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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Yet another Kaboom.....Updates in OP (Page 2 of 3)
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This is why I only shoot factory loaded new ammo. Can happen in factory ammo as well especially with bullet setback scenarios. http://cdn.firearmstalk.com/forums/attachments/f30/93637d1364584360-remington-bullet-setback-image-528600877.jpg I have had lots of setback issues on UMC ammo, and this is also a common discussion here. There have been several threads on UMC blowing up guns as well. umc really? 
UMC bulk pack 9mm FMJ |
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I don't know why this hasn't been mentioned, but it doesn't matter if they're reloads or not. All that means is that they're using previously fired brass. No such thing as remanufactured primers, bullets, or powder.
Black Hills remanufactured ammo (blue box) is GREAT at 50-75 cents a round, and generally 25-50% more accurate than companies like Nosler and Hornady's $1.25+ stuff. Point being - reman or new, it's how they're loaded that makes a round safe or not....you have to know what you're shooting. Even if Ultramax started using new brass and calling it "new ammo", it's not going to be any safer. |
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That's interesting - I have shot a TON of that 45gr Winchester and never seen any setback/crimp issues. Bad lot? |
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Anyone heard of any issues with Freedom Munitions remanufactured ammo? That's the only ammo I was able to find for a while. To me it "looks" good, but haven't had a chance to shoot it yet. This thread makes me nervous. So far - everything I have heard has been very positive. FM attends a lot of the matches I shoot and they are very active in the community. Have not heard any Kaboom stories... though anyone can get a bad piece of brass. |
| Glad to hear you came out this unharmed I have about 15 rounds of ULTRAMAX left I never knew it was this bad a Ammo I bought it back in October after my Frankenstein build was completed. I did notice it was slightly hotter than Tula but never knew it was to scale of this types of problems. Really Appreciate the heads up |
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Quoted: Quoted: Ultramax has blown up more AR's than all other ammo brands combined, yet people still buy it without research and continue to blow their guns up. I have no clue how they are still in business just so we make it clear. ultracrap is the worst ammo you can buy Point taken. |
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Update: I talked to the QC manager today. He wants the remaining rounds sent in (on their dime) to see if it is their ammo. If they determine it is they will cover all costs to replace everything. Send them some of it but keep a few rounds for safe keeping. Ultramax would just hate themselves forever if they happened to lose the ammo you sent them... |
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Update: I talked to the QC manager today. He wants the remaining rounds sent in (on their dime) to see if it is their ammo. If they determine it is they will cover all costs to replace everything. That's BS - if they screw up one in every 100 rounds and you have 20 left (just an example), then what can you really prove with such a small sample size? They should be able to tell by the lot number where it came from and how many other kabooms they paid for from that lot. If you have a lawyer friend/acquaintance you talk to on a regular basis, I would ask them before you do anything. You might let Ultramax know that you're waiting to speak with a lawyer - they may be more readily willing to reimburse you for your rifle. 
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Update: I talked to the QC manager today. He wants the remaining rounds sent in (on their dime) to see if it is their ammo. If they determine it is they will cover all costs to replace everything. That's BS - if they screw up one in every 100 rounds and you have 20 left (just an example), then what can you really prove with such a small sample size? They should be able to tell by the lot number where it came from and how many other kabooms they paid for from that lot. If you have a lawyer friend/acquaintance you talk to on a regular basis, I would ask them before you do anything. You might let Ultramax know that you're waiting to speak with a lawyer - they may be more readily willing to reimburse you for your rifle. Or stop talking to you altogether. |
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Update: I talked to the QC manager today. He wants the remaining rounds sent in (on their dime) to see if it is their ammo. If they determine it is they will cover all costs to replace everything. That's BS - if they screw up one in every 100 rounds and you have 20 left (just an example), then what can you really prove with such a small sample size? They should be able to tell by the lot number where it came from and how many other kabooms they paid for from that lot. If you have a lawyer friend/acquaintance you talk to on a regular basis, I would ask them before you do anything. You might let Ultramax know that you're waiting to speak with a lawyer - they may be more readily willing to reimburse you for your rifle. Or stop talking to you altogether. They might like to, but as a business, you can't just blow someone off because they tell you they're seeking council to find out what their legal rights are. They know he has a case against them, and they also know they have a poor track record that won't look good in court. |
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Anyone heard of any issues with Freedom Munitions remanufactured ammo? That's the only ammo I was able to find for a while. To me it "looks" good, but haven't had a chance to shoot it yet. This thread makes me nervous. So far - everything I have heard has been very positive. FM attends a lot of the matches I shoot and they are very active in the community. Have not heard any Kaboom stories... though anyone can get a bad piece of brass. I bought a case of their 115 gr Reman loads a couple of months ago and I've shot 500 rounds so far with no issues. It actually shoots a lot more consistent than some factory plinking loads I've shot before. |
| Update: I have not heard from UltraMax. I sent the remaining rounds to them last week. I have emailed them and called everyday this week. Monday he was not in. I left a message with my name and number with the lady answering the phone. Tuesday he did not answer. Left another message with lady. Wed, no answer, left another message. Thursday, same thing. Today she says he does not work on Fridays and Monday is a holiday. She says he has been busy and there are others in line in front of me waiting for testing and evaluation. That many people sending malfunctioning ammo in for testing, wow. |
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SNIP Ultramax .223 reman ammo. SNIP Edit: Update: I talked to the QC manager today and they want the remaining rounds sent in to determine if it is their ammo. They said if it is they will cover all costs to replace everything. Update 2: Friday May 24, I have not heard from UltraMax. I sent the remaining rounds to them last week. I have emailed them and called everyday this week. Monday he was not in. I left a message with my name and number with the lady answering the phone. Tuesday he did not answer. Left another message with lady. Wed, no answer, left another message. Thursday, same thing. Today she says he does not work on Fridays and Monday is a holiday. She says he has been busy and there are others in line in front of me waiting for testing and evaluation. He will call me Tuesday. We shall see. That many people sending malfunctioning ammo in for testing, wow. I probably would have held back a few rounds in case Ultramax tries to pull a fast one. How will you really know if they come back and say, nah, it wasn't our ammo, must be your gun at fault? Maybe it's just me but it sure seems like a lot of kabooms happen when using Ultramax ammo. ETA: Also I wonder if it's worth taking this to the "authorities" given the high number of seemingly related cases when using Ultramax ammo? As much as I hate the BATFE someone ought to investigate these guys to make sure their ammo is safe. |
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I did not send all of the remaining rounds. Good. I was gonna ask this. Its good that you held some back. These things sometimes have a way of getting swept under the rug. If you don't save some of the ammo you have left and take good, detailed, high res pictures of the offender rounds, when it does get swept under the rug, you don't have a leg to stand on. |
Hopefully, Ultramax will make it right and pay for your rifle.|
It all comes down to QC. I reload almost everything I shoot - simply because you can't, in practical terms, buy the match ammo that I shoot the most. However I reload on an RCBS Rock Chucker single stage press. When I drop the powder charges I test weigh about every 10 charges just to check the consistency of my powder measure. Then I line 'em all up in a loading block and look at each case and the powder level inside to see if they look the same.
It doesn't take too much of an overcharge to make things interesting. I load my 69-grain Sierra MatchKings over top of 24.5 grains of Reloder-15. About a month or so ago I was going to load another batch, and just to double-check myself I consulted Alliant's web site to look up their recipe for that bullet. Lo and behold they were showing 25.5 grains of Reloder-15. So I readjusted my powder measure and loaded 100 rounds that way. I finally got around to shooting 44 of them, collected my brass, and when I started to prep the brass I noticed the primers (CCI-400) were flattened pretty severely. I pulled the rest of the bullets, dumped the powder into my powder measure, inspected each case with a Mag Light to make sure they were empty, then recharged them with my usual 24.4 grains. But a 1-grain difference made a BIG difference! (When I loaded them I thought to myself that the powder sure looked higher in the case neck, but I knew the weight was right on, so I trusted the data. But it goes to show that I would have caught a 1-grain overload by eyeball.) My point is I make two QC checks of my reloads - a visual check and a sample weight check. If you load with a progressive reloader you likely, unless it has some sort of built-in powder checker mechanism (and I wonder how accurate one could be) have no opportunity for a powder check between charging the case and seating the bullet. And I bet that none of the commercial reloaders load on a single stage press! The only QC check done is at the instant that you pop the primer! It's a wonder to me that there aren't MORE Kabooms! BTW, the Cowboy Action Shooters compete with very light loads, and sometimes they are dropping those loads into big old revolver cases like the .45 Colt that was designed back in the 1870's for a black powder load. Well, they kept experimenting to make their loads lighter and lighter, and all of a sudden they started blowing the cylinders and top straps off of their revolvers. It turned out, after much investigating, that it was determined that they were loading so little powder in their cases that it was just sort of laying along the bottom of the case when it was in the cylinder, and the primer flash was flashing right across the top of the whole charge. This set the entire contents of the case off at once, instead of letting it burn progressively from the back to the front, and was creating very fast pressure rises, blowing the cylinders. (Have you ever looked at how thin an 1873 Colt revolver cylinder is? Especially where the bolt notch lines up with the centerline of each chamber? Scary!) Their solution was, after charging the cartridge with powder, to fill the case the rest of the way with Cream-of-Wheat. |
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Glad you are OK ,OP, and hope Ultramax takes care of you. Someone needs to invent an Ultramax ammo trigger finger heat shield. http://imageshack.us/a/img109/8462/photo12jb.jpg Ha! I saw that picture! The other week I was shooting the 300 yard prone rapid fire stage, and between 10-round strings while they were scoring and pasting my target, I kind of took a little rest in position, and noticed smoke wafting out of the bottom of the receiver! It was probably CLP vapors because the wind was blowing in the open ejector port and pushing the smoke out the trigger slot. |
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I'm glad you waled away from this with relatively minor injuries but I suspect most of your AR is toast or at least its main components.
Discounting the catastrophic damage for a moment, take a look at the cartridge head still chambered. The head if the case shows all the classic signs of overpressure. If you look at the primer cup, it's metal actually flowed up and around the firing pin, bulged outward, and backed out of the primer pocket. Brass from the head of the cartridge also flowed around the extractor and ejector pin before the case ruptured. I think maximum safe pressure chamber pressure for this cartridge is about 63,000 psi and this has a built in safety margin so I can imagine that the actual chamber was closer to 100,000psi... I've loaded my own ammo for 35+ years and some of my loads were compressed, meaning there was no air space between the back of the bullet and powder. This is pretty normal for the 223 Remington when reaching the upper end of the load range and only with certain powders. I wonder what powder they were using to reload these cases? I see they also use Lake City surplus brass. Military brass is thicker and has a smaller volume than commercial brass further exasperating the problem... |
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SNIP BTW, the Cowboy Action Shooters compete with very light loads, and sometimes they are dropping those loads into big old revolver cases like the .45 Colt that was designed back in the 1870's for a black powder load. Well, they kept experimenting to make their loads lighter and lighter, and all of a sudden they started blowing the cylinders and top straps off of their revolvers. It turned out, after much investigating, that it was determined that they were loading so little powder in their cases that it was just sort of laying along the bottom of the case when it was in the cylinder, and the primer flash was flashing right across the top of the whole charge. This set the entire contents of the case off at once, instead of letting it burn progressively from the back to the front, and was creating very fast pressure rises, blowing the cylinders. (Have you ever looked at how thin an 1873 Colt revolver cylinder is? Especially where the bolt notch lines up with the centerline of each chamber? Scary!) Their solution was, after charging the cartridge with powder, to fill the case the rest of the way with Cream-of-Wheat. I think the jury is still out on SEE, or secondary explosive effect. There are a lot of theories and as a former CAS shooter I recall having this discussion some years ago but as far as I know no one was every able to reproduce the effect in a repeatable test environment. I wasn't able to find anything other than anecdotal information using Google which tells me that while the effect may be real there is little verifiable data to prove what causes SEE. If there is any verifiable data out there I would appreciate a pointer to it. |
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Sorry about your accident there man...glad your OK...guns can be replaced....eyeballs and fingers not so much.
I am like many others. All I shoot is my reloads. Been doing it for half a century. Not only do I eyeball each and every .223 round I have a Hornady Powder Cop that double checks the powder load. My Grandsons and my Kids shoot my reloads (in my guns) so I cannot be careful enough. I hate to see a licensed re-manufacturer with these kind of QC issues. That primer is definitely cratered. |
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I wonder what powder they were using to reload these cases? I see they also use Lake City surplus brass. Military brass is thicker and has a smaller volume than commercial brass further exasperating the problem... Is this brass once fired or new LC surplus? If it is once fired; I would not be surprised if they were using WCC844 pull down powder. I haven't been able to get my hands on any pull down powder; all i know is it is the cheapest way to go. The burn rate is suppose to be close to H335. I've read that the WCC844 is temperature sensitive as is a lot of other powders. I probably would have kept half of the remaining rounds myself for evidence and research. |
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I see they also use Lake City surplus brass. Military brass is thicker and has a smaller volume than commercial brass further exasperating the problem... In some cases the military brass may not have lower volume, but regardless, they (Ultramax) clearly screwed up somewhere. Never had any over-pressure signs when shooting this stuff years ago (2005?), but did have several separated cases. Stopped shooting it after that. |
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I see they also use Lake City surplus brass. Military brass is thicker and has a smaller volume than commercial brass further exasperating the problem... This is false information, has been disproven time and time again, and yet people still repeat it without doing any research of their own. In the .223 cartridge - Lake City brass is not thicker and has very similar if not HIGHER case capacity than common commercial brass. There are differences in brass by brand, but military brass is not "thicker" in the case walls. Some commercial brass is actually much thicker in the case head are and has lower case capacity than Lake City. So using once fired Lake City brass, is some of the HIGHEST case capacity you can find, and will result in lower pressures. Note - this information is for .223/5.56 cartridge ONLY. This does not hold true for 7.62x51/.308 WIN catridge. 
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I would not assume ANY generalized description of this or that case make is of greater or lesser capacity. Manufacturers can change specs at any time.
Also, SEE has bee documented with undercharges of slow burning powders. NOT fast powders. If CAS shooters are experiencing catastrophic failures it is due to multiple charges of fast powders, or undercharges leaving bullets stuck in the barrel followed by another round fired, NOT "undercharges" of fast powders. |
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Glad you are OK ,OP, and hope Ultramax takes care of you. Someone needs to invent an Ultramax ammo trigger finger heat shield. http://imageshack.us/a/img109/8462/photo12jb.jpg What I'm wondering is, if you were sighting the rifle in and taking your time...why wasn't the trigger being pressed with the pad of your finger and not the joint?? lol Just giving you a hard time 
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I don't know why this hasn't been mentioned, but it doesn't matter if they're reloads or not. All that means is that they're using previously fired brass. No such thing as remanufactured primers, bullets, or powder. Black Hills remanufactured ammo (blue box) is GREAT at 50-75 cents a round, and generally 25-50% more accurate than companies like Nosler and Hornady's $1.25+ stuff. Point being - reman or new, it's how they're loaded that makes a round safe or not....you have to know what you're shooting. Even if Ultramax started using new brass and calling it "new ammo", it's not going to be any safer. Yes it does what if the brass wasn't inspected prior to loading, what if too much powder was loaded into the case, or what if they mistakenly used pistol primers? Those are too many what if's for my tasted and this is coming from a guy that shoots Tula and Wolf along with my own reloaded ammo. |
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I wonder how a company like Ultramax avoids getting their asses sued off.
I bought some a few years ago in .45acp and the charges were so off in the first couple mags you could tell just by foreign. The effect was like staggeing light target loads and +p+ randomly. I still have the rest I refuse to shoot or give it away. |
| Update 3: QC manager called me today. He says it is their ammo. Same projectiles, powder, and case marks he said they put in it. They will cover all costs of replacement. He did say that upon inspection of the blown up case it appears to not have been annealed. They are also sending me a box of ammo for my trouble. |
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Quoted: Update 3: QC manager called me today. He says it is their ammo. Same projectiles, powder, and case marks he said they put in it. They will cover all costs of replacement. He did say that upon inspection of the blown up case it appears to not have been annealed. They are also sending me a box of ammo for my trouble. I love a happy ending. Question: You gonna shoot the new ammo, or not? I dont know how I'd feel about that.  |
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Update 3: QC manager called me today. He says it is their ammo. Same projectiles, powder, and case marks he said they put in it. They will cover all costs of replacement. He did say that upon inspection of the blown up case it appears to not have been annealed. They are also sending me a box of ammo for my trouble. I love a happy ending. Question: You gonna shoot the new ammo, or not? I dont know how I'd feel about that. I'd throw it away lol |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Yet another Kaboom.....Updates in OP (Page 2 of 3)
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