Hornady Critical Defense ammo *Bad*

I bought a box of Hornady "Critical Defense" ammunition for my Ruger GP100 back in late 2011. Fired off 6 rounds. They cycled and fired fine, however when it came time to eject the casings they were all jammed rock solid and I had to use a wooden dowel to get them out. I planned to call Hornady at the time and complain but I went through a move and lost my box of ammo until recently. Well I found the box of ammo this week and did a google search of the lot number and guess what? Numerous people on numerous forums had the same problems with their guns with Hornady's Critical Defense ammunition. Every time they called Hornady to complain they got the same respone "We'll send you a shipping label to send the ammo in so we can test it to find out what if anything is wrong with the ammo" This happened with several lot numbers of Critical Defense and always the same response were they play dumb. Never any recalls. This is serious because many people like myself intended to use Hornady's ammo for self defense and stuck ammo is not acceptable, especially when Hornady knows about it and does not issue a recall. What really pulled at my nerves today August 2013 is when I called Hornady and told them my story and provided the lot number...they gave me the same speel they gave callers from 2 years ago! They told m the whole line about sending a shipping label out and they will test the ammo to see what if anything is wrong with it. I wanted to share this experience with you all because this is not plinking ammo and you need to know how shady Hornady is. BTW here is the lot number on the ammunition I bought: Lot#3110983 Hornady Critical Defense 357 MAG 125gr FTX.
Who knows they might have fixed this problem, BUT the shady way they handled the mess by playing dumb with each caller to complain about the ammo and not issuing a recall and leaving ammo that they know is bad in the hands of people that count on it for their lives is pretty dirty for such a popular company. Go ahead and google that lot number if you'd like and you'll see all the problems. Anyways sorry for the rant but figured that this isn't something I should sit on and need to share.

Just another reason why you don't use new and unproven ammo for SD and you ALWAYS run a minimum of 200 rounds of your carry ammo to insure 100% functioning.

CTG_COLLECTOR said:

Just another reason why you don't use new and unproven ammo for SD and you ALWAYS run a minimum of 200 rounds of your carry ammo to insure 100% functioning.

Click to expand...

Agreed. In revolvers, I feel comfortable with 100 trouble free rounds, provided the gun is also normally trouble free.

My Glock has had 850 rounds of my carry ammo through it. That's not a typo.

That means if I choose Hornady Critical Defense, I have to buy >200 rounds and fire all of them before I load anything for carrying?, ouch, that is expensive!

Price is not the only reason why I would reconsider Critical Defense.

Hence why I only use speer gold dot. #1 my local L.E. carries it. #2 I've put over 2k of it through my service glock, and over 10,000 through everything else without a hiccup.

I trust my life to it

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I've pit 1000's pf rounds through several revolvers and have never had a jam..............

Here's how I do it. Buy a bunch and try. If they dont work in my gun I move on to the next brand. I dont have to have Hornady, they are fine but there are options out there that are just as good or better. Try Speer Gold Dot...excellent ammo. Or Win Rangers (dunno if they come in revolver cal).

IF I have a problem with all or most of them then its the gun and not the ammo.

Dont know why people make such a big deal out of one type of ammo no th working.

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USE WHAT YOUR LOCAL LEOS USE

Let them put in the time and $ doing reliability, accuracy, terminal performance studies. plus it's not considered an evil type ammo in court if it ever came to that. still run some (whatever you feel is right) in YOUR specific gun. MY 2 CENTS.

I'm still using the Remington +P FBI load in all my small thirty-eights.

158gr .357mag.

To the OP:

Did you follow up and send in the ammunition as you were requested to do? Nobody is going to issue a recall based on hearsay.

If you don't want to do that, perhaps you can borrow or rent a different revolver and see if the Ruger's chambers are on the tight side of tolerance. It could be that your particular gun runs better on a different ammunition. It's a very common phenomenon and one reason many of us reload.

Additionally if you have been shooting a lot of 38 Specials through it, as a lot of Magnum owners do, there can be build-up that can cause your ejection problem as well.

Ruger also cautions against cylinder binding due to possible lead build up in the crane area. If this happens, the manual says to lubricate the gap with CLP.

I'm not saying that you don't have a bad batch of ammo, but you may want to do some more research. Unless, that is, you joined this forum specifically to make a single post and bad mouth a brand of ammunition and you've already moved on.

I have never had the first loads fired in my revolvers, ever hang up or not extract with a normal push on the ejector rod.

Even heavy 38 or heavy 357 magnum loads in my M19 and 686 come out of the cylinder with the standard unloading procedure, over all the years I have been shooting.

However this is with a very CLEAN cylinder without any lead or powder build up, for top performance when needed for SD times, out of an unfired weapon.

With certain powders I can get target loads to have problems ejecting after only 40 rounds with powder build up in the cylinder of my snub nose with imr 4227.

Ammo is only as good as the gun and it's keeper.

I've never had this problem - next time I go to the range I'm taking all of my Hornady CD rounds and trying them out in my SD guns. Stuck cases are not acceptable! I tried the new Hornady CD Lite loads recently and they were fine.

***GRJ***

I've shot various Hornady defense rounds (Critical Defense, Duty and Tap), 115 to 135 +p and never ever had a problem (9mm M&P FS) . Just shot some today.

I will say after comparing a number of different kinds of SD ammo, I've settled on the Corbon 115 +p DPX .

I've shot a lot of Hornady CD and while I can't say it's my go-to round, I've never had an issue with it and have overall been pleased by its performance in tests by Brassfetcher and Dr. Gary Roberts.

I think in general it's from a capable and dependable maker and good line of ammo.

Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but I always make note when a new member's first and so far last post is a complaint about a given product.