Remington ammunition QA issues?

My issue with Remington was 30+ years ago with their rim fire ammo. I always shot the 40 gr. standard velocity for my target work. I had been very happy with the accuracy, and then went with their Green Tag match ammo. Shortly there after, I and several other members of our club began having failure rate issues. Even being inserted back in the gun and making sure the rim was oriented in a different position is seldom ever fire. The failure rate got up to around 5% and greater, and we all quit using Remington. About 10 years ago I thought "Surely Remington has gotten their arms around this problem", and bought a couple boxes of Standard Velocity to try. Out of those two boxes there were 7 rounds that failed to fire.

I am a competitve bullseye shooter and I had such issues with Remington target .22 shells that I switched to CCI Standard Velocity shells for matches. The funny thing is that the high velocity Remington .22 shells all went bang for me.

Back before all this craziness started and Remington was sold off in pieces I bought 3 bricks of their target .22 shells when I saw a good deal. When ammo supplies dried up I decided to shoot my 30+ year old CCI Mini-Mags first before the new bricks of Remington shells.
 
I am sure Hornady also sends out defective ammo, like the rest. But I had a factory tour about 3 years ago, a young lady walked me thru their factory. Fascinating. And they had about a hundred mostly young women hand inspecting every round they make. The girls were at their individual stations, and the cartridges would be delivered to them in aluminum single hole trays, and my guide showed me how she would take five at a time, and roll them around in her palm, and then put them in an outgoing tray for packaging. I suspect in time, each inspector would get pretty good at feeling and seeing defects in their hand.

Actually, other than some carry ammo, I haven't bought any ammo, other than .22, in a decade+, since I began to "roll my own." So if I find a defective reload, it is my own production.

NV
 
I am sure Hornady also sends out defective ammo, like the rest. But I had a factory tour about 3 years ago, a young lady walked me thru their factory. Fascinating. And they had about a hundred mostly young women hand inspecting every round they make. The girls were at their individual stations, and the cartridges would be delivered to them in aluminum single hole trays, and my guide showed me how she would take five at a time, and roll them around in her palm, and then put them in an outgoing tray for packaging. I suspect in time, each inspector would get pretty good at feeling and seeing defects in their hand.

Actually, other than some carry ammo, I haven't bought any ammo, other than .22, in a decade+, since I began to "roll my own." So if I find a defective reload, it is my own production.

NV

My cousin owns Black Hills ammunition and they have the same QC process. Really picky ladies who reject all defective rounds, even cosmetic defects like a small dent or scratch in a case or primer.

BHA has never ramped up production during a shortage, compromised their QC, or taken on additional staff that they would have to train and then lay off later just for a temporary increase in production.

When I lived out there, I’d often get their white box cosmetic defect factory seconds. Those white box factory second rounds were still as good as the factory first rounds of many ammunitions manufacturers.
 
When I attended law enforcement firearm instructor school many years ago...during that week we sent many rounds downrange. During that time there were only two ammunition related malfunctions...and they occurred with a minute of one another.

One shooter experienced a "pop" with no ignition and smoke coming out from around the hammer of his Browning Hi Power. The other shooter experienced a similar event.

Upon examination it was found that the round that went "pop" had a primer mounted upside down in the pocket. The other round was taken apart and there was no hole in the pocket for the primer to ignite the propellant charge.

Both shooters were using department issue new ammunition...no idea what brand or brands.

Stuff happens...the first shooter should have been able to spot the upside down primer if he had inspected the rounds before loading his magazine. The other shooter...unless you were Superman with X-ray vision there was no way you could have known.
 
Regardless of brand it pays to inspect each individual cartridge prior to use. Been that way for decades.

While I was working, we bought ammo by the tractor trailer load either on bid or by contract. There was an interesting collection of defective rounds kept on hand to illustrate why you should inspect each round. You won't catch the case with no power or flash hole, but most of the rest are obvious. FWIW, the only ammo make we banned for excessive defects was Winchester.
 
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