Commercial ammo preferences?

HawgBonz

HawgBonz

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I'm wanting to do a lot more practicing with the handguns now that I have some steels to play with..
Gonna take the lazy route this go'round so looking into some 1k cases of 9mm FMJ brass cased on Ammoman and SGammo.
But it's been a very long time since I bought commercial ammo.
Checkin into the usual suspects. Maxx/MagTech, PMC, PPU, S&B, Blazer and such.
Are any of these known to be problematic in any way concerning quality or reloading aggravation (including crimped primers)?
Just figgered I'd check first before buying into a possible PITA.. Thanks!! :cool:
 
I loved 124 gr Norma, but now they're on their third recall in about as many months across multiple calibers, so I cannot recommend them moving forward. It's a shame, as it was accurate, consistent, and I never had a single malfunction with their 9mm in any of my pistols.
 
Currently, my favorite blasting ammo has been Freedom Munitions remanufactured line. I can get 9mm for 12-13 per box and .45 for around 20 a box. Sometimes they have free shipping deals, and normally their shipping isnt terrible to begin with.

Of more commercial brands, I have always like Sellier and Bellot, Federal, and PMC. But honestly, I have never really found one particular brand to be grossly worse (or better) than the other.

The only ammo I actively avoid is Winchester Steel stuff. It was the most dirty, nasty, icky ammo I ever used...and considering my penchant for russian steel cased ammo, that is saying a lot. It would leave my fingers with a black powder dust from the cases. It shot ok, but sheesh they could at least clean em up a little.
 
Speer Lawmen is my go-to for my range sessions but I don’t discriminate. I have had zero issues with Norma red box ammo, Blazer Brass, American Eagle or S&B.
 
Defender when I can get it
Blazer Brass 124s or 115s, whatever is on sale otherwise
 
B00ger said:
The only ammo I actively avoid is Winchester Steel stuff.
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I shoot wolf and tula steel case and have been known to pick up random rusting tula rounds from the ground at the range and fire them.

But I won't ever buy another box of that winchester steel stuff ("forged" is the marketing name or something)? I tried a box thinking that the tales of woe were over-hyped. I was wrong.
 
I have had no issues sticking with brass-cased ammo from American manufacturers (large and small) not currently in or recently in bankruptcy.
 
Outdoor Limited is advertising 9mm for .26 to .28 right now. With the exception of Precision One, I've never heard of any of the brands, but it's pretty cheap.
 
Jayne said:
I shoot wolf and tula steel case and have been known to pick up random rusting tula rounds from the ground at the range and fire them.

But I won't ever buy another box of that winchester steel stuff ("forged" is the marketing name or something)? I tried a box thinking that the tales of woe were over-hyped. I was wrong.
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Yup…that’s the stuff. When I saw it I was excited we were going to have some cheap domestic steel cased ammo. But nope.
 
Thanks for the responses, fellas.
With the huge difference in pricing for 124gr FMJ vs "defensive loads" the idea is to blast with the relatively cheap FMJ commercial then refill'em with XTP's and other non-boutique HP's. Buying components the difference in the two seems somewhat negligible..
At $300-330ish for the FMJ commercial I'd just as soon keep my supplies and stack up some decent brass while gettin in some practice. :cool:
 
Any try PSA’s AAC 9mm yet?
 
Supermatch said:
I loved 124 gr Norma, but now they're on their third recall in about as many months across multiple calibers, so I cannot recommend them moving forward. It's a shame, as it was accurate, consistent, and I never had a single malfunction with their 9mm in any of my pistols.
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I've shot GECO/Norma for years, but the last 124gr 9mm I bought has been funky. Failures to feed in Glocks and failure to return to battery in P365s. It's not under the recall, but 5% failure rate is unusually high for Swiss-made 9mm NATO.

Prvi Partizan, and S&B for me since the tend to load .32ACP, .380ACP, and 9x19 to standard velocities for range ammo. Their 556 is also hella more consistent compared to Winchester and Federal.
 
Slimer said:
I've shot GECO/Norma for years, but the last 124gr 9mm I bought has been funky. Failures to feed in Glocks and failure to return to battery in P365s. It's not under the recall, but 5% failure rate is unusually high for Swiss-made 9mm NATO.
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Out of curiosity, was it the red box Norma Range and Training, or the white box/bulk packaged stuff?
 
I love Defender ammo when available.I have shot it in 9mm and 5.56 and it has shot great with no trouble.Also,I use Blazer Brass because it is usually cheap and never had an issue.
 
Supermatch said:
Out of curiosity, was it the red box Norma Range and Training, or the white box/bulk packaged stuff?
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Yeah, I'm also curious if it was Euro made or USA made. Seems the problems I've heard of are all coming from the USA made stuff. I've heard, but been unable to verify the .308 recall and the 5.56 recall were both made by Winchester under contract. I'm not sure who's been making the USA made 9mm, but if it were Winchester that also wouldn't surprise me. I stopped buying Winchester white box 9mm back in like 2014 for a reason.
 
Bsides01 said:
I love Defender ammo when available.I have shot it in 9mm and 5.56 and it has shot great with no trouble.Also,I use Blazer Brass because it is usually cheap and never had an issue.
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I've never had an issue with Blazer brass either, but my wife can limp wrist that stuff good enough to cause failures. That tells me it's loaded to the edge of decent quality and no further. If I set her up with Lawman or Federal or Hungarian Geco or S&B the guns run fine for her.
 
Supermatch said:
Out of curiosity, was it the red box Norma Range and Training, or the white box/bulk packaged stuff?
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Swiss-made red box. Not subject to the recall, but absolutely not typical Norma performance. With the problems happening across several calibers, its easier to let QC catchup.

In fairness, not exactly a Norma exclusive problem since QC has been down across the ammo manufacturers since the 2020 "Use the Flu" economic & political attack.
 
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