10 mm ammo problem?

[mamasfatty]

hi,i bought a box of the original norma 10mm ammo at a gun show last week, i know it wasnt reloaded,and factory original. my brother and i took my 1006 and 1066 out for some target shooting. we took the norma ammo and about 200 rounds of pmc 180 gr jhp ammo. it all shot fantastically,,the S&W autos ate it like candy.the problem we noticed was when we picked up the empty brass. most of the norma ammo appeared to have the primers flattened, and on quite a few of them it appeared like the primers started to melt. nothing major,,but there was what looked like a very small amount of melting that happened around the firing pin strike. i cant really explain it any other way,,it was just on the norma empties. i have no way to post pics,, i was just wondering if the old norma ammo was that hot? thanks for your time,,,don

 

[Mortech]

Yes , the original Norma was loaded HOT , the melted and flatten looking primers are an indication it being wayyy over pressure . Sadly you shot them because they did have some value as a collectors item . Nowadays if you want to get close to that kind of preformance you have to either buy ammo from a place like Doubletapp or roll your own like I do now .

 

[Iggy]

Normas were hot and exhibited erratic pressure spikes.
I bought a box of 20 back about 1980 and I still have a few of them left.

That was the last factory ammo I ever shot out of a 10mm and I still shootin' 10's.

 

[BUFF]

I have never seen a primer begin to "melt." Do you mean a small crater raised around the primer impact?

I shot a lot of the Norma. It was hot. The 200 grainer hit a full 1,200 fps from my Delta Elite. The 170 or 175 grain JHP was a lot faster. The primers looked like what I have come to expect from the appearance of spent primers in Magnum handgun cartridges.

The reduced 10mm cartridges began with the FBI Ten, a 180 grain JHP at about 850-875 fps. Pretty mild by comparison. We called them the Attenuated Ten or the 10MM Minus-P.

The first batch of Norma that hit the US dealers was a bit erratic, but the second and subsequent batches were great. I bought a couple of cases of it when Graf & Sons, Natchez or somebody (I have forgotten) closed out their Norma 10. It made great once-fired brass and nice, big divots in the hillside backstop!

It was truly "the next step up on the power ladder" from the .45 ACP!

 

[Mortech]

By melted I mean that the primer was under such pressure that the metal it is composed of actually 'flows' under the pressure , it actually looks like it melted and started to run down between the breech face and cartridge base . It may also show 'cratering'

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

I wouldn't shoot that stuff. Norma made some excessively hot stuff in the beginning. Less known is that PMC also made at least some hot stuff. I know because I got some. Fired a few rounds and returned the box to the dealer. Fortunately, the S&W is a very strong gun, I think, so probably neither you nor I hurt anything.

We are kind of spoiled by the several very good ammo manufacturers around, but even they are not perfect. Constant vigilance is the price of safety.

 

[rsnyder]

Yes the norma stuff is hottt! I wish I still had some left. The only way to get that type of performance anymore is to load your own, as stated earlier. I hand load all my own 10mm anymore and my handloads flatten the primers just like you are seeing. If you have a lot of it or are planning on reloading 10's the way it was ment to be loaded then I suggest you contact wolff springs and order up some #24 recoil springs. The S&W 10mm series are about as indestructible a pistol as you will ever find but there is no sense in abusing it. Just my IIC