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Federal ammo issues

BCar777

BCar777

✝️
2A
2026 2
Messages
138
Recently I’ve experienced an unusual amount of issues with federal FMJ ammo. Out of 5 magazines, I’ve had roughly half malfunction. Seems to be too lightly loaded. I’ve also seen this issues with a handful of others. Anyone have similar experiences? Thankfully Federal had me send my case back and refunded but I have 5k more federal FMJ and HST I’m praying will run smoothly.
 
BCar777 said:
Recently I’ve experienced an unusual amount of issues with federal FMJ ammo. Out of 5 magazines, I’ve had roughly half malfunction. Seems to be too lightly loaded. I’ve also seen this issues with a handful of others. Anyone have similar experiences? Thankfully Federal had me send my case back and refunded but I have 5k more federal FMJ and HST I’m praying will run smoothly.
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Ok I should clarify. I fired about 300 rounds total, using three different firearms and same result.
 
This sucks to hear.

I've had trouble with Winchester white box FMJ ammo, that I bought 1000+ rounds of (unfortunately, like 2 years ago). Works okay in hammer fired guns, but striker fired gives me tons of issues, so assuming the primers are set too deep or need a harder strike.

I was planning to purchase Federal to replace that case, but hearing this...
 
Shellbackitup said:
This sucks to hear.

I've had trouble with Winchester white box FMJ ammo, that I bought 1000+ rounds of (unfortunately, like 2 years ago). Works okay in hammer fired guns, but striker fired gives me tons of issues, so assuming the primers are set too deep or need a harder strike.

I was planning to purchase Federal to replace that case, but hearing this...
Click to expand...
I go to the range about once every week or two so I’m slowly going through the cases and will post updates. Thankfully, Federal has been great issuing me a refund and I sent the rest of the case back. The thing that really makes me nervous is that most recently , I saw a post with a guy having issues with self defense HST rounds.
 
What kind of malfunctions were you experiencing, and in what firearm? What caliber, bullet weight? Were you getting failures to eject or stovepipes, or failures to feed? Also curious whether other brands ran reliably in the same gun. Half the rounds malfunctioning is pretty extreme, even for an underpowered load.

Federal makes a few different lines: American Eagle, Champion, Syntech, etc. Champion is their budget range ammo, I'm not a fan. I will only shoot American Eagle or Syntech.
 
Shellbackitup said:
This sucks to hear.

I've had trouble with Winchester white box FMJ ammo, that I bought 1000+ rounds of (unfortunately, like 2 years ago). Works okay in hammer fired guns, but striker fired gives me tons of issues, so assuming the primers are set too deep or need a harder strike.

I was planning to purchase Federal to replace that case, but hearing this...
Click to expand...
Winchester White box has notoriously hard primers so not surprising unfortunately. The worst part is it's not even cheap!
 
cali_jazz said:
What kind of malfunctions were you experiencing, and in what firearm? What caliber, bullet weight? Were you getting failures to eject or stovepipes, or failures to feed? Also curious whether other brands ran reliably in the same gun. Half the rounds malfunctioning is pretty extreme, even for an underpowered load.

Federal makes a few different lines: American Eagle, Champion, Syntech, etc. Champion is their budget range ammo, I'm not a fan. I will only shoot American Eagle or Syntech.
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this, I would love more info.
 
I see a trend here. It seems like quality control for many products is drastically declining. Even food products seem to be inferior as of late. Very troubling, to say the least!!
 
Calibreeze said:
I see a trend here. It seems like quality control for many products is drastically declining. Even food products seem to be inferior as of late. Very troubling, to say the least!!
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Classic “Nobody policing the police” issue. Sucks to hear I’m huge Federal/CCI/Speer fan since they’re under the same umbrella and there ammo has never given me issues.
 
cali_jazz said:
What kind of malfunctions were you experiencing, and in what firearm? What caliber, bullet weight? Were you getting failures to eject or stovepipes, or failures to feed? Also curious whether other brands ran reliably in the same gun. Half the rounds malfunctioning is pretty extreme, even for an underpowered load.

Federal makes a few different lines: American Eagle, Champion, Syntech, etc. Champion is their budget range ammo, I'm not a fan. I will only shoot American Eagle or Syntech.
Click to expand...
Yeah it was Champion. The rare time I got two 500rd boxes (bulk). Originally the first firearm was Sig P365X w Radian Ramjet which normally runs perfectly. To isolate the problem I ran the same ammo in my P320 and S&W Shield plus. Same result. Stovepipes over and over again. Every 5 rounds was a failure to return to battery. I used Blazer and no issues on any of the 3 firearms.
 
cali_jazz said:
What kind of malfunctions were you experiencing, and in what firearm? What caliber, bullet weight? Were you getting failures to eject or stovepipes, or failures to feed? Also curious whether other brands ran reliably in the same gun. Half the rounds malfunctioning is pretty extreme, even for an underpowered load.

Federal makes a few different lines: American Eagle, Champion, Syntech, etc. Champion is their budget range ammo, I'm not a fan. I will only shoot American Eagle or Syntech.
Click to expand...
I’ll stick to my AEagle. :/
 
Mannyy said:
Classic “Nobody policing the police” issue. Sucks to hear I’m huge Federal/CCI/Speer fan since they’re under the same umbrella and there ammo has never given me issues.
Click to expand...
Hopefully it was only a certain lot or two and then they caught it. Who knows, me coming across different posts recently about guys having issues with Federal (all types) may just make me a victim of the algorithm but it def killed my range day. Thankfully I had my rifle so I could work on other practice since I took the day to hit up the outdoor range. I’m still sitting on an additional 4k rounds but it’s all American Eagle 115 &124g
 
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