My local sporting goods store lacks options for .357 and 38 Special. They have Hornady and Fiocchi. The Fiocchi is less expensive and would be used for training, but I have no experience with this brand of ammunition.

If Fiocchi is legit, looking for recommendations on what grain to choose. It would be used in a 327 2" snub nose and a R8 5" barrel.

d1

Fiocchi has been around for many years. I have had good results with it in the past.

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John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

I've used Fiocchi over the years. I have had no issues with it. I've found It's usually a but hotter than domestic ammo.

There were essentially two Fiocchi ammo makers but spring from the same origins.

It was an Italian company that partnered with S&W back in the '70s and made ammo in the US. Most of it was not well received if memory served...as the QC was suspect and performance was all over the place...very inconsistent. That was with the exception of the Nyclad which may or may not have been made by someone else prior to being sold to Federal.

Eventually Fiocchi of America was formed and has been selling ammunition here since. The brand was used by Olympic and World Cup shooters so the quality is there.

I use Fiocchi .32s in my KelTec, it is faster than domestic and reliable thus far.

I have had very good luck with Fiocchi. They are almost the only supplier of some really oddball ammunition as well as a good assortment of more run of the mill stuff. I have been very happy with it.

The only Fiocchi I have shot is 380, Ruger LCP Max.
No Problems!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

My experience with Fiocchi covers everything from rim fire to 12 gauge shotgun shells. Their U.S. Plant is in Missouri and the quality is equal, IMO, to any U.S. manufacturer. Buy and shoot with confidence!

I have never shot any of their 38 or 357, but have used a lot of their .32's. No problems and good repeatable accuracy. Their 12 Ga shot-shells are also fine, and used be many Olympic competitors.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

I shoot their .22 offerings out of my model 41s and Beretta 70s; I actually prefer Fiocchi to just about everything else, at least in .22lr.

I have shot plenty of it and hope to shoot more!

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

I’ve shot tons of Fiocchi over the years and it’s been great- wouldn’t hesitate to buy more of it.

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Some Might Say.

Does anyone have any current information about the new Fiocchi primer manufacturing plant in Little Rock? I have seen nothing in quite awhile and everything I have seen has been stale news. Wonder if the project may have died at birth. I do know they made a serious blunder in the purchase of land they planned to build on. It was swampland. Hard to believe the company was that dumb. Anyone here from the Little Rock area who knows the status?

It has always worked well for me.

I've used Fiocchi in both 9mm and .45 ...pretty clean burning and reliable , accuracy on par with anything else in it's price range.

Shot a.lot of .357sig and it's great ammo

Also shot a ton of 12ga target loads and it's good as well

Are the c's in the name pronounced hard or soft?

The "c"s are pronounced hard because it is written in Italian.
Personally I am not a fan of Fiocchi cartridges. The factory is in Lecco in Italy, not far from where I live and I buy them because they are cheap but every time I ask myself why I bought them...
As for cheap cartridges I prefer Selier&Belot both because they are more accurate and consistent, and because they are more reliable. I recently used some 44 mag Fiocchi cartridges and I noticed that they were too loaded. The primers were completely mashed and the recoil was absurd. I then opened another box purchased a couple of years earlier and it didn't even seem to be the same cartridge. Half the recoil and the primers had no signs of overpressure.

Fiocchi has two plants. The main, original one that has been in business since the 1870’s is in Italy. A small offshoot plant was built just south of Springfield, MO, in SW MO. I used to work there years ago.
It is a fact that the Italian pistol ammo is loaded a little hotter than the American stuff. The Italian pressure specs follow CIP Standards. CIP is their equivalent of American SAAMI.
I live about 4 miles from the Missouri plant.

Lucky Gunner, the ammo people, has the following comment for Fiocchi...

Fiocchi ammo is produced by Fiocchi Munizioni, a privately held company that was founded in 1876 by Giulio Fiocchi and is still owned by the family. The main production facility is in Lecco, Italy (just south of the Swiss border) and is a world-leader in shotgun, center-fire rifle, center-fire handgun, and rimfire ammunition production.

I've never had a problem with their ammo, and ran through a few cases of 9mm and .40S&W.

I have always heard it was pronounced as fee-o-kee.

Most Fiocchi of America ammo is loaded in Ozark, MO.

Fee-Okie is, I believe the proper pronunciation. I have heard a few call it Fee-Otchy. At any rate, it's good ammo. I've shot a bunch of it.

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Or something like that . . .

I've used and liked their .22 Mag and .32 S&W Long ammo.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

My LGS always have Black Friday Deals on Fiocchi 9mm and 38 Special.

In 38 Special they give you two copper plated options. 130 grain and 158 grain. Both are accurate.

I've shot a couple of cases' worth of their 9x19, and it worked well. I have some of their small pistol primers and have found they work fine in unmodified revolvers but have occasional failures to fire in guns with a trigger job.

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Regards,

Chuck

My biggest experience with Fiocchi was with their 9x19mm 115 grain JHP load. It went "bang" reliably, was accurate, and although not +P, was definitely hotter than most U.S. made 115 grain loads. It ran beautifully through my Tanfoglio TZ-75 Series 88, which often failed to fully eject U.S. made 115 grain loads.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

I haven’t had any problems with it or do I know anyone who has.

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213th FBINA

It's always been a winner for me.

I've fired many of thousands of rounds of their 9mm and buy it whenever it's available.

The gilding metal jacket is of a lower brass but higher tin content than you normally see, which makes some of their FMJ bullets a bit harder, and gives them a golden color, but I've run thousands of rounds of it through my German SIG Mastershop X Pistols and have encountered no problems with extra barrel wear.

It's been great range ammo, reliable as well as accurate.

I think the Fiocchi-labeled .22 Magnum ammo is actually made by CCI.
Rimfire ammo is by far the most difficult ammo to load.
The machinery is EXTREMELY complex and sensitive to even the tiniest variations of how it is operated. Rimfire machinery requires constant monitoring, tweaking, and cleaning.
That is why relatively few ammo makers even attempt to get into the rimfire business.

Fiocchi brand has always been well respected within my circle of shooting friends. Many, including myself, would choose it first. S&B runs a close second.

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NRA Endowment Member

I specifically look for Fiocchi when I am out and about. Specifically 3 calibers in my stash are exclusively Fiocchi. Always reliable, no case extraction issues ever, solid ignition and accuracy for me.

Cannot shoot Lead Round Nose, or Lead Flat Nose at the one remaining indoor range so FMJ or Semi Jacketed are the only ammo allowed.

I use Fiocchi exclusively in my Model 10 No dash, Model 10-6, Model 31-1 (32 Long) and 32 Hand Ejector (32 Long) and in my Model 29-2 (44 Special).

The box labels as follows: 38 Special, (38A), 130 gr. FMJ @ 810 fps; 32 S&W Long, 97 gr. FMJ @ 949 fps; 44 Special, 200 gr. SJHP @ 900 fps.

Never had a performance issue and the only issue is sometimes a lack of stock in LGS around here.

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	Model 31-1 B.jpg (31.5 KB, 5 views)
	M 29-2 right side.jpg (29.4 KB, 5 views)

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Charlie B
SWCA#3083, SWHF#570

The Italian-made Fiocchi is an outstanding product!

When Alcan was in business they loadedall the Alcan ammo. S&W and Fiocchi bought out Alcan when they went belly up. They opened a plant hee in the US and made S&W ammo(which was good stuff for the most part)....until S&W realized they could not make money in the tightly controlled American ammo business. When the prices of American ammo started to rize Fiocchi got a small portion of the American ammo market with cheaper prices and have steadily expanded the business over the years.Have used 1000s of rounds of their ammo and a couple hundred 1000 of their primers...both shotshell and metallic. For the old shotgun loaders...Alcan 220 Maxfires were the Fiocchi 616 still being sold today

They also make quality shotgun shells, if you do that kind of shooting.
They will usually match the price of win & Fed 12 Ga. prices and I like them a LOT more
over the cheaper Estates that I used back in the day, for practice.

I have yet to try any of their USA ammo, with my stock piles of metalic ammo.

Good. OK..very good.

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Remain Viable

I found your experience interesting. I have always had excellent results with Fiocchi ammunition and prefer it to S&B. Fiocchi handgun ammo has given me good accuracy and reliability. S&B was okay but never seemed as accurate in my guns.

Another factor was reloadability as I reload almost everything I shoot and Fiocchi brass seems far better than S&B. Primer pockets on S&B seem to be rather undersized, cases seem very thin and prone to splits after no more than a couple loadings. S&B .303 British ammo seems particularly bad in this respect. Cases stretch badly on first firing and I will not even try to reload them.

Reloading may not be a factor in Italy but it's an issue with me here. As far as European made ammo I actually prefer PPU as their brass has given excellent results for me with Fiocchi as a second choice. Fiocchi does produce some of their ammo in the US currently but I don't know if the brass they use here is US made or imported. I have used a good amount of Italian made Fiocchi ammo over the years and have always been happy with it.

About all I can say is that I used lots of Fiocchi shotshells when I shot trap and skeet, without issues. In fact, Fiocchi plastic cases were my preference for reloading. They just never wore out. Very tough.

I too have shot a fair amount of Fiocchi ammo over the years - but only in two calibers. I have not had any FTF, however it's hard not to take notice of the higher pressures it is loaded to. Their regular .38 Special is about equal to the American +P and their 38 Super is also a bit hotter than Remington's, Winchester's and Federal's version.

Other than what I mentioned above, it shoots fine and seems reliable. I would not use it on any regular basis as it has to be a bit harder on the guns. I don't think paper targets require hot ammo. Most all of my target shooting is done with my own reloaded ammo.

The only thing I don’t like about Fiocchi shotgun shells is the use of steel case heads (which rust easily and caused customer complaints) instead of the traditional brass.
When I started working there years ago one of my first jobs when I worked in production was running the monster punch press that stamped them out from big rolls of steel that weighed several tons each.

Were they bare metal or too thinly coated to provide a protective finish? From my experience most US makers have been using steel case heads for much of their production for a while but they are well plated. I have only seen rust issues with US shells when they were exposed to the elements for a rather long time or when the boxes got really damp due to poor storage.

As an Italian, I am flattered to read how much you appreciate our products, whether they are manufactured in Italy or made in the USA.
As for reloading, I had a gun shop until 2000. 30% of the turnover was for reloading and it was precisely in that period that the spread of Practical Shooting began, where reloading is essential for the quantity of ammo fired at the range for training. I believe it is now attested at 50% of the turnover. Until I stoped to shoot assiduously, around 2000, I used two Dillon 650s and reloaded for three days a week for two or three hours by day in the evening and my friends did the same. I think I shot more or less 3000 to 5000 shots a week.
In Italy there are about 1,500,000 gun licenses plus all those who have permission to shoot at the shooting range without a gun license, I would say roughly the same figure, which out of 50,000,000 inhabitants makes a decent percentage for a country notoriously not armed.
Look at the medals and trophies won in the various world championships where guns are used and you will get an idea of ​​how many people shoot in Italy.
I have some dear friends who every time they go to the Olympic Games or to Bisley or to the IPSC European or World Championships come back with several medals around their necks, everywhere in the world and in different disciplines.

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Ciao from Rome
Marcello

Here's a box of Fiocchi USA made in Missouri and Fiocchi made in Italy. Packaging is labelled if you look close.


The .38 Spl made in Italy seems to have a relatively hard primer.

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Never had any issues with their stuff, in fact the quality seemed more towards the higher end.

From the Fiocchi website:
Fiocchi was founded in 1876 in Lecco, Italy, and has been producing high-quality ammunition ever since. The tradition continues at Fiocchi's Ozark, Missouri and Little Rock, Arkansas facilities - right in the heart of America. Hundreds of hardworking Americans producing some of the highest quality shotshell, centerfire, and rimfire ammunition available. American ingenuity fused with our Italian lineage keeps us focused on quality craftsmanship, innovation, and unequaled customer service.

Last year, I shot a box of Fiocchi 357 158gr, bought about 6 years ago, through my 4" Mod 28 with target stocks. Very accurate, but hand-bruising hot, even in that heavy N frame.
I would not shoot it in any gun lighter than that, unless your hands are much bigger and stronger than mine.

Their ammo has worked just fine for me.

From my personal experience, 9mm and .38/.357 good and often the cheapest, .22 lr bad, CCI much better.

I have shot Fiocchi cartridges with almost all my S&W revolvers in different calibers.
They are reasonably priced even in Finland.
I especially like the 115 gr 9mm cartridge with the Glock G26.
All have worked and the accuracy is at least sufficient.

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F I N L A N D