Nosler Ammo - Bad Round

[Laelkhunter]

I got a couple boxes of M855A1 military ammo for testing last year. What came out of those boxes was shocking. Necks look like they were crimped with channel locks, asphalt oozed out of the necks, bullets malformed, penetrators wobbling, etc... Then when I shot it the stuff had SD's over 70fps and made zero groups smaller than 4" @ 100yrds. I was horrified thinking we were issuing this kind of garbage to our war fighters. Later on in the year I was at a US military base to watch a SF 3-gun match and they were using all M855A1. I took the opportunity to inspect a bunch of it and it was all as one would expect, properly QC'd. They all screw the pooch once in a while I guess.

The ammo you bought was possibly rejects from the factory that DID NOT pass the QC inspection. It was then sold to whoever you bought it from as "Rejects" and intended to be sold as components only, not ammo to be shot as is.
Military and LE ammo usually goes through an extra step or two of inspections before it is labeled as such. With that said, my dept issues Winchester 9mm +p+ 127 grain ammo, and it is labeled as LE duty ammo. We found a round with the primer seated sideways. Fortunately it was immediately evident when the box was opened, and not loaded in the Deputy's magazine to be carried on duty.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

The ammo you bought was possibly rejects from the factory that DID NOT pass the QC inspection. It was then sold to whoever you bought it from as "Rejects" and intended to be sold as components only, not ammo to be shot as is.
Military and LE ammo usually goes through an extra step or two of inspections before it is labeled as such. With that said, my dept issues Winchester 9mm +p+ 127 grain ammo, and it is labeled as LE duty ammo. We found a round with the primer seated sideways. Fortunately it was immediately evident when the box was opened, and not loaded in the Deputy's magazine to be carried on duty.

I didn't buy it. A company asked me to independently evaluate the ammo and come up with an estimated BC for the projectiles and provided it to me. I'm not certain what their source was though so the explanation you gave may be the case.

 

[Laelkhunter]

Sorry for assuming that you did buy it. What did they say when you told them about the quality of the ammo?

 

[the444shooter]

Give their customer service people a call. I had a bad batch of 7mm Stw ammo from them years ago with a bunch of blown primers and crazy ES and they replaced 2 boxes with 4 boxes from another lot and didn't even ask me to send them the evidence, just the pictures.

Giving up the brass at that time would have been a deal breaker for me.

Yes, give them a call. I had to call them when some 140gr 7mm Accubond ammo was 200fps slower than advertised. They asked for the lot number, and looked back on it to see what they could find. They said that some from that timeframe was slightly slower than advertised, but not to that extreme. They sent me a new box of 140gr Accubonds when they did another production run of them. It took a while, but I was pleased with the outcome...would've been MORE pleased if the ammo just performed as advertised, but you can't bat 1.000 all the time.

 

[WildRose]

Yes, give them a call. I had to call them when some 140gr 7mm Accubond ammo was 200fps slower than advertised. They asked for the lot number, and looked back on it to see what they could find. They said that some from that timeframe was slightly slower than advertised, but not to that extreme. They sent me a new box of 140gr Accubonds when they did another production run of them. It took a while, but I was pleased with the outcome...would've been MORE pleased if the ammo just performed as advertised, but you can't bat 1.000 all the time.

Keep in mind that published velocities are based solely on the specific continuations in which they are tested and/or data put into the formulas.

As we've discussed in many threads velocity varies greatly with temp depending on the powder used.

Unfortunately there's only so much we can reasonably expect from even the best factory ammo.

As long as it groups to my standards and has a reasonable ES I can live with the variations unless they are so large s to have been impossible to start with. When that occurs, I know I'm being lied to and get angry.

 

[the444shooter]

In my *limited* experience of chronographing factory ammo, I find that 95+% of the time, it's a reasonable speed compared to what is advertised. The 2 glaring instances that I've had them fail miserably to achieve close to advertised velocities were with factory 162gr Hornady ELDX and 140gr Nosler Accubonds.

 

[The Oregonian]

I had this piece of brass in a box of 28 Nosler bought at the beginning of this year. I used it for the dummy round I keep for COAL so it didn't bother me, but it reminded me to check every piece of brass before loading it.

 

[WildRose]

In my *limited* experience of chronographing factory ammo, I find that 95+% of the time, it's a reasonable speed compared to what is advertised. The 2 glaring instances that I've had them fail miserably to achieve close to advertised velocities were with factory 162gr Hornady ELDX and 140gr Nosler Accubonds.

Similar to my luck so far.

The worst I've ever tested was some DT custom 7mm STW with an ES of over 200fps and numerous blown primers and other pressure signs.

I had six boxes, of it, contacted them, they verified they'd bought a bad batch of CCI primers and had a problem with the powder metering on that run.

They sent me 8 boxes from a completely different batch and allowed me to keep all of the other to use for brass. They even gave me an appropriate load for that round so I could simply pull the bullets, and reload them after reprising them.

They earned a lot of customer loyalty that day.

Nosler was nearly as good with the one batch of bad Ammo I got from them in the same caliber.

Most of the time how they react is directly proportional to how we present the problem. If you call up mad, making threats etc you're pretty well guaranteed a negative response while the opposite also holds true.

In the age of the internet word of mouth advertising value has gone up astronomically because good news travels fast and bad news travels at twice the speed of light.

Even if the bash of a company is totally unwarranted once it starts circulating it will usually be assumed to be true by most people because most people believe that every company is out to screw them till proven otherwise.

 

[DoubleGobble00]

I called Nosler and they are going to send me some brass or ammo. The guy I spoke to was very knowledgeable and helpful. He said it wouldn't have hurt to fire it since it was on the neck/shoulder and would have performed like a piece of brass whose neck splits when gets too thin.

I still plan to shoot Nosler ammo in my guns. I had just never seen that defect before.

 

[VernAK]

I have a box of Federal 338 Federal 210 NPs that I bought for my handy little Kimber
84M. I usually remove my firing pin and cycle all ammo through the rifle for function but was in a hurry this time. As I started for my bear bait, I found a round that wouldn't chamber......then a second one.....

Federal really didn't seem to care that they may have a sizing problem nor did they want the batch number or offer recourse of any kind.

 

[Peddler 76]

Norma still makes Nosler's brass.

 

[ENGUNEER]

I've seen this many times on new WW brass. In fact, I quit buying WW brass because I had too many culls from this type of problem. I have fired them and they fire without problems though. I just don't believe that they can be as accurate, etc.