Monarch Ammo -- Good/Bad?

T

The Kid

New member
Hey guys,

Anyone here ever use Monarch Ammo? I found some at academy sports. I think it's Serbian/Russian/UstobelongtotheUSSR made...any way, I was the lowest price ammo, but am I just buying more trouble than its worth? Remington ammo is $4.00 more...

What do you guys know/think about it?

Personally, I think that I'm going to end up w/ a lot of copper fowling b/c of shoddy primers etc. in my barrel, but if anyone has had any good experience, then my all means, share.
 
What did you buy, the steel cased stuff or the brass cased stuff?

Steel = Barnaul. (Russia)
Brass = Prvi Partizan. (Serbia)


Neither will win awards for accuracy IME, but they're cheap and decent enough for plinking out of most guns. The Barnaul steel cased stuff is lacquered, so you may have to contend with buildup in the chamber. The Prvi .308 is not very accurate out of my M1A (about 3 MOA, compared to about 1.75 MOA with Rem UMC 147 gr). The steel cased stuff was kind of weird- seemed like I would have about 3-4 shots within a couple of inches, and one flyer that was at least a couple of inches out of the group at 100 yds, and I know it wasn't me or the rifle.

My take: good ammo for some drills, etc., but don't use it to sight in a rifle or shoot long distances.

Jason
 
I don't know about today....

But about 40 years ago, Monarch was a brand of ammo you could get at Mongomery Wards. It came from Canada. My dad had a box of it in .308 Win. He also had a box of DWM ammo, same caliber. I still have those DWM cases, and have reloaded them over a dozen times!

I'm not sure, but I think Monarch became CIL some time later.

Don't know if the Monarch you have is the same stuff or not, sorry. The box should say on it somewhere where its made.
 
Currently the Monarch at Academy is Privi Partisan from Serbia. It is ok. REALLY dirty especially the .357/.38 stuff but all in all reliable, accurate enough for plinking and seems to have decent quality control.

Never seen Monarch steel stuff, but as was said a good bet is it is Barnaul/Wolf/Brown Bear etc.
 
So basically, if I use it I'm just going to have to clean my rifle a lot more thoroughly than if I shoot remingtons?
 
I know people that have shot it in their AR-15s with no problems.It doesn't seem to be different than Rem or Win ammo.When I shot it with them and we cleaned the rifle it wasn't that bad.Good Luck
 
Yea what kind of gun are you shooting..
that also makes a huge difference because my cousin has a
few rifles and some of them shoot wolf with ease and other
not so well.. Because bolt actions/Semi-auto and different
types of guns and calibers all come into count for most guns
because Wolf ammo isnt the best but is exceptionally a good
bullet in my opinion but in other cases i wouldn't touch the stuff.
 
I've shot quite a bit of Academy Monarch (.45, .223, .308, and 30.06) with no problems. It seems about as clean as any lower-priced Winchester, Federal, and Remington ammo.
 
I just fired approximately 75 rounds of monarch 9mm fmj through my new Taurus Millennium and apprimatly 35% of them misfired or jammed. I then fired 50 rounds of Blazer fmj's with no jams or misfires. No more Monorch ammo for me
 
^^ your Taurus is slightly picky about ammo. nothing too serious, but it has such a cramped feed system that it doesn't like everything. although I am surprised it had issue with an FMJ unless it was longer than most. I have issue with wide flat-nosed or gaping hollow-points like sierra sportsmaster. other than that, it runs 100% with, apparently just most, FMJ and pointy HP's like hornaday xtp's.

I like monarch okay, but was surprised to find that it's 54r was less accurate than my surplus ammo, but I have only assumed it was due to the heavier weight. monarch has the brown bear type lacquer coating rather than the tulammo type smoother finish.

know up front the bi-metal jackets DO wear barrels faster than a copper jacket. there's a great test on TTAG about long term bi-metal and it resulted in about 2000 rounds less barrel life, but in the end the savings on ammo was so great that, even with the barrel replacement, it still made the bi-metal bullets more economical
 
I shot about 500 rounds of 9mm through various guns and don't recall any issues with accuracy, reliability, or cleanliness.
 
For anybody still wondering on this 6 year old thread, I consider it to be decent. I like the steel stuff more than Tula in my Eastern European guns (Mosin Nagant and VZ58) and I use the brass stuff in everything else for drilling and training when super high precision isn't as necessary as round count and muscle memory
 
I know this is an old thread. I have been using Monarch from Academy in 7.62X39 both in Polymer coated HP rounds and FMJ with excellent results. The polymer coated rounds are a bit more accurate in the gun I shoot, but for $5.99 a box, over the $5.49 it is worth it. I have also used Monarch .30-06 (brass case) 150gr soft point in my Ruger American. This is the most consistent ammo I have seen in this gun to date. It shoots it better than Remington Core Lokts, Winchester Super X and Federal Power Shock. I have also tried the .223 in Polymer coated steel case in my AR-15 with good results. I don't know about the accuracy, but it fires it without malfunctioning. They have recently introduced 140gr FMJ brass case 6.5 creedmoor ammo. I have not tried it yet, as it is not in stores in my area yet, but I will try to post my findings.
 
When I bought my M1a I picked up 2 boxes of the stuff... not knowing it was steel-cased. Not only did it blow a 8" flame straight up out of the muzzle brake, blinding me after every shot, but it had mediocre accuracy. I still have the target... something like 8" at 100'... probably because by the end of the first magazine I was seeing stars from the muzzle flash. Never again.
 
maybe I'm weird but I won't even run remington ammo anymore, winchester either. too many horror stories, too poor of performance in my own experience. I strictly run Vista Outdoors brands (Speer, CCI, Federal, American Eagle) unless I am after brass donors in which case Fioche and PRVI are good enough brass that I don't worry. Hornady is also good but preloaded tends to be too expensive for my liking unless I am buying hunting ammo. magtech is great and I always get good performance out of it, it's Brazilian manufacture if I remember correctly.
I no longer bother with steel cased ammo with few exceptions.
 
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