What is the WORST factory ammo you have ever fired?

scout3006

scout3006

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What is the WORST factory ammo you have ever had the displeasure of shooting?

Two come to mind for me:

[1] Polish 12 Gauge "Olympic" loads. Purchased these years ago from Bell Distributors. They were the hands-down worst shotshells I have ever fired. Dirty beyond belief (I honestly thought they were loaded with blackpowder) and inconsistent to the point of not being confident of hitting anything past point blank range. Yuck.:mad:

[2] Aguila .357 Magnum - early production, (circa early to mid '90's) "Full Metal Case" bullets. (Again, bought at Bell Distributors around the same time period.) After firing a box of these, it turned my .357 into a .36 caliber shotgun - no rifling was visible! This was because, after taking apart one of the rounds, I discovered that this was no "Full Metal Case" at all, but rather the bullet was a soft-swaged lead with a FMJ tip; the part that actually engaged the rifling was soft lead. (In all fairness, it seems Aguila's quality control has come up some though the years, but I know of no Canadian distributor as of present.)

I'm sure there's lots of other stories.....:runaway:
 
aluminum headed $42 a flat winchester shotshells. with rapid fire (ie IPSC)guaranteed to bind the action of all my 870's, winchester 97's and 12 within 3 to 5 shots, requiring a mighty heave and $$##$*! to get back in the game. ok for grouse hunting & but that's about it.
 
Federal Gold Medal 22LR,In one box of 500 alone I had brass split up the side,head seperate,lots of duds and 1 bullet stuck in the barrel.:eek:
 
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Some Polish .22cal that I still have from 20 years ago.

Thunderbolts from Walmart, average 2 FTF per bx of 50, you could tell that they weren't all loaded the same as the report and recoil would vary.
 
Norinco 5.56. The smell was nauseating.

I liked it in my Mini 14 however because when I used it not only did the rifle shoot like #### it smelled like it too.:runaway:
 
For me anything from Federal, weather it be 7mm, 30.06, 308, 257Rob, 22mag, 22-250. Shot shells are Shot shells for me I don't shot enough of those to know yet, but I do agree about some of them jamming the action of my 870 once in a while (I've never had that problem using Winchester).

Now there is one exception for Federal here from my 10/22 and other 22's the Bulk pack of 36grain from Wally Mart and the American Eagles work well, but mainly this was for my 10/22, all of my other 22's like the American Eagles or Winchester super-X, but will fire Federal just fine.

When it comes to Factory ammo in center-fires I have much better/tighter groupings using Winchester ammo, in any of my rifles. The Federal ammo was not precise enough for my taste in accuracy, but then again I haven't found any Factory ammo that really meets my tolerances for precise accuracy yet.
Once you start reloading your own and matching it up to the tolerances of the rifle chamber of a particular rifle, Factory ammo stands in the very back of the line when it comes down to accuracy, all the other stuff is just junk in that department.
Also reloading brings on a whole new relationship between you and your firearm, and a better knowledge of other firearms as well, plus it usually costs less per box and you can customize it your liking.
I usually don't buy Factory anymore, except for .22's & shot shells of course, and the odd box of center fire just to plink with to get some newer brass, for reloading.

All factory ammo has worked just fine never a dud (center-fire) but it depends on what you consider acceptable for performance?

For those of you that had the pleasure of viewing my so call 200yrd target (that was previously posted here earlier to which I have since removed), my appologizies for falsely stating it as being 200 yards, to which the target had been marked, Today (13th) when I went to use my scanner I found the target still in the machine and a small note on the back, correcting my actual target distance, it mentioned that I had placed my planned 200yard target on the 100 yard stake instead of it's intended distance (I usually mark my targets before I put them up), so for the record it was 100 yards not 200 like I had mentioned earlier, opp's me Bad.:bangHead:
 
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This isn't first hand but "Olympic" is a brand I recognize from a review on another site. Here it is:


Olympic 62gr & 55gn:


Hello. I want to warn anyone who is thinking of buying this OLYMPIC ammo to NOT TO DO IT!!! I have a case of ss109 and a case of the 193 stuff. I have shot about 30 rounds of the 109 stuff and it aways failed to eject and the last round blew the primer and froze up the bolt on my Bushmaster shorty. The 55grain 193 ammo did just as bad except about 3 out of every ten would eject. The accuracy was very bad. Around six inches at 100 yds. There is something wrong with this ammo. It looks real nice and is new but it is BAD BAD BAD. Dont waste your money and DONT DAMAGE YOUR GUN. I have 1900 rounds of the ammo left. It is about $400 worth. It is not worth one dollar. I wont even trade it. I am putting it in the land fill so no one else gets a damaged gun or hurt. This is not a joke. I mean it. Any questions you can email me. Submitted by: kelly49boy@aol.com
Also, in regard to Olympic Ammo... i have fired about 2000 rounds of it now with only one FTE and a brief incident of short-stroking which was cleared by adding some CLP. No complaints and tell the gent i will take his 'land fill' rounds and put some holes in paper with them. Submitted by: Domenic DomatUNR@aol.com
Olympic 62 Gr. SS109, Fired 100 rounds through a Colt MTHBAR. 70 to 80 of these failed to eject. I would get extraction, but no ejection. Bolt would stop halfway over the magazine. This was a reliably bad ammo. Submitted by: Jim Dillus, jimdillus@yahoo.com​
Gaged 400 rounds, of randomly picked 50 round boxes using Dillon gage. All of it speced perfectly. Fired 300 rnds of it today, with no failures to fire, no failures to feed, no failures to eject, and no blown primers. Fired this out of three different uppers, 1 11.5 inch w/5 inch flash hider, and 2 20 inch uppers, one of which was a 1:7 twist. Its a bit dirty, but no worse than UMC or some of the other target ammo. Accuracy was decent. Able to hit a 4 inch metal post consistanly, rapid fire(1 rnd per second) at 100 yds from bench using A1 sights with all three uppers. I'll also take some of the landfill ammo if he's giving it away. Submitted by: Tom, tommygun2000@attbi.com 4/6/03
I "tried" to use 90 rounds of Olympic SS109 head stamped NPA 01 at the top and 5.56X45 at the bottom, this stuff is junk! I had a Bushmaster shorty AK, which I've put all kinds of different stuff through just fine, like wolf 55 grn, federal M193, Winchester (the israeli kind), South African 55 grn. just to name afew, and I never had a problem. I would like to agree with the other comments about the Olympic SS109, it is by far the worst ammo I have ever used ever, and I don't mean just in the AR, I mean ammo for every weapon and every caliber I have ever fired! I have never seen anything like it. Over half the rounds didn't eject, sometimes because of a short stroke sometimes because they got stuck in the boltface which caused nasty double feeds. To top it all off, the rifle was filthy after firing the first mag. I put a whole battle pack of south African through with out that much filth, probably the cleanest ammo I have used next to some M855 made by Olin. Cleaning the rifle after using the Olympic ammo was similar to cleaning a black powder rifle. If I hadn't have put 20 rounds of the Olin brand M855 through after using the Olympic, cleaning the gun might have took hours. I knew the Olin M855 was very clean, it comes in a white box on stripper clips. It says M855 PENETRATOR I highly recomend it. Olin has factories in Israel and the US, they also supply winchester the 193 copies, the "white box" stuff. The M855 have the NATO cross. To say the least, the problem with the Olympic SS109 dwells in the powder. I also noted when I was loading some stripper clips with Olympic SS109 that it slid a bit harder into the clip than M855 NATO or M193 NATO. I tried the same stripper clips with each kind and the Olympic slid on harder every time. Plus it would bind up when trying to charge a magazine. Where NATO type loaded perfectly, I never got out the micrometer but I think the stripper clip experience was enough to lend notion that case size might play a part in the rounds getting stuck on the bolt face. Submitted by: Rob ss109grntp@westelcom.com 4/11/03
I just bought a Colt Target Match M-4 Carbine with a 1:7. It was suggested that I use 62gr ammo only for this barrel twist. So I bought the cheapest. Olympic SS109 in 62gr made in Greece. Well when I got to the range (all excitied to shoot) I loaded up my 30 round mags with this stuff. Slapped it into my new M-4 and charged a round into the chamber. Fired 5 shots and on the sixth shot nothing. Pulled the charging handle back and no round was in the chamber. Let it slam to home. Fired one shot and JAM. Cleared the jam and fired again. Jam. This next jam was bad. A primer was lodged into the chamber with a live round jammed in there also. I cleared the jam and when I ejected the mag a few primers fell out!!! I went to look for the spent casings and found a few with the primers blown off! Well I continued to load up a 20 rd mag. Fired once, JAM. Cleared and fired again, JAM. I was getting so frustrated because this rifle is BRAND NEW. Cleared the jam and tried again. This time when I tried to fire the hammer failed to drop! Pulled the charging handle and ejected a live round and a fresh round went into the chamber. Pressed the trigger and nothing. Hammer won't drop. I made safe and opened her up. What I saw was beyond me. The trigger group was covered in primers. They were lodged in everywhere. It took me an hour to clear all the primers out of the trigger group so that it could function. Finally I told myself, this ammo is bad stuff. I looked through my spotting scope and the accuracy was TERRIBLE at 100 yards. I was upset. I did bring a long a box of Winchester Q3131A in 55gr. Loaded 25 rounds in a mag and fired. Not a single jam. Bolt held open after last shot (unlike the Olympic junk). This is a conclusion that the Olympic SS109 in 62gr ammo is defective. At least the batch I got. It is not safe ammo. Please be aware of this stuff. At one point when I ejected a mag the first round on top had a loose bullet! I touched it and the bullet came off and the powder just came right out. The bullet was not seated correctly or it came loose from .223 recoil. Take it for what its worth. I will NEVER use this stuff. Beware of Olympic ammo from Greece. Submitted by: p7wu@sbcglobal.net 5/12/03​

Not too good I'd say.​
 
Useless

Jarlath said:
Winchester Dynapoint .22WMR.
Most useless bunch of crap .22WMR I ever had the displeasure of shooting.
Click to expand...
The damn stuff wouldn't even fit in the .22Mag cylinder of my Ruger Single Six.
 
That's interesting that stuff works great in my 22mag Savage 93 (G or F)
Dynapoint 45g's, on the mark 95% of the time I'd say, have you tried CIL Maxi Mag + V (five), I had excellent marks with that stuff to, but the Dynapoints are $5 cheaper.
So it really boils down to what works in your gun.
I also had to break my gun in and it took about 400 rounds before accuracy came into play with it, it took awhile, I almost gave up on the gun and sold it, but one day out of the blue it began to shoot the mark every time and still does today.
 
12 gauge winchester multi purpose loads from walmart 2 years ago. 4 of the first 5 jammed in my gun. the cases split from the edge by the plastic all the way back to the im. gave them away to a buddy that insisted on using them...
 
I would say winchester Xpert's were the worst ever 22 round I've shot. It was the first box I put through my 10/22 and it had me thinking my gun was a dud.

Poor acuraccy, dirty rounds, many fail to fires, many stovepipes. I ended up chucking half a brick as it was so crappy.

Since then I've shot stingers, minimags, blasers, american eagles, yellowjackets, dynapoints, zappers, velocitors, and even low power target rounds like pmc match ( which isn't even recomended for semi's as it may not have the power to cycle the action) and none of these gave me anywhere close to the issues I got with xperts.
 
Jarlath said:
Winchester Dynapoint .22WMR.

Most useless bunch of crap .22WMR I ever had the displeasure of shooting.
Click to expand...


Their .22calLR from Walmart is great stuff, my guns love it and I might have 1 FTF out of 500.
 
Gevelot--.270 and .30-06--flattened and blown primers--shot part of a box of each --pulled bullets on rest and found plain base and boattail bullets in same box, same weight, powder charges varied by up to 2 grains.

44Bore
 
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