Favorite ammo company(s)?

Plinking: remanufactured. 100%.
Self Defense: Federal HST
Hunting: Reloads (used to use Core Lokt and/or Hornady Superperformance)
 
Black Hills Ammo {would be} my preferred store bought for center fire. B/H is the best bang for the buck ammo I've found to date.
Although I haven't bought center fire or shot-shells in many many years. The only cartridges I do purchase are 22 WMR and CCIs {Long} CB sub-sonic cartridges. Those two purchases are minimal >couple box's of each is all I require every year to keep my rim fires shoot'in.

All those others I shoot periodically. 223 270 30-30 44-Mag 9-MM plus 12 ga & 410 all are home reloaded. Kind'a nice not having to rely on some other supplying my important to me cartridges & shot shells.
 
RCBS!!!!!,,,,my reloads are of higher quality than factory...
Click to expand...

Dream on... Unless you are perfect 100% of the time, you will make mistakes. I was perfect for 25 years and then made one little mistake. Factory loads almost never destroys your gun.

I reload because it saves me money. Anybody that reloads because they believe their ammo is "better" than factory ammo is a dreamer or somebody that thinks a 1/4 MOA accuracy is not good.

Yes, some factory ammo is better than others... but it is not a constant. Some days the factory run of Federal HP Match is better than those from Winchester, etc. Humidity, ambient air temperature, barometric pressure, are in play.

Seriously, do you consider those variables when you reload?
 
Defender Ammunition.

They are literally a mile down the road from me and I buy from them occasionally when I don't have time to handload. You can also buy in bulk from their website. American Rifleman did a nice article on them recently too.

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For handgun ammo on the range or simple plinking, I load my own. For serious centerfire ammo, and depending on the caliber, I tend to go with CorBon DPX. I'm lucky that J.D. Jones of handcannon fame has his shop just a few miles from me, and is a Cor Bon dealer. Cor Bon's .380 +P ups that caliber to more than just a suit wrinkler :D.

My 1911's get a diet of Winchester White Box (It's cheap, but dirty) on the range, but gets Winchester's original Black Talons for defensive purposes (yep, I still have several boxes of the stuff :cool:.)

For my .45 Long Colt, I like Buffalo Bore's standard pressure, heavy loads. Their heavier stuff is great for Ruger's monstrous frames, but they'll ruin my S&W Model 25.

Rifle ammo varies, depending on what I'm going to do with it. For banging away at the range, I like Federal's .223 value packs for my AR and Mini 14. Federal's brass is great for reloading.

When it comes to .22 LR, I'll plink away with anything except Remington, which is far too inconsistent in their loads. For the most part, I stick with CCI or Winchester.

Somebody mentioned CCI primers. Truthfully, I've had horrible luck with them. I've found them to be very hard, and I've thrown several boxes away for being oversized.
 
Federal , Winchester, BLAZER, in US guns

TULA / Russian steel cased in SKS, Tokarev, Makarov, M44 Mosin Nagant / any Com bloc weapons
 
For range ammo I like CCI (Blazer). Have not had any issues with accuracy and only one bad primer in over 3000 rounds.. Price is the best part.. I can get a case of 1000 for
$179.00 locally and when that's not available I get a case of 1000 online for $199.00 w/free shipping.

For SD it's Federal all the way. The Premium HST LE 147gr (SP) has been 100% reliable with over 400 rounds down range. Testing shows it faired very well with penetration and expansion. I can get a box of 50 online for $23.25 (Includes shipping).
 
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For range pistol I was using Win White box for a while but noticed inconsistency in the charges for 9mm 115gr. Also I routinely got 1 extra cartridge per 100 count range box. While on the surface this isn't a bad thing, it doesn't inspire much confidence in the calibration of their scales and machinery. I also had a cartridge with setback. Now, I run Fiocchi 9AP, which is hot yet very clean and adequately accurate. Defensive ammo is Federal HST 124 gr.

For trap I'm currently running Federal dove & target loads (12ga 2.75 length 7.5 shot @ 1200 fps). I'm pretty happy with them. I was running Winchester Super Target but multiple shells had distended hulls that would not chamber. I was talking to a guy and my club and he said this isn't rare.

For rifle I only shoot the Wolf Polyforce 7.62x39 crap. I'm not a rifle guy and I just like to shoot an AK for fun.

Cheers
 
In 30 plus years of shooting and reloading, close to 1M total rounds fired, about 90% of the centerfire rounds being reloads...I have had three squibs which were all factory rounds and 4 duds, again, all factory rounds. I have a significantly lower failure rate than the factories. :) In my precision guns, have yet to find a factory load that is better than my handloads. Some Hornady is close, Prime is a little closer, but all still beatable.

For factory ammo, I like Aguila and Hornady. For bullets for reloading, mostly use X-Treme, Sierra, Hornady, Barnes and Nosler.
 
I have had very very little problems with U.S. made ammo. When I had my SKS I was shooting all foreign ammo and having a lot of various problems. The SKS is gone now, and all my guns are U.S. Made and I shoot only U.S. made ammo.
 
For my Rem. 700 .308 I feed it nothing but Fed. Gold medal match (sub-moa), but I feed my Dpms lr- 308 multiple flavors, anything from Freedom Munitions reman. To 1980's surplus. When I'm at the range with my G21 I shoot WWB .Usually have a 3 to 4 percent failure with those. When I carry my G21 or Ruger lcp 2 I am loaded with some variant of Hornady SD ammo which has always been reliable and accurate for me. I reload my 500 S&W, 444 marlin and 44 mag but will pick up some factory ammo if its a good deal.
 
Pistol ammo is 99% handloads.
Rifle ammo is probably 75% handloads.

I think the last time I bought factory ammo was just so I could get more 303 brit brass.....
 
Pistol plinking: usually Freedom Munitions or Fiocchi.

Pistol defense: Underwood or Hornady.

Rifle depends on caliber, grain and objective.
 
I don't really understand how the big American makers stay in business. It seems like the foreign makers are eating their lunch, especially on the lower end of the price scale. PPU, S&B, Rio, and especially Fiocchi make ammo that's cheaper and usually better quality compared to the American names. The domestic makers must be making their margins on the pricey defensive and competition stuff.

When I'm not reloading I like:
38/357 - Fiocchi
12 gauge - Rio
308 - German surplus MEN
 
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