Looking at picking up some more ammo, and I am seeing what looks like a resurrection of the old Federal Champion ammo line.

Does anyone here have any experience with the centerfire brass cased Champion ammo?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

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Judge control not gun control!

I've only been shooting for six years, but Federal Champion brand has been around during that time. I've tried it in a few calibers. It's fine on sale, but not as consitant as their American Eagle is for me.

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It's a bit of a moving target in terms of both time and caliber.

For example, I have used recently produced Federal 158 gr JSP .357 Magnum in both the American Eagle and the Champion packaging and both give consistent 2 MOA accuracy at 100 yards with the same average velocities and standard deviations in my Model 92 rifles. In short, I can't detect any difference in the 158 gr JSP loading other than the packaging. The headstamps are also identical and I am virtually certain that they are made on the same machines with the same components.

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However, 5 or 6 years ago I noted a significant difference between the Federal 115 gr FMJ loads for their American Eagle and Champion loads. Federal used a traditional jacketed 115 gr FMJ in the American Eagle load, and a plated 115 gr FMJ bullet in the Champion load. As a result Federal labeled the Champion load "not for law enforcement use" due to concerns of jacket fragmentation from the thinner jacket in some law enforcement training scenarios.

To make things more confusing, if you go back further to about 10 years ago, the major differences in the American Eagle and Champion loads in .380 Auto, 9mm Luger, .40 S&W and .45 ACP loads were:

- Champion in these calibers was sold through Walmart stores; and
- the headstamp was different, "FC" for Federal American Eagle, and ".FC." for Champion:



Obviously Walmart won't be selling Champion pistol rounds anymore, so it'll be interesting to see what happens to the Champion brand and whether it has a lasting role in the Federal line up.

Seems to me that I read that the .FC. brass was made using a different process and was not as good for reloading.

Re: FC brass. The following is only my experience. I have been reloading .38/.357, .30-06, .308 and .45 ACP for a little over 40 years. I've not had any problem w/ pistol brass regardless of manufacturer. I've had no problems with rifle brass except in .308 Winchester. In that caliber, I have had problems reloading w/ Federal brass in .308 Winchester. Using Federal Gold Medal Match brass I have found that after the first load, it is not uncommon for the primer pocket to be loose to the point that after a second load, the case must be discarded. Loads have not been hot as I was loading for target use. I have not had any problems with this particular load in any other brand of .308 Winchester casing. YMMV. Sincerely. bruce.

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I have fired a few thousand rounds of 9mm Federal Champion and a couple hundred rounds of .40 S&W. I had one 9mm round fail to fire. Otherwise it worked fine and the 9mm shoots pretty nice groups for me.

I shot several hundred rounds of Federal Champion 115 grain 9mm FMJ in my ported Shield before I noticed "not for ported barrels" in very small print on the box. After shooting the Champions in my ported Shield some plating was left fused to the end of the barrel. It came off pretty easily and didn't happen shooting Remington UMC FMJ. Now I only use it in my non-ported guns.

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That warning usually pertains to ammunition using plated bullets, but there are some caveats.

1) Not all ports are created equal. Ports are made after the barrel is rifled and when the port is machines, you can have some metal roll over on the edges and stand proud in the bore. It's hard to clean that up without lapping the bore to remove it and the manufacturer or gunsmith porting the barrel may or may not have done that.

2) Over time, any burrs around the port will wear down or be removed by some number of rounds fired, and they become less of a problem.

3) Not all plated bullets are created equal. For example, most "bonded" premium bullets have jackets that are in fact plated. However it's a thick plating comparable to a traditional drawn copper jacket.

Plate bullets from Berry's and Xtreme also come in regular and heavy plate jacket thicknesses, with the heavy plate bullets designed for higher velocities without stripping or damaging the plated jacket.

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So in essence, you've got three different classes of plated bullets. With the "bonded" thick plated jacketed bullets they are no different than a jacketed bullet in terms of use in a ported barrel.

At the other extreme, the thin plated jacket on the thin plated bullets can be damaged by the burrs or edges on the ports, and warnings are sometimes made against the use of those bullets in ported barrels.

However, those warnings are based on some worst case assumptions about the quality and finish of the ports in the barrel, so it may or may not be a problem for a particular pistol or revolver.

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Again, the use of plated bullets in Champion ammunition has been sporadic. I bought 1000 rounds of Federal Brass 115 gr 9mm ammo a couple months ago, which is Champion ammo, the "Champion" is just in really small letters. On the boxes, Federal listed the bullet as the "Champion FMJ RN" and includes both the "not for law enforcement use" and "not for use in ported or compensated barrels" warnings. From that, I've determined that "Champion FMJ RN" is Federal speak for "plated bullet".