Hornady ammunition

[tinman13kup]

Anybody ever deal with Hornady on defective ammunition? I picked up a NIB 338LM recently and not having anything in that caliber for reloading, also picked up a box of Hornady 285gr BTHP ammo. I fired the first 19 with no issues, but on the last round the bolt wouldn't go forward enough to cam over. I initially thought extractor, so I pulled the round and tried chambering twice more. I noticed 3 dings on the shoulder, so I went back to the house to check it out. A fired round chambered just fine, but a quick comparison showed the neck on the defective round to be a good tenth shorter and has a lip. I didn't go any further in measuring because it really doesn't matter, I cannot use that round. I'm hoping that Hornady will at least replace the round, since it was $5, plus the costs of the reloads I would have gotten out of the brass. Are they (Hornady) a "it was only one round" company, or a " it should have never happened, I will make it right" company?

 

[backwoods83]

I doubt they will do anything about it as it was only 1 round and ammo sales are final, no reurns, id also think about some other brass, hornady brass is soft, I think it sucks, and have never had good luck with it. Good luck on your problem I know it sucks when stuff cost that much.

 

[tinman13kup]

Well, that's what I was figuring. The Hornady brass is just until I get some Lapua brass. I can start getting some loads worked up with it to see what's going to perform well in this gun. I've found that it isn't always getting as much powder in the case as it is the right powder/bullet/oal combination. I can't just stop buying Hornady products either, since I use many XTP's in handgun calibers when reloading.

 

[backwoods83]

No, your right I use a lot of their bullets with good results and they are pretty cheap to, I just hate their brass. If you use 250 grainers they usually do good just under 3000fps, the 265-285s like around 2900, and the 300s at 2775-2825fps, that's a start, not always the case but usually in that ballpark.

 

[tinman13kup]

Thanks. I'm starting to think this is going to be my unlucky gun, just not getting off to a good start. I've got enough reloading components to last for many years, and this is the first time I've had to buy new powder, primers (magnum), dies, brass, and even bulk type bullets. Yeah, I grab XTPs once in a while for the desert eagle, but I have lots of lead and FMJ's laying around. At first, I couldn't find any H1000, so I found some IMR to start with. Next, I have cases of standard rifle primers, but no magnums, so I went down and figured I'd just buy a few packs. There was an open box of fed215s up top and I grabbed it, looked in and saw 4 boxes and bought it. Too bad it was 4 boxes of fed 100. The heaviest bullet they had was a 225gr SST, but they also had 200gr as well. It's lighter than I wanted, but I like to have a light bullet and heavy bullet set up for the rifle, so I grabbed them. That leaves me with only 19 usable pieces of brass, 4 boxes of small pistol primers, a lb of IMR, and some light bullets. I thought I could get away without trimming cases, but a check of them showed differences of .07, so now I need to grab the plate and pilot for the case trimmer. I'm feeling like a newbie to this stuff. Maybe I'm just getting old.

 

[tinman13kup]

Well, surprise surprise. Got a reply from Hornady in less than 1 business day. They want to know what caused the issue and are replacing the round. It's good seeing companies make things right, without any hassles.