

I have shot off a lot of Fusion ammunition through an SKS and Howa 1500 chambered for the 7.62x39. At least 2000 rounds through each of them.

I picked up twenty five boxes of 200 rounds from an estate sale, just before Covid started all this mess.

It shoots consistently into 3 inches from the SKS, which was a non refurb, new in crate Russian when I bought it, and about 2 inches from the Howa.

I've had the Howa have failures to fire, and a couple of hang fires, with some surplus Chinese ammo, but never any issues with the Fusion.

The SKS just gobbles up everything it's fed flawlessly. Never had a failure to fire or hang fire with it.

I'm thinking the hammer spring on your 30-30 lever action is weak, or you have a firing pin tip/protrusion issue.

One "squib" can happen with any brand, no matter how expensive, but several means a mechanical issue with the rifle is your issue.

I find Federal primers, which I would assume are used in Fusion ammo, to be softer than most others.

Fusion brass is excellent to reload as I get at least 4 shots before annealing.
 
bearhunter said:
One is too many, and you say you had several?

With today's quality controls, I would start looking at the rifle.

Fusions aren't my first choice for most of the shooting I do, simply because I usually only use hand loads.

I have shot off a lot of Fusion ammunition through an SKS and Howa 1500 chambered for the 7.62x39. At least 2000 rounds through each of them.

I picked up twenty five boxes of 200 rounds from an estate sale, just before Covid started all this mess.

It shoots consistently into 3 inches from the SKS, which was a non refurb, new in crate Russian when I bought it, and about 2 inches from the Howa.

I've had the Howa have failures to fire, and a couple of hang fires, with some surplus Chinese ammo, but never any issues with the Fusion.

The SKS just gobbles up everything it's fed flawlessly. Never had a failure to fire or hang fire with it.

I'm thinking the hammer spring on your 30-30 lever action is weak, or you have a firing pin tip/protrusion issue.

One "squib" can happen with any brand, no matter how expensive, but several means a mechanical issue with the rifle is your issue.

I find Federal primers, which I would assume are used in Fusion ammo, to be softer than most others.

Fusion brass is excellent to reload as I get at least 4 shots before annealing.
Click to expand...
No issues with any other ammo, it’s a Marlin 336, in 30/30. Gun was made in 1981. For us, two was too many. First was the one hunting, then one at the range. Two different lot numbers. About 20-25 years ago. No issues since with either my handloads or Leverolution. I do agree the Fusion brass is good.
 
Personally I like Rem Corelokt and Winchester superX. Haven't had any issues with those two, but I had some federal (270win) that blew primers and messed up my gun (dislodged the extractor and jammed the rifle), and had some Hornady that was like 300fps below advertised velocity (243win).

Likely one off flukes and not REALLY worth discounting the entire line of ammo over, but if there's other options for the same general price I'm picking those over Fed blue box or Hornady. As they say, once bitten twice shy.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom