Did some internet research today and discovered that Monarch is not an actual manufacturer, it is Academy's house brand. The brass cased ammo is made by PPU in Serbia. Base on my experience at the range this morning I won't be buying any more.

I went to the range this morning to break in my new 5th Generation Glock 19. I figured 250 rounds of 9mm would allow me to fine tune the sights to my liking and get comfortable shooting while determining any differences between it and my Glock 23 .40 S&W that has been my primary duty firearm for around 20 years. I had two boxes of Winchester white box 115 grain FMJ, two boxes of Remington brown box 115 grain FMJ, and one box of Monarch 115 grain FMJ that I bought last year at Academy just before the big ammo run.

I started out with one 15 round magazine loaded with Winchester white box. After five rounds I could already tell I needed to push the rear sight to the right a bit. I put five more rounds downrange and confirmed it. I pulled out my rear sight adjusting tool, cleared and disassembled the G19 and used the tool to adjust the rear sight to the right. After making the adjustment I reassembled the G19, and shot the remaining 5 rounds in the magazine. From those 5 rounds I could see I needed to push the sight to the right a little more so I repeated the process of adjusting the sights.

I loaded 15 more rounds into magazine and stepped back up to the line. I fired off 5 rounds and was satisfied with the sight adjustment so I finished off that box of Winchester white box with the G19 sights spot on and the gun running perfectly.

I reached into my range bag and pulled out the box of Monarch 9mm FMJ and loaded up the magazine. I stepped back up to the line and fired and got a failure to feed after the first round. Hmmm. I cleared it and fired a second round and got another failure to feed. I stopped and pulled out the magazine, cleared the issue, then field stripped the G19 to take a look at what's going on. Visual inspection looked good, so I reassembled it, and looked at the loaded magazine and popped out a round and inspected it. Everything looked good, so I replaced the round, inserted the magazine and fired resulting in another failure to feed.

I reached into my range bag and grabbed an empty magazine. I loaded 5 rounds from the box into it, inserted it into the G19 and fired with another failure to feed. I wasn't thinking ammo problems yet, although I probably should have. I noticed that all the rounds so far were hitting true to aim. I pulled out my 3rd magazine and loaded one rounds into it, inserted it into the G19 and fired. The bullet hit right on target, but the slide did not lock back. I went back to magazine #2 and stripped all but one round from the magazine, inserted it and fired. The slide did not lock back.

Hmmm, this is all very odd . . . Glocks don't act this way so I finally started thinking ammo problems. I reached back into my bag and pulled out a brown box of Remington FMJ's and loaded 5 rounds into magazine #2. I fired off all 5 with no problems. I did the same with magazine #3 and again had no problems. I placed magazine #1 back in the G19, which was still loaded with Monarch rounds, fired and it failed to feed after firing. I stripped all the Monarch rounds out of the magazine and reloaded it with 15 rounds of Remington and fired all 15 without issue. I then placed one Remington round in each magazine and individually fired them and the slide locked back on all three magazines.

Just for grins, I pulled out one round of Monarch and loaded it into the #1 magazine and fired, and sure enough, the slide did not lock back. Well I'll be darned, looks like this Monarch ammo may be underloaded. One last thing, I remembered I had a 9mm & .40 S&W chamber gauge in my bag so I fumbled around and found the 9mm gauge. I dropped a Monarch round in the gauge and it seemed to be in spec.

As I scratched my head, I decided to do one more test. I walked back to my car and got my Ruger LC9s that I carry off duty and have fired a lot. I carry Remington Golden Sabers JHP in the magazine, so when I got back to the line I fired off two rounds and the little Ruger worked flawlessly. I pulled the magazine out and replaced the two fired Golden Sabers with two Monarch FMJ's. I fired off the first round, and yes, it jammed up and failed to feed. I stripped off the other Monarch and replaced it with two Remington FMJ's and fired and everything worked perfectly. I then topped off the Ruger's magazine with two Golden Sabers and put it back in it's holster.

I know it seems to took me a long time to get to the point of evidence that I had bad ammo, but it's been a long, long, time since I've run across more than one or two rounds of bad factory ammo out of hundreds, much less nearly a whole box.

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I was print this and send to PPU. They will replace. Or even better take back to Acadmey. I bet they will swap it out for another brand you like.

I am no expert on 9mm but I always thought the Europeans loaded it hotter than American companies. But that may have changed. It may have simply been a bad lot.

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No school like the old school.

Years ago, I fired some Monarch 9mm steel through my Glock 19 and it worked fine. It did have an odd smell however.

Their .22 ammo is not much better, which I found out after buying some.

Better luck on you next ammo.

Their steel cased ammo is made by a different ammo manufacturer in Russia.

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Live long and prosper

Have fired 150 rounds of their 45 ACP ball. Worked fine in 1911’s but today had 2 failures to fire in the 25-2. Second time the 2 rounds did fire. Guess the brass is good for reloading as I did 50 rounds the other day, shot half today. All double action at 20 yards, mix of PPu and handloads.C3AFBAD7-0DC5-4FE7-985B-CE0EB552A496.jpg

Interesting. I've fired hundreds of rounds of this over the years without issues. Now I'm sitting here looking at an unopened 500 round can of it wondering if I'm going to have problems with it when I get around to shooting it. Not shooting as much these days as I once did, so it may be awhile. Guess I'll hold off on buying more until I find out whether this one works.

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Or something like that . . .

Sounds like it is either under-powered ammo or you have a heavier than stock recoil spring in that Glock.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

I haven't had any problems with the 7.62X39 ammo I bought and it's accurate too. The Ruger American shoots it pretty good.

A bit of trivia, in the 1950s Federal produced 22 rim fire ammunition under the name Monark, not Monarch.

I love using it on my Glock19 but i stopped using it some years back .

I have shot a lot of PPU made ammo (either under their own name or as various store brands they produced) and never had any issues with it. I would suspect that you encountered a bad production lot. Unfortunate but it happens, i have encountered such a problem with other manufacturers from time to time. Working as a dealer I also have had to check lot numbers a few times when a manufacturer issued a recall on a lot that turned out to be defective. I would contact the store and see if they can take care of it for you. As a chain selling contract ammo they should have a direct link through corporate to handle an issue like this

I have shot thousands of rounds of this, in several different pistols, and have found it to be very reliable. All of this has been pre-pandemic, however. It seemed to me like it might be loaded a little "hotter" than some other brands.

Stock blue label Gen 5 Glock 19 with standard 18lb factory recoil spring. Since the ammo failed to perform in two completely different firearms I'm convinced it's the ammo.

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Never have had an issue with either the steel or brass case Monarch 9mm (or any other caliber) and have used it extensively in everything from SMGs, pistols and carbines.

Perhaps with the rush to get more ammo out to meet demand quality has suffered.

Sorry to hear of your misfortune with monarch. Although pre-crazy days, I’ve shot quite a bit of both 9 and 7.62x39 without a hitch. Back in good old days, these boxes of 9mm were $20 each.

Nothing surprises me these days, but when I chronographed it several years ago, it was 1125 FPS, right in the ballpark with WW white box at 1121 and Federal Champion at 1131 in my G19. Only Speer Lawman was significantly higher at 1197.

Was not too shocked to learn that Cabelas didn’t make the Herters 9mm I recently bought.
Was less than pleased to hear it was made by Winchester and I needed to check for recall.
Was pleased that Cabelas actually sent me a letter telling me about the recall.
None of my 6 boxes were recalled.
Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead!

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One failure to fire that can be attributed to the ammo is way too many whether it's factory ammo or handloads.

Agree, only use Monarch for casual target practice. Any FTF is serious, none of my reloads have ever FTF.