USAC-Remember these?

[CZU]

For the life of me I sure didn't. From the early 80's, very short lived. I think it was mostly distributed as dealer samples in a 6 round box. Included were reloading instructions. A friend at the lgs gave me this box the other day.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

I remember them. I bought boxes of fifty, seem to recall buying bullets, perhaps on sale, probably 1988, perhaps 1987.

I had no problems with them, but the Gunner's Mates who ran the local military range had seen some problems, and informally banned them from the range. Don't know what the problems were, and didn't ask - they let me shoot mine, probably because I generally knew what I was doing, and they trusted that. Anyway, I didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, used mine up at one session, and that was that.

 

[rockquarry]

I don't recall seeing those, but the loading tool looks familiar. Data shows some pretty low charges and puny velocities.

 

[s&wchad]

Nice addition to your collection! I remember both USAC (U. S. Ammunition Company, Inc.) and Activ no-brass shotgun shells.

I picked up a USAC dealer kit, half a case of loaded ammo, a loading tool, a bunch of paperwork, bullets and some of their promotional key chains from a dealers estate last year. The Dealer kit also has a nifty stand-up advertising display under the sample boxes. I haven’t shot any of their ammo, but I have shot a bunch of the old 12 gauge Activ shells. IIRC, K-Mart had them for under $30/case, but the boxes only held 20. They worked fine.

The dealer who had these obviously didn’t have a lot of luck selling them! It is an interesting concept, but the rimmed cases take unique heeled bullets. That really limited your selection of bullets and meant you had to buy them from USAC. I’ve read that the dealer start-up hit was over $400, which was a heck of a lot of money back in 1983!

 

[colt_saa]

I never had any of the cartridges, but several years ago I came into a few thousand of the 158 SWC projectiles

I inverted the projectiles and was loading them into 357 cases at 38 Special velocity for plinking.

I still have at least a 1000 of them remaining

I almost posted them for sale in last years China Virus Crisis panic to stock up on our end of the world supplies.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

When they were out I was still living in NYC so I knew nothing about guns and ammo. That looks like a cool idea but obviously the price killed it.

 

[Jellybean]

I remember them and have a sample pack laying around somewhere, along with several other samples of new "tech" ammo that weren't successful either.

 

[ZGrand]

Cool. Can't imagine anyone giving away sample ammo these days!

 

[sousana]

I remember those well, bought thousands upon thousands to shoot out of my 38's

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Just the other day I saw a YouTube Dude shooting plastic rifle ammo.
Maybe plastic ammo is coming!
I’ll jump in my Flying Car, fly down and get some!
Tenn Good Ole Boy -
True Velocity 308win - Custom Rem700 100 Yard Test - YouTube

 

[Sevens]

It is possible that I have, and have had, and have loaded, and have yet to load more of these projectiles than anyone active on this forum. However, not in their original form.

I have never fired one of the originals in their plastic case with aluminum head. However I’ve gotten tens of thousands of the component bullets.

I don’t believe I’ve used the most of them, because it was a local shop owner that (allegedly!) bought the entire leftover load of these component bullets after the USAC project was done and over.

For anyone familiar, it was Aumiller’s Gun Shop in Westerville, Ohio that bought these and I purchased something on the order of 25,000 of the bullets from them in multiple purchases over a couple years more than a decade ago. Guys in the shop claimed that he had a semi-truck trailer full of them at his house.

I had also heard that the bullet manufacturer later became Ranier Ballistics… and while I don’t have any resources to refer, it seems quite possible or perhaps even likely that these bullets were the first commercial appearance of plated component handgun bullets on the market, built and packaged for handloaders.

I’ve used them inverted with the oddball plug-shank out toward the muzzle but they work just wonderfully loaded in a normal fashion. I’ve gotten great accuracy from them at short handgun distances (10-15 yards) and I load an awful lot of them.

Back many years ago, that same shop was loading and selling reloads in the shop. They were doing it in the shop on Dillon progressives. I never bought any of their ammo but I would imagine they were loading those bullets also, but I don’t know.

 

[DWalt]

I remember them, but never bought any. Somewhere I have some advertising literature and a few rounds of USAC .38 ammo in my collection. They didn't last very long.

 

[mckenney99]

It seems to me that it was found the plastic used for the cases became heat stressed from firing and after a few firings the cases would no longer retain the bullets tightly. I still see a case every now and then on the ground at the club range I use.

 

[DWalt]

It seems to me that it was found the plastic used for the cases became heat stressed from firing and after a few firings the cases would no longer retain the bullets tightly. I still see a case every now and then on the ground at the club range I use.

I don't know what caused the downfall of the USAC ammo venture, but that certainly could have been a contributing factor among several other possibilities. My only experience with plastic revolver cases has been with the Speer .38 indoor plastic practice ammunition (which could be used in both .38 S&W and .38 Special/.357 Mag revolvers), sold back in the 1970s. It wasn't really ammunition but plastic flat-nosed bullets and plastic cases, and used a primer only. You seated a LP primer and a plastic bullet. The problem I had with them is that the plastic cases would split longitudinally after just a few firings, a condition that Speer should certainly have been aware of. I still have a few of those cases (and bullets) in their original boxes just as collectibles. The plastic bullets didn't have much of a usable lifespan either, as after shooting them into cardboard, etc. a few times they would also become chipped and deformed to the point of unusability.