My LE133 arrived. Here is a 30m pattern from my 14" Benelli M4, standing. It functioned just fine when the weapon was held normally, even loosely, but it did have a lower margin for error than LE132. That said, I could limp wrist the gun pretty hard and it still ran, as seen in this video of me holding it very loose and firing from the kneeling, attempting only to control the weapon in a safe manner vs. accurate.
Last edited by Unobtanium; 03-30-2022 at 06:28 PM.
Does the extra pellet of the LE132 gives it a tad more recoil and make it more reliable with your M4? If the 8 pellet LE133 load is running on the ragged edge of reliability in your specific semi-auto shotgun I would think it should be a no-go.Originally Posted by Unobtanium
thanks
Last edited by Ed L; 03-30-2022 at 10:28 PM.
I wouldn't say it's on the ragged edge, as you can see me above holding it very loosely, off my shoulder, and kneeling, and it runs fine. That said, yes, the LE132 does slap harder in all the ways. The LE133 patterns tighter, though. Further, I am unsure what constitutes "ragged edge" with a shotgun. Most people would say you shouldn't expect a shotgun to cycle if you don't have your shoulder behind it at least kinda, while maybe someone else says it should cycle when held away from the body and allowed "free recoil" as much as safely possible. I have another thread about this.
Thanks. I was trying to understand your comment "but it did have a lower margin for error than LE132."
I could swear somewhere else someone posted about their semiauto shotgun running fine with the 9-pellet LE132 00 buck load, but not running reliably with the LE133 8 pellet 00 buck load. It may have even been you who posted this. I don't remember.
FWIW
https://thatshotgunblog.wordpress.co...ntrol-le13300/
Author: "I hesitate to make blanket recommendations for LE13300 until I am satisfied it is just an issue with a single lot. The problems are significant enough in one of my guns that I am not certain a person wouldn’t be better off with just standard 00 buckshot. At least that is a little predictable, even if it is predictably bad. The lesson though should be don’t take a load’s pattern performance for granted just because you have had good experience with it in the past. Always check pattern performance anytime new ammunition is purchased, even if it is of the same load."
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Boy, that doesn’t speak well for Federal’s QC.
Who’s got the time and money to vet each new lot of SD ammo to ensure acceptable accuracy?
If Federal didn’t essentially have the market cornered for this niche, nobody would put up with that.
I recently paid a premium price to get 50 rds of 8-pellet from Lucky Gunner.
Looks like I’ll need to check the lot number (the article says his bad ammo was from Lot #L007Q01-L008Q05).
Last edited by GyroF-16; 05-02-2022 at 08:59 AM.
Someone asked me about the "defective" FFC ammunition based on that blog article. I responded thusly:
I don't know that I would call it "defective", but I have noticed that FFC made since the onset of the pandemic has not performed as well as it did pre-pandemic. In the classes I've taught since then I've seen variations of the FC wad most noticeable in the color of the wad. I've seen a fair bit of FFC go downrange. When I started seeing pinkish-red wads instead of white wads early on in this, it was enough to make me pause and look at the wad compared to older loads. I noticed a few physical differences but I could only guess at the significance of them. Then there was a black wad, which was different than the pinkish-red and the original white wads.
I think they're back to white now, but I've noticed that the patterns I'm seeing in client guns is, ceteris paribus, not as good as I was accustomed to seeing.
This is not to say that they are bad patterns. The ammo still typically exhibits superior pattern concentration and size to non FC loads. The patterns used to range from very good to outstanding. Now it seems like the majority of the time it's ranging from good to very good. If I had to throw a statistic at it, my gut says that it's performing at about 75-80% of what it did before whatever changes were made. Those changes could be in the wad, in how the pellets are being shaped or plated...any number of things could be different from lot to lot producing that result. The end result is still desirable by any reasonable standard, just not as good a result as we used to get in a lot of guns.
When we factor in that Federal has been running at absolutely maximum capacity for years, and that their parent company just bought all of Remington's ammunition production to keep those presses up and running it would make sense that quality is suffering. I'm seeing more ammunition related issues across the board on all platforms, rifle, pistol, and shotgun. 9mm FMJ bullets that are shedding chunks of jacket as they head down the bore and downrange. Primer issues. Powder quality issues.
Component manufacture and finished cartridge manufacture has been run flat out for a couple of years now with no time to do maintenance. Production has been expanded so fast that the machinery used to produce ammunition cannot be found on the market as it's all being bought up faster than it can be produced. Expansions to staff and facilities necessary to make ammunition can't happen fast enough. We're only now starting to see ammo prices come down, even as inflation keeps driving materials and component prices up.
Ammo manufacturers couldn't just put all their money into expansion because invariably there will be a drop in demand and then the bill for all of that comes due with significantly decreased revenue coming in.
So all of that is a long way to say that yes, I have also noticed that FFC isn't performing quite as well as it used to. I suspect that trying to catch up on a massive increase in demand under unfavorable market conditions is primarily to blame...but I don't know for sure. If you have older FFC ammo, it would be good to keep that stored as well as you can to preserve it's usefulness as long as possible. I wouldn't treat it like the family silver, but it would make sense to store it carefully and use it sparingly.
If you need to shoot quantities of FFC, buy newer stuff to shoot. It wouldn't hurt to buy some and compare it to the performance the older stuff exhibits in your guns just to note the difference for your own reference. This is one of the reasons why Tom encourages clients to buy a bunch of ammunition from a specific lot that works well in their guns...because you never know what the next batch of ammo might be like.
All of that said, it is possible there is some defective FFC out there at the moment with wad problems that didn't get caught in production. There again Tom's advice rings true: Test every bit of ammo you buy, and when you find ammo that works good buy as much from that lot as you can.
The more I do this stuff the smarter Tom gets.
Last edited by TCinVA; 05-02-2022 at 10:29 AM.
3/15/2016
An update to some of this that is still in process and not on the blog yet.
The LE13300 in the blog post, while purchased recently, may not be recent production. I have some information that suggest it isn't, but don't really have a way to confirm.
I tested some newer FFC (not LE13300) that I am fairly confident is newer production than what was tested in the blog post. It patterned basically as expected.
My working theory, given that I am not the only person to note errant patterns with LE13300 is that there is a bad lot of ammo floating around, but that it is likely just that lot. Hopefully.
Once another batch of LE13300 pops up I plan to retest and compare.
Quoting myself to follow up…
The lot # I got from Lucky Gunner a few months ago is different from the identified problem lot in the article.
I haven’t tested it yet, but at least it’s not a known questionable lot.
I have lot F365U01-F365U05, and it has ruffles as well. The performance is what I'd expect, though, as you can see above in this thread.
Reply With Quote