Remington

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Bucksnort1

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A reloading friend sent me an email with the below information. He is frustrated, as you can tell, with Remington 9mm. At the end, you read where he said he will call Remington. He did this but found they will not address the issue except through email. He sent an email but has not received a response.

I'm thinking Remington has a serious quality control problem and they don't want to hear about it on a daily basis. I also think Remington is buying bullets made by "off-shore" companies or company and these people have a quality control problem.

Am I correct in saying Remington uses off shore providers and is this the source of the problem?

Below is my friend's email.

I decided to use a bag of 100 Remington 115 grain FMJ I had and I decided to use some Winchester 231 powder to put these loads together. Things were going swimmingly for about 20 rounds or so. I was loading to the Lee OAL of 1.135 and getting pretty consistent results. And then it happened…

OAL comes up at 1.106. Since nothing changed with the dies, I decided to investigate this problem once and for all.

I pulled the bullet and checked the casing, which was well with-in specs. I then checked the bullet weight. 111.6 grains. -CENSORED--CENSORED--CENSORED-? Checked again and came up with the same weight. Hmmmm. I then put my micrometer on the bullet to check overall length. It measured .526. Hmmmm…again.

Curious as to what I was measuring against, I pulled a bullet that measured correct OAL at 1.135. The bullet length was .564. Again…WTF?

Subsequently, I measured a number of bullets whose OAL when loaded did and did not measure up. Here is what I found on several tests…

1. Bullet measured .525 in length and weighed 111.6 grains. OAL when loaded 1.106
2. Bullet measured .564 in length and weighed 116.4 grains. OAL when loaded 1.135
3. Bullet measured .527 in length and weighed 111.5 grains. OAL when loaded 1.105
4. Bullet measured .543 in length and weighed 113.0 grains. OAL when loaded 1.120

These were all Remington factory made bullets, 115 grain 9mm, with a .355 diameter. These were not bullets bought off the back of some truck. These are factory Remington bullets. It was pretty enlightening. If you are using a progressive press and not checking every cartridge, this may be a problem.

Interesting to note that I did not find any one bullet over the 116.4 grains, nor any lighter than 111.5 grains. I guess my question is…how close is close enough for these manufacturers? And if they are just close…how does that effect our loads…and the pressure with said loads? I find this a bit scary, actually. I plan to call Remington tomorrow and ask them just what the hell is going on?
 
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I agree this is too far off to be "close enough".

The question has been ask in your post as to whether Remington is acquiring these from an off shore producer with poor quality control.

Many other question might also be asked. Are these bullets actually from Remington? Where did your friend acquire them? Were they in new packaging? We have all seen various things faked by someone else. Is it possible the Remington packaging was faked? Is it possible the package was already opened when he acquired it or from another reloader's bench?

Does your friend still have the packaging and is there a lot number? I would return the product if it was obtained from a legit distributor/seller. Remington might "tale note" if both customers and sellers start asking questions about quality control.

There is definitely something awry. :confused:
 
I see you have never sorted your components (bullets) by weight before!!

This is not an unusual occurrence and is nothing strange. It makes more of a difference on rifle bullets than on handgun when shooting for accuracy.

Most handgun shooters will not even notice the difference but blame their own lack of skill in shooting.

This is exactly the reason I went into reloading in the first place. If you think this is bad you should check commercial ammo where the powder levels vary as well.

Jim
 
OAL comes up at 1.106. Since nothing changed with the dies, I decided to investigate this problem once and for all.
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Even if the bullets were shorter, the OAL shouldn't change without a die adjustment

The bullets just wouldn't be set as deeply in the cases
 
The difference in the two bullets measured is .038 in length, the difference between the OAL of the four loaded rounds measured is .030.

If the seating die is seating off the ogive of the bullet and the ogive is in the same place on each bullet and the seating die is not contacting the nose of the bullet I would say it would be very easy to have loaded rounds with a difference of .030 in OAL.

Therefore the bullet may not be seated deeper in the case, the culprit would be the nose profile and/or length that causes the difference in readings.

Best Regards
Bob Hunter
 
LamarW,

You present excellent questions. I will pass this to my friend. I don't know him to buy anything but high quality components. I will post his reply.

Jim243,

His concern is safety.

Hunter Customs,

You too bring up an excellent point. I will pass this to my friend then post his reply.
 
I believe these are likely bullets made by different contractors (off-shore or otherwise) using different tooling, and then mixed for packaging. Someone had a post up awhile ago in which he got a box of Remington bullets labelled 0.355", but that all measured 0.356". He contacted Remington and was told they sometimes come in like that. He complained the box was mislabeled, but was told Remington couldn't be expected to change their packaging every time a lot came in different. So it seems pretty clear Remington isn't making them.

So, bottom line, if you want consistency, Remington pistol bullets aren't the place to find it. I've not heard similar complaints about their rifle bullets, though.
 
His concern is safety.
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Really?? Then maybe he should stay away from reloading, based on his OAL being off on cartage after cartage. I doubt that his seating die kept changing each time he pulled the handle, or maybe it did because he did not lock it down. Either case he did not check his OAL while reloading to make sure he was seating the bullets correctly.

The variances you listed will not provide any safety problems unless he is loading to maximum pressure levels or beyond.

Jim

I have seen variances of up to 2 grains in bullet weights in the same bag of bullets, a 5 grain variance is a bit much. If you have a problem with the Remington bullets (I don't) then go out and purchase some more expensive brand. But this sounds more like a rant against Remington than a safety issue or a quality control problem.
 
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If the bullets that are short are from a different manufacture than the ones that are longer then it is quite possible that the ogives are different as well...this would and could cause the OALs to be different....if that is what is happening then Remington is taking different batches of bullets from different manufactures and mixing them together and packaging them....

If this is the case safety would be a major concern
 
Jim243,

You are wrong. Perhaps you don't understand what's going on here. He did check his overall lengths, which is the reason he questioned this initially. Maybe is he being too much of a perfectionist but I would rather see him this way than blow off his hand from a bad load.

I'm copying his first paragraph.

"I decided to use a bag of 100 Remington 115 grain FMJ I had and I decided to use some Winchester 231 powder to put these loads together. Things were going swimmingly for about 20 rounds or so. I was loading to the Lee OAL of 1.135 and getting pretty consistent results. And then it happened…"

It appears to me he was checking.
 
And then it happened…"
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What happened??????? His OAL's started changing?? That's a function of his seating die not the bullet length. And what's this crap about ogives changing from the same bag of bullets?? Did he have hollow points mixed in with his FMJ. Did someone give him a bag mixed with Speer or Hornady in with his Remington's. Or did he buy a bag of bullets from a gun show?? Only God knows what would be in those bags. (LOL) Or did he buy PULLED bullets from RMR???

Jim
 
I, too, am having trouble understanding why the OAL is varying just because the bullet length varies. The seat/crimp die doesn't care how long the bullet is.
 
The seat/crimp die doesn't care how long the bullet is.
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I've never seen that much variation in the nose shape of 9mm FMJ's either, so I would think the length varations are on the base end.

The best solution though is buy Hornady bullets
 
Longshot4,

Yes, Remington bullets do come in bags. Cabela's sells them 100 bullets per bag. Recently, I bought a bag of 230 grain 45 ACP Remington bullets. I've not loaded them.
 
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