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Posted: 4/22/2011 1:17:12 PM EDT
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Before heading to the range today, I was loading magazines from a sealed case of PMC bronze (blaster ammo).
I found a round with a projectile pushed into the case and no powder. I'm guessing the bullet was not concentric with the seating die and was pushed into the case, during subsequent processing the powder was lost before packaging. I have been loading my stand-by magazines with PMC XTAC because I'm a fan of the ss109. Now, I'm worried that PMC seems to have no QC, and during an emergency, the first round I fire could be a squib. (BTW, please don't make fun of me for how much I paid for the Bronze. I bought it during the Obama ammo drought). 
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Quoted:
I do not think its such a big deal, one bad one will get through no matter how much QC, a manufacture has. What type of QC would that cartridge pass? Weigh cartridges to see if power is charged: fail. Visual inspection, no apparent projectile: fail. IMO, bad ammunition is very serious. A bullet in the brain pan will take me out of the fight, a squib will also take me out of the fight. Either way, the consequences could be equally serious;. |
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Yeah that's a poor job on their part. Bronze is my standard blasting ammo. I've had very good luck with it over thousands of rounds. Since you have the box with lot numbers (typically under flap on 20 round boxes) I'd contact them and see if they will make it right. |
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I took an advanced handgun class with a fellow shooting a Glock 9mm with Winchester ammo - practicing double taps. He got a squib load on a first round and the second round blew his Glock barrel and slide right up. He's OK - no injury. Winchester bought him a new gun. No QC is perfect 100% of the time. Some try pretty hard, but bad rounds will get through. I would rate a properly crimped bullet in a primed case that holds no power as being worse than what you found - at least your's was easy to spot as opposed to the event I just described.
I've had good luck with PMC. The ammo I've had the most problem with has been Lake City and Hornady Varmint Express - popped primers mostly. Quoted:
Before heading to the range today, I was loading magazines from a sealed case of PMC bronze (blaster ammo). I found a round with a projectile pushed into the case and no powder. I'm guessing the bullet was not concentric with the seating die and was pushed into the case, during subsequent processing the powder was lost before packaging. I have been loading my stand-by magazines with PMC XTAC because I'm a fan of the ss109. Now, I'm worried that PMC seems to have no QC, and during an emergency, the first round I fire could be a squib. (BTW, please don't make fun of me for how much I paid for the Bronze. I bought it during the Obama ammo drought). https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_yi660ZbnSOI/TbHugy-86-I/AAAAAAAABnc/JTiLNmxCX_A/s800/_DSC6814.JPG https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_yi660ZbnSOI/TbHuF5ZY2mI/AAAAAAAABnU/xE72dujG9xs/s800/_DSC6806.JPG https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_yi660ZbnSOI/TbHtbUfkfXI/AAAAAAAABnQ/4uup7lIss0Y/s800/_DSC6809.JPG https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_yi660ZbnSOI/TbHuNyi1RqI/AAAAAAAABnY/CCmUSacNmCY/s800/_DSC6808.JPG |
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Quoted:
the powder may have fallen out. if you push a bullet below the neck, the powder falls out. +1 on that scenario. PMC Bronze has been great for me in the thousands of rounds I have fired, accurate, clean shooting, reliable. And excellent brass for reloading as well....<><....:) |
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Ammo companies make like 84 kazillion rounds a year.
Inevitably, some bad rounds slip through the cracks. While unfortunate, it is reality. I've seen ones like above, some with backward bullets, backward primers, split necks, torn necks, dented so bad they wouldn't chamber, no flash hole punched, etc... If I would have gotten the round above, I would have tossed it over the berm and never given it a second thought. The above round probably had the projectile pushed too far into the charged case during the manufacturing process and all the powder got emptied during the subsequent handling operations. And then the dude that was doing final QC saw the hot "new chick" walk by and got distracted momentarily..... 
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| Every, every, ammo maker screws up something once in a while. Every make has or will load a round with no powder, backwards primers, backwards bullet, no primer, too much or the wrong type of powder (causing a kaboom), damaged bullet, damaged case, etc. Most often these are culled, but very rarely one or two slips by and gets sold to the consumer. That's why you check your rounds before use. |
| It is a good idea to always visually give your rounds a once over. I just bought 2,000 Federal AE223. The first cartridge had a split neck, that allowed me to pull the bullet with my fingers. With that, I decided to check all rounds-result was a 2 percent reject rate. Amoungst the rejects, length varied by as much as one tenth of an inch, and weight by 20 grains. When I pulled the bullets to check for the reason, I found the difference in weight was from poor quality control. Some bullets had almost no lead, while others had it hanging out the bottom. The range was from 40 grains, to 62 grains. |
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Quoted:
I do not think its such a big deal, one bad one will get through no matter how much QC, a manufacture has. I agree ive gone thru thousands of pmc m855 and never had one issue same with the pmc bronze 9mm for my handgun It could happen to anyone and one round doesnt mean they have no QC just means they dont check each individual bullet which would take thousands of ppl and man hours to do Just imagine making 500000 rounds a day which is probably far below whqt they make But imagine how much time and how many would be needed to check each round |
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Quoted:
"Now, I'm worried that PMC seems to have no QC, and during an emergency, the first round I fire could be a squib." Buy some good ammo for "emergencies". There is nothing wrog with pmc, and with that mindset dont use any ammo at all cause ive seen bad loads at least once from every ammo maker even hornady |
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