Ammo brands you avoid

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Dave Lively

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Are there any brands of ammo you avoid after trying them?

There are quite a few threads asking if some particular brand of centerfire ammo is any good. And the answer is almost always yes. Which mirrors my experience with factory ammo. There are some brands which might be a little cleaner or more accurate in my guns but it all seems to work.

About 10 years ago I bought some Winchester white box 9mm that was loaded on the weak side and sometimes would barely dribble out of the Glock 19 I was shooting at the time. It never actually failed but I still avoid WWB.

With 22s its different. I have seen Remington Thunderbolt lead a barrel quicker than I thought possible and also has a lot of misfires. Federal, Aguila and high end stuff like Ely all work well but unless it is not available I always buy CCI 22 LR. Even their bulk Blazer ammo has very few misfires by rimfire standards and shoots well out of all my 22s including a very ammo sensitive S&W 41. Their standard velocity stuff isn't reliable in my 41 but is accurate enough in my CZ 452 rifle I see no need to buy more expensive match ammo.
 
I normally will shoot just about anything. Having said that, I avoid steel cases and bullets and reloads from individuals.
Just last Sunday, I went to the range with my son. He had a S&W AR in the 22LR. It has been good at eating anything he feeds it. He was shooting Armscor 22 LR and had several FTF. They were getting good firing pin hits and we even tried them twice. So I guess they are off the list.
 
A few years ago I was RO-ing a pistol match and saw two shooters experience squibs with WWB from two different lots.

This was during one of the “ammo scares,” so my assumption is that production was running full-tilt at the expense of QC. Still, it was sufficient to permanently put me off, and I haven’t purchased any since.
 
Ammo Inc, easily the crappiest defensive ammo experience I ever had. For whatever reason, I was low on 357 magnum hollows and Ammo Inc was all they had at the time. In a box of 20, I had 3 failures to fire, including one that had a weak charge to the point the bullet never left the casing. Sketchiest squib from the chamber I ever had to perform. I have never seen that before or since, with a round that had a weak bang with the bullet still stuck in the casing. Not only that, they casings stuck to the cylinder walls and were hard to eject. Stuff ran dirtier than a coal mine, it was absolutely atrocious in every way possible. To the point I remember vividly stopping, and safely disposing of the the second half of the box. I have never discarded un-fired ammo before or since this terrible experience.
 
I do not buy Any Rem. or Win. ammo due to FTFs. Their 22s are junk IMHO. Until a few months ago Fed. 22s were fine but then all of a sudden started have FTF with their 22s in any pistol or rifle used. CCI is all I’ll buy now and even had a FTF with them last range trip? Really don’t want to dip into my 60s-80s 22 stash. Also the Aguila has way to many FTFs.
 
Anything Blazer...extremely dirty ammo and mediocre at best shooting.

Remington Thunderbolts...most any bargain line rimfire from anyone but Remington is probably the worst.

Any ChiCom made ammo if any is still on the market. A friend used Norinco 5.56 in rifle instructor school and it was so dirty he had to swab out the barrel every magazine or so as it caused so many malfunctions.

I've never tried any Russian made ammo but avoid it solely due to it being Russian and they are not our friends.
 
Greyman50 said:
I do not buy Any Rem. or Win. ammo due to FTFs. Their 22s are junk IMHO. Until a few months ago Fed. 22s were fine but then all of a sudden started have FTF with their 22s in any pistol or rifle used. CCI is all I’ll buy now and even had a FTF with them last range trip? Really don’t want to dip into my 60s-80s 22 stash. Also the Aguila has way to many FTFs.
Click to expand...

Winchester 22 has caused me issues for sure, oddly enough the golden bullets which are cheaply made have been super reliable for me haha
 
Not many really- I do avoid buying newer Federal .45ACP ammo. It’s phenomenal stuff but I don’t reload small primer .45
 
I’ve noticed 9mm Blazer and Magtech are very dirty both suppressed and unsuppressed. I still shoot both but I know after the range I’ll be spending more time cleaning my stuff.
I steer clear of Ammo inc and Winchester White Box. The Ammo inc stuff is a joke I got a couple hundred rounds in 2022 and more than half had bullets barely seated and could be pulled out by hand. I didn’t shoot any of it and getting ahold of the company is a task in and of itself.
 
22 remington golden bullets
12ga I avoid s&b(way too smokey for indoor range use)
For 10mm I avoid federal for range ammo(basically loaded to .40s&w specification)
For all, I avoid aluminum or steel case(steel is okay in the 7.62×39, but not preferred)
 
In .22 I avoid Winchester. That used to be premium stuff and it was my go-to but their quality has gone in the dumpster.

I haven't found a "bad" factory ammo brand, but mostly I shoot my own reloads. If I buy ammo I'll avoid Magtech 9mm. Not because there's anything wrong with it but because I don't like their brass for reloading purposes.
 
Really expensive stuff. I know many will disagree but I don't need all the High tech stuff. It all looks neat. but my good reloads are fine. and will do all that is necessary. I also have to say 22 Thundert**ds suck...especially the one's from the shortage era. I shot 6 rounds of ammo load 9mm. Had 4 hoxes..cost 9 bucks each. Sold 'em at an auction...Made a profit...and bulk packed Win 22s When I was a kid I shot probably 50,000 Win 22s. Don't remember any problems to speak of. Even the cheap Revelation went bang...good 'nuff for rats at the dump
 
Aluminum cases in blowback guns.

While they've mostly gone the way of the dodo, there was a crop of "factory reloaded" companies that seemed to spring up circa 2012 that all made total garbage in order to try and take advantage of the ammo shortage at the time. Most of my squibs and stuck case experiences were from that stuff.

I still have quite a bit of Russian 7.62x39. It's bought and paid for, so current politics mean little, and you can't buy any more. Who would have thought 15-20 years ago that in 2024 an AK would be x2 more than an AR --- gun, ammo, and magazines too.
 
Hornady. In my retirement job I served in a PD too cheap to replace our duty ammo annually so I bought and carried Hornady Critical Duty .45 ACP for a year. At the end of the year I fired it at the range and while it did fire, it didn’t have enough power to cycle the slide. First time I ever experienced that. Now that I’m retired I carry Federal LE ammo exclusively.
 
I avoid any Remington 22 ammo if I can. The bullets seem very loose in case. I can easily pull them out by hand sometimes. Conversely every hunting rifle I own is sighted in with Remington Core Lokt ammo. It’s cheap, accurate (in my Brownings) and available everywhere
 
Sounds to me like you have some gun issues. I've shot all of those brands and never had any significant FTF (I assume you mean failure to feed) issues with any of them. Maybe you are limp wristing all of you guns and that is the problem because no gun should have a problem with that many different ammo brands.
 
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