Don't trust the factories too much

[analog_peninsula]

Well, something just happened to reinforce that we shouldn't trust the ammo factories too much. I just opened a fresh bag of Remington .375 H&H brass from the days when they were having financial difficulties. Aside from case mouths that looked like they were cut with hacksaws, I found that my nominal 50 count bag had 49 pieces of 375 brass and two very nice .30-06 cases. Events like this just make me wonder WTF. Winchester isn't immune either. I had a 7mm WSM round of factory ammo that had a primer that was only seated about 3/4 of the way, and I distantly recall another instance where I had a round with a torn neck. Obvious failures like the torn case neck aren't too bad since they're, well, obvious, but I once had 16 gauge ammo mixed in with 12 gauge ammo, and that can be a real problem. While it's possible that the 16 / 12 mix happened after the factory (stock guy drops boxes, they mix, he puts them back not noticing the difference, etc.), the argument against that having happened is that the 16 and 12 ammo had the same plastic case color. To the best of my knowledge, the majors use different case colors for different gauges precisely to avoid that type of mess. In my case, both the 12 and 16 were the same green color and were virtually identical at first glance. I was at a pheasant tower shoot, and I had dumped the ammo boxes directly into my shooting bag for quick reloads. In the heat of the shoot, I simply reached into the bag, grabbed two shells and shoved them into my shotgun. Nothing blew up, thank goodness, but it still rendered the shotgun inoperable for the remainder of the shoot and required a trip to the gunsmith for repair. For the record, I didn't even own a 16 gauge shotgun at the time, nor had I owned one previously. In the interest of fairness, it's also a possibility that the ammo had been deliberately tampered with post factory as I probably bought it off the shelf at Walmart.

Aside from the obvious life lessons to visually inspect all of one's ammo before use rather than grabbing onesie twosie out of the factory box, and remembering to cycle all rifle ammo through one's rifle before hunting with it, my generalized takeaway from these failures is that a certain amount of caution is a healthy thing.

And don't trust the reloading manuals too much either. I just had a "starter" book load generate 150 fps over book max velocity. Granted there was a bullet switch, but 250+ fps more than expected was quite the surprise. I also once ran a comparison of four book loads that nominally produced identical velocity. Identical components except for the powder, but the velocity range was 180 fps from the high load to the low load, suggesting a considerable variation in chamber pressure.

Never a dull moment, is there?

 

[grand veneur]

I have never had any problems with factory loads so far, but I am not surprised that many things can go wrong when you look at the mass production of cartridges.

The problem with reloading manuals is something else. Data from a manual cannot simply be copied. These are theoretical data often determined using test barrels, or if they are obtained with a firearm, then it is one that may not be identical to your own. The same applies to the data printed on cartridge boxes. Before reloading cartridges for your own firearm, you must know the exact internal characteristics of your barrel, especially the design of the throat and the rifling. For example, without a longer free-bore you would never can use for some bullets the maximum loads listed in a manual. The risk of a too fast pressure increasing is very high. The contrary will be with a too long free-bore. Therefore, for me, the data in a manual are only indications of what one could put into a cartridge, but not more.

 

[Wyatt Smith]

It really bugs me that most companies don’t use the color coding for shotgun ammunition.
Federal does pretty well there, but the rest are any color they chose.

 

[deewayne2003]

It really bugs me that most companies don’t use the color coding for shotgun ammunition.
Federal does pretty well there, but the rest are any color they chose.

I have 2 collections of shotgun shells ranging from .410 - 10ga

One is all red hulls and the other all green.

I use them during 4-H training sessions to beat home that color means nothing for shotgun shells.

This is also why I do not like making brass by forming into different calibers than what’s noted on the head stamp.

 

[DaddyFlip]

Color used to always indicate gauge when plastic hulls came along, if memory serves:

• 10ga brown
• 12ga red
• 16ga purple
• 20ga yellow
• 410ga blue

Like the days when you could count on Honda=red, Yamaha=yellow, Kawasaki=green, Suzuki=orange. I don't remember when or why Yamaha changed to blue.

 

[coreydb]

I always come across what I call "duds" when shooting factory ammo. Nothing is more frustrating than hearing the click from the trigger. What can you do? I get more of them with my shotgun than my rifles combined. I finally began re-loading rifle and pistol, but not shotgun....

 

[coyote wacker]

I started reloading back in the late 60's ammo was expensive for a young boy with his only income was a paper route. If I relied on my Dad or Grandfather I would only get 3 shotgun shells from them because it was 2 bird limit for pheasants. And they expected you to come home with your limit and one shell unfired. I picked up a old MEC from a neighbor for free and picked up every empty hull I could find and reloaded them.
So pretty much my hole life I've been a reloader. Only when steel shot was required to hunt ducks did I buy shotgun shells. But as soon as steel shot was avalible to reload, I was reloading them.
Rifle and pistols don't have a gun that I don't have a set of dies to reload. Only factory ammo I have is pistol ammo for the guns that I carry.

 

[DaddyFlip]

Color used to always indicate gauge when plastic hulls came along, if memory serves:

• 10ga brown
• 12ga red
• 16ga purple
• 20ga yellow
• 410ga blue

Like the days when you could count on Honda=red, Yamaha=yellow, Kawasaki=green, Suzuki=orange. I don't remember when or why Yamaha changed to blue.

Though 28ga wasn't common (it was rare), maybe it was blue and 410ga was green- no, it was red. Man, that was a long time ago. I think the standards then were:

• 10ga brown
• 12ga red
• 16ga purple
• 20ga yellow
• 28ga blue
• 410ga red

I do have 12ga shells in several colors; red, black, green. For moto, Yamaha must have changed to blue when KTM came along and took orange, causing Suzuki to change to yellow. All that's changed again, but there WAS a time when you could look at the color and know what you had.

Funny- brass has always been brass, except when it was made of copper (and steel).