Factory .357 American Eagle ammo issue

[Fishinfool]

Several weeks ago, a friend gave me a box of new, factory American Eagle (Federal) .357 mag 158 grain jacketed soft points. Lot #2946508508. He had bought these at Walmart about 2 months ago for a revolver he since sold.

Went to the range this morning, and loaded six in my S&W 4 inch 586-no dash, a proven gun with thousands of rounds thru it. Fired one round D/A, when the gun jammed (cylinder refused to rotate)

I could feel it binding, and thought that maybe the primer of the fired round had flowed. When I opened the gun, that was not the case. It appeared an unfired round was rubbing against the recoil shield / breach face.

I isolated that round, and compared it to the other four unfired rounds. The bullet seating depth was identical, but it appeared, visually, that the rim was a little thicker then the others.

I made sure the chambers, breach face, and under the star were clean, then loaded the rest of the ammo six at a time, checking for function by cocking the hammer, and letting it down without firing. I found 3 additional rounds that dragged badly, retarding cylinder rotation. Upon inspection, all had visibly thicker rims than the remaining, functioning rounds. Primers appeared properly seated by look and feel.

I fired the rest of the good ammo, then tossed the bad rounds. With hind sight, I wish I had saved them, and ran a micrometer on them when I got home.

I have ran a lot of ammo thru revolvers over the years, but this is the first time I have ever seen new factory ammo with overly thick rims.

If there is a point to this drawn out story, I guess it is that you should ALWAYS dry run and test for function any ammo you intend to carry for self defense thru the intended gun before you bet your life on it. Weird stuff sometimes happens.....

Larry

 

[scooter123]

IMO any ammunition that is intended for Defense should have every single round checked for key attributes. I keep a set of digital calipers handy for just this purpose and sort every single box of SD ammo I purchase for "flyers" that don't match up for OAL, diameter, or dented casings. Once found a round of 40 caliber Ranger-T that had a bit of brass lodged between the casing and the bullet that would have caused instant jam if I had used it.

Range ammo I'm not so fussy about and the AE is something that I consider range ammo. One thing of interest is that due to your post I just checked a box of the same ammo as yours but a different lot code. Rim thickness was in the range of 0.052 to 0.055 inch for 99 rounds with one "flyer" at 0.057 inch. Of interest is that "flyer" also didn't feature a groove for moon clip usage, the case was perfectly straight to the rim. BTW, headstamps were identical. Quite simply the American Eagle is a budget line and they probably assemble it using mixed lots of casings that don't have the QC watched as closely as the premium lines. However, I'll keep shooting mine, I've found that it's a pretty good range ammo and I'm not going to kick up a fuss about 1 or 2 rounds in 300 that don't chamber properly.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

I'm betting Federal would have liked to have those back to see what went wrong. They probably would have given you some ammo for your troubles too.

 

[roughedgekid]

I had the same problem with the Ruger 327 I got my wife, I thought it was the gun since it was new . Took it to a smith and got a triger job and the smith said it run great. got home and the same problem. checked the ammo and found some rim was thicker than others. When I sorted them I had no problem.