So here lately I have been buying a good bit of demill/pulled components to stock up on (bullets, primed brass, and some powder).

I had never really paid much attention to that stuff in the past, as I always just bought new. But now I am finding myself being a little more frugal since prices are crazy.

I got noticing there is a lot more of these demill components available that I realized. That got me thinking. I guess ammo manufacturers must make a lot more ammo loading mistakes than I thought.

I know there are many different reasons ammo can be dismantled.
Wrong powder charge weight, wrong powder, wrong seating depth, defective components (of various type and failures), does not meet accuracy standards, etc....

So I got wondering, how does the process work?
Lets say a manufacturer loads a few hundred thousand rounds incorrectly (over charged of powder).
Does the manufacturer break down the ammo, then sell off the components, or do they sell the defective ammo to a 2nd party with a contract stating it has to be demilled?
Does the 2nd party break down the ammo, then sell the components to retailers for resale, or is the retailer we are buying from, the one who also broke it down?

Just curious if anyone actually knows the process or if we all just guess about it.

Another reason (internet rumor) is that the ammo in question is a contract overrun or some such; and the ammo would have to be destroyed.  Destroyed can mean a few things; burned, crushed, shredded, or dismantled into components.  

One of those options allows you to sell components the other allows you to sell scrape.  

american reloading that about all they sell

Depending on the QC procedure a whole 8 hr shift of production could be trashed.  Think about that?

I've been questioning the amount of "quality" pulldown components myself for a while, but in my experience they have been just as good as new. Keep in mind that my current calibers are 06/.308 win/.223


rem/44mag/.45acp/9mm/300blk suppressed subs... first three max 350yds. Here in the Ozarks we usually can't stretch those out farther...


Over the last year plus, I've collected several k's of primed brass for =< than I can process and/or buy individual components and "factory seconds" bullets like ELD-M/X in the range of 215-225gr vs. new 220gr "coated copper"


bullets for the same price for 300blk subs.



For my use, I cannot tell one bit of difference between demill/new.... well, except for the comments I get about being a "high roller" for blasting expensive tipped bullets when they are using factory fmj's



Lotsa time involved in finding components and loading them up so I consider a bragging right part of the return! haha!  

I can tell you about how retail works. You said company to sell your product. Well they sell your competitors stuff. So you have to pay said company for all of the stock they have on hand so that you can now put your stuff on the shelves. One of the companies I worked at sold stuff mainly to auto part stores. We had to buy all kinds of stuff from them to get our product onto the shelves. You would not believe some of the stuff that went to the landfill. We usually had a chance to get some of the stuff but it depended on the contract on if it could be resold or had to be destroyed.

So just because it was pulled down does not mean it was bad.

The more an item is at eye level or on an end of the rack you pay more for that area.

It's not a rumor that many things mil related can't just be sold on the retail market. That's one of the reasons that the stupid practice of just burning ammo exists because it's the easiest way to get rid of it. Just another way our own system uses our money against us. My first experience with it was Talon 50 BMG and I had some issues with it.

I've seen ammo for sale may time advertised as "contract over run".

I question how that even happens?
If a place contracts for 1 million rounds of ammo from a manufacturer, surely the manufacturer has the ability to count.
I could see going over by a few hundred or maybe a thousand, but going over by a huge margin seems stupid.

Plus if they do over run, why can they not just sell it? Why destroy it?

I'm not following very well.
Are you saying the auto parts manufacturer had to BUY stuff from the auto parts store in order for the parts store to sell their parts?
So AC-delco had to buy junk from autozone in order for autozone to sell acdelco parts?

It just depends on the contract and who it's with. As for how you have extra there's several reasons that can happen too. Could be they did a bulk purchase or run of components to make sure it's covered or because there was an option to extend.

The stuff out on the retail floor is mainly how this works. It is not just the Autoparts. Walmart is HUGE for this tactic. Ever notice that the high demand or most popular items are at eye level?

Like others have stated. There are a lot of reasons that this stuff is pulled down.

The OVERRUN stuff is just the companies keep running once a contract is done and met. They know that the high demand 9mm and 556 will sell faster to the public. It is cheaper to just keep running and stockpile the ammo they know they can sell than to pull down the operation and reset the line to another caliber.

It is the same thing as the 45acp and 10mm switching to small primers. I was the first person that said it was for a cost saving feature to just make one type of primer. How has that large primer availability been for everyone?????? The manufacturing cost of a small primer is probably 1/2 as that of a large primer. So why not just keep making the small as it can be used in most all cartridges except the very large magnums.

I have been in manufacturing and retail and have seen how some of this works. Some of the seconds are what were run setting up the presses. And they can make very large amounts getting to the point they like the bullet to have for its design. Sometimes stuff just does not work and they have to start over. These companies used to just sell this as scrap. But now Midway and others have found out that they can buy this stuff as scrap and sell it as us reloaders are penny pinchers for the most part. Especially with Midway these 2nds  or defects are the same price or even MORE than the regular bullet sells for. ARis mainly demill.

Small primer .45 and such was initially done due to lead free primers only being made in small primer sizes, and they gradually moved the standard mixture SPP into the budget bulk ammo lines after that.

And unless you said it to someone more than 20 some years ago, doubt you were the first to point it out…been a well known thing for decades at this point.

Yes the original NT 45acp were small primers that were lead free. But the cases also had the flash hole drilled over sized to make the lead free primers work. The CURRENT small primed brass is NOT using a lead free primer and do not have the flash holes drilled larger. The cases were switched over to the small primer to ease production cost and availability. NOT to use a lead free primer. They also are using the small primer in 10mm. Did you know that? Were they also done over 20 years ago in a lead free primer? NO! It is being done as I said. And it is not just Federal and Speer. S&B is also using the small primer in some of their brass that used to use a large primer.

And Federal has bounced back and forth with the small and large primers in 45. The last 2 times there were a primer shortage they were using the small primers. And Now even their personal protection type rounds are using the small primer as a large is not needed. Right before this last shortage the small primer brass almost disappeared. I pick up 10's of thousands of pieces of brass and sell it all over the place and scrap. I see what is being made by who. And I come from a industrial and retail background and see how things are made and sold and what is done to just meet a price point.

Here is one I found out from a friend that was in the business of making the brass with Federal. Everyone pisses and moans about Federal brass being soft in the head. You know why? The bean counter decided that they could save a % of a penny by not striking the head one last time that hardens the head so it will last longer. It cut out one step in the production of the brass and that is HUGE when it comes to making $ for less steps in production. They don't care about us reloaders using the brass again because it served its purpose to fire one time.

I got another one for your history lesson. Did you know that there was a MED sized primer for the 45acp? During WW2 FA used  med sized primer so that it could not be used in the 3006 and blank a primer and possibly hurt the gun. It had a diameter of 0.204" not the normal 0.210" used in normal 45 or 06 cases.

Seems we veered off topic a little.

Still curious how the demil process works.
Is it the manufacturers breaking down the ammo and selling it to a retailer, a demill company breaking it down and selling it to a retailer, or the actual retailer you are buying it from breaking it down?

Federal orders the brass cups used for making their brass with a different alloy than other companies.  That raw material used creates the quality of the brass.  I know a local company that was making brass was ordering German made brass cups to make their 338 Lapua brass.  

What how brass is made especially with old school machinery...it is an inline process.  I highly doubt that Federal is SKIPPING a step.

Talon was a separate company. I'm guessing that most manufacturers don't demill their own stuff but I honestly don't know. I'm actually curious to know.

Report on DoD demilling, FWIW.

As of 2018 there were seven depots owned by the Joint Munitions Command where conventional munitions were stockpiled and demilitarized:

Hawthorne NV, Crane IN, Chambersburg PA (Letterkenny), Richmond KY (Blue Grass), Anniston AL, McAlester OK, and Tooele UT
All are DoD operated, except for Hawthorne (DoD owned, contractor operated)

Anyone ever been inside one of these places? I used to live near Crane, and met some folks who worked there, but never asked about munitions.

Munitions production plants under the Joint Munitions Command as of 2018 (Radford, Holston, Milan, Iowa, Lake City, Pine Bluff, and Scranton) “are not part of the demilitarization enterprise.”
Sounds like the DoD does not do any demilling at Lake City. But maybe the contractor does, on their own time?

Demilled components available to us could also be coming from sources other than what is described here.
Such as ammo made at a private sector plant (not JMC plant), whether for a govt customer, or for the civilian market.
"Demilled" = "demilitarized," but maybe the word also could refer to non-mil ammo.

While I do see some demill military ammo components, it seems I see far more from commercial ammo.
Seems like most of the demill military stuff is brass and projectiles. I do not see the mill powder near as often as I do the commercial pulldown powder.

I'm guessing most of the military demill gets recycled instead of sold as components?


I recently bought 2k 45 auto bullets and primed brass from one retailer and started going through it last night.
Bullets I ended up having 2026. So a couple extra.
I am halfway through the brass, and in the first 1k, I have about 99% ammo inc brass, with a few random others. I only have 956 in the first 1k. Still have the other 1k to go. I feel like it may be similar. So I will be short some cases.
I found 1 case with neck damage making it not usable. 1 random case missing the primer, and 1 loaded round!
I ended up pulling the bullet as I was not about to risk shooting it. It had 8.4gr of a fine flake powder in it.
The description of the brass said it was pulled down for a powder charge issue.

In the days when we weren't fighting multiple brushfire wars, ammo would sit in storage depots across the world and could reach a specified expiration date.  In the old days the ammo could then be sold to a retailer and in turn to the general public.  That practice is now prohibited and the ammo must be rendered non-servicable; as noted above that can be burning, shredding, deconstruction, etc.  De-mil is usually done by a third party, who can then sell the de-mil product.  An exception is ammo that never entered the military's inventory; that can often be sold.   Ammo that fails QC is often sold at retail if the defect isn't safety-related, and the contractors who run the ammo plants can produce excess product for their own purposes, including retail sale.

And they sell out of pulldown powder almost immediately. For awhile there, they weren't selling any of their medium burn powder and looked to be remanufacturing 308 and 556. I wonder if they were blending the powder lots to get something "consistent"?

Trying to buy pulldown powder from AR is worse than trying to buy 22lr or primers during the panic/shortage.
I thought we were over that, but I guess not.
I always see their emails saying they have powder in stock, but every time I go there, nothing is in stock.
Either they only have 1-2 jugs of each, or someone is coming in and buying everything they have at one time.

While I'm not buying more powder (other than 2 lbs of 3031 I paid $130 for, lol), I did stumble upon them stocking the website earlier this week before they pushed out the email. There were 30 jugs of BLC-2 that basically sold out before the email went out. I texted a bunch of people I thought could use it and several responded 30 minutes later asking me why I was sending them links to sold out powder, lol.

My suspicion is that Ammoseek alerts and other home built bots have been setup for AR that are allowing folks to snap things up before the emails go out. That or people are just sitting on the website reloading it from 11am-1pm MDT when those restocked seem to happen most frequently.

One time back in the early 2000's Gander Mountain had some CCI 40 S&W "LE" ammo that CCI forgot to seal the primers? and case mouth?  I had a CCI label saying for range use only.  I think they were boxes of 250 for an attractive price.  Some stuff screwed up by the OEM can be dealt with by them.

Back in hey day of pull down...places like Jeff Barlett, Pat's Reloading, and other were sources of pull down stuff.

There are lots of behind the scenes things we are not exposed to.  Like Federal makes a unique OEM only primer for larger magnums called "216" versus the 215.  
Nosler, Hornady, Sierra make bullets not sold to the reloader either for export or exclusive use by ammo maker.
Hornady makes 22 LR ammo only for export.

If you are waiting on the emails, you are starting out behind.  This is how I completed my powder purchases.  

Spend a lot of time on the site, every day.  

Have the knowledge to buy immediately, no guessing about anything being suitable or not.  

Don't hesitate to complete the purchase when something on your list comes in stock.  Multiple purchases in the same day are fine.  

You can set email alerts from the site on different items, but know they will rarely be sent.  It did help a few times.

Most of my powder orders were confirmed a few minutes before the daily AR email was sent.  A few were from reacting quickly to the daily email.  

Many times, I saw different powders sell out completely before the daily email was sent.  

Hope this helps.

Yea, that's not gonna happen. I work too much and can not spend all day on the computer. I only get to check my email at breakfast, lunch, and the afternoon in my hour or so time I have to screw around on the internet.

It’s all QC. Friend did this for years.
Saw a million green tips sent to get pulled.

He couldn’t sell that live round.
But, he could pull the bullet, dump
the powder, and sell that primed case.

Was selling all kinds of cool stuff you
couldn’t get normally. 😁