Is Freedom Munitions ammo known for hard primers?

[OlongJohnson]

I work pretty close to their Houston store. Was looking for some .357 Magnum for a Marlin about a year ago. They had one of the best prices going, so I went to check it out. The rounds on the shelf (I opened multiple packages) had never been crimped after seating the bullet. The mouths were still expanded. I opened a box of Hornady they had just to make sure I wasn't nuts. I wasn't nuts. Brought the lack of crimp to the attention of one of the store employees, and he tried to tell me it was how it should be.

Shoot uncrimped ammo in a revolver, it can pull the bullet and lock it up. Shoot uncrimped ammo in a Marlin, it can set the bullet back - not a good thing with .357 rounds. As JAD said about fingers...

Another friend had a case of .45, and it acted underloaded (weak, dirty, etc.) Another friend has gotten recall notices for overloaded lots.

That's the thing about poor "quality control," as opposed to product with a low content specification. Most of the product is usually OK and some may be excellent, but the problems are frequent, usually random, and you don't know when they're going to show up. I won't use FM in my guns, and encourage other people not to use it in their guns.

[5pins]

I bought 5000 Ginex primers just before the election and have had nothing but problems. I’m right around a 10% failure rate in my Glock 19. A little less in some of my other guns.

[HCM]

Another thread about Freedom Munitions issues:

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....300blk-Reloads

[45dotACP]

I've never been satisfied with anything from Freedom Munitions. It's underpowered, uncrimped pre-once-fired brass IME.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[RJ]

Can one of y'all explain in simple, horsey-ducky terms, what 'crimping' does for ammo?

Is this something I need to look for on visual inspection?

About all I do with my limited knowledge is to line up a sample (10%?) of the 9mm ammo I buy and see if they are the same length.

I currently have a mélange of Speer Lawman 124, Blazer Brass 115, or Federal brass wms199 115.

[HCM]

Can one of y'all explain in simple, horsey-ducky terms, what 'crimping' does for ammo?

Is this something I need to look for on visual inspection?

About all I do with my limited knowledge is to line up a sample (10%?) of the 9mm ammo I buy and see if they are the same length.

I currently have a mélange of Speer Lawman 124, Blazer Brass 115, or Federal brass wms199 115.

Crimping (roll or taper) keeps bullets in place and maintains the proper length of the round. Bullets getting pushed back into the case is bad. It can cause both feeding issues and dangerous increases in pressure. Conversely inertia can cause bullets to "jump" forward causing feeding issues in autos and cylinder binding in revolvers. This is most common in light weight revolvers, because/ physics.

[hufnagel]

See the Boberg XR series of pistols for reasons why you want a bullet that doesn't move inside the case.

(note: I still think the XRs were an awesome idea. just didn't quite work as intended.)

[rcbusmc24]

I've had multiple squib rounds with FM .45ACP new ammo in both 1911s and a Glock 41, had a bunch of hard primers in their 9mm and had some of their new .223 that neither I or Pat Rogers could get to group at 50 meters in a known good AR at a class two years ago, switched out the ammo to the hornandy steel training stuff, boom..... instant cloverleaf group... I will not use FM anymore, dont care how cheap it is.

[1986s4]

Crimping (roll or taper) keeps bullets in place and maintains the proper length of the round. Bullets getting pushed back into the case is bad. It can cause both feeding issues and dangerous increases in pressure. Conversely inertia can cause bullets to "jump" forward causing feeding issues in autos and cylinder binding in revolvers. This is most common in light weight revolvers, because/ physics.

This. I'll add that the case is opened up slightly to allow the bullet to be seated without shaving off any copper or other coatings it may or may not have prior to crimping.
I bought some 9mm 'American Steel" for my SIG p226, hardly a cheap pistol. One FTF with every magazine, I sent it back for a refund. Recently I took a chance on some FA .38 super, supposedly new manufacture. All cases are Shooting Star and all rounds function as advertised. 135 gr. flat nose bullet and a little hot.

[Zincwarrior]

9mm wise (115 and 124 grain new and "american steel") I have not noticed any issues in the last few cases. In a darkened indoor range the AS ammo ocassionaly makes interesting sparks.

During their height of the Obama bullet bubble their inaccuracy was effectively double that of other ball ammo from US manufacturers (of course you could never get other manufacturers then). In the last two years I had one case of remans where I had to check as there were occasional rounds with excessive bullet seating (I think it was one particular bad lot). I switched to new rounds and do not have that problem. Accuracy is about par for non-HD/competition level ball ammo.

I'll note in the last case of Remington UMC (new) I had similar issues which was surprising.

Now I shoot these out of an M&P and Beretta storm, both of which tend to eat anything and ask for more.