I bought a 1000 round can for $299.00 plus shipping.
The ammo arrived in a wire sealed military ammo can which looked brand new and had the proper info stenciled on the side.
I opened the can and took out a couple of the 50 round cardboard boxes. While a some of the boxes in the top layer of the can were sealed, several had been opened.
The rounds looked brand new with no staining, dents, etc,
The official NATO headstamp has the year as "13".
I pulled one round apart.  BTW, these rounds are not crimped at the bullet or if they are it's the tiniest crimp I have ever seen on surplus military ammo.
I found this odd.
The bullet is sealed with black stuff and the primers are well crimped.
Fired 100 rounds and compared it to Federal 855.
The SS109 grouped  the same as the 855 at 50 yards.
The brass is boxer primed and I wanted to test reloading it.
When decapping  I noticed that all the primer flash holes were off center, some severely.
I did a sort and found that only 25% of the cases had flash hole close enough to being on center to try reloading.
However, then I found the primer crimp to be very hard to remove, some cases requiring removal of roughly 1/3 of the primer pocket to be able to get the primer pocket cleaning tool into the pocket to remove the residue from the old primer.
I think this is Belgian ammo that has been surplussed because it is not crimped and perhaps this lot was found to have off center flash holes.
I think the ammo cans were opened, some of the boxes checked for something and the can closed and resealed.
The ammo runs fine and is accurate for training or plinking if you like 62 grain stuff.
Reloading is problematic for me because of the off center flash holes and the amount of material that has to be removed from some cases to be able to clean the primer pocket.


Thanks.

Thanks for the info. Smells like factory rejected ammo to me. I wonder if the dealers peddling the ammo know if it's rejected or not?

Thanks for the info. I did read one comment suggesting the order was improperly packaged and the customer (likely a govt or military) rejected it. Not sure if that's true or not.

I also bought a can. Haven't shot any but didn't notice any issues with the boxes. However, they are super flimsy so could break open in shipping.

I'm not sure the off-center flash holes is that much of an issue. I've been reloading Perfecta brass which has the same issue and so far they shoot just fine and accuracy is good for the rifle I'm using. Maybe if you wanted to load match ammo it might not be ideal, but I'm getting better than factory (m193, m855) accuracy with my reloads so fine for my purpose.

I remember that too.  Customer wanted 30 rounds/box but got 50rounds/box and rejected it

For $0.30/rnd in a 50 cal can...yea, I bought several thousand rounds.

It sold like hot cakes for the first few days. Now it's sitting not [email protected]. We haven't seen rock bottom yet. I'm not even sure the 1k rd cans of GGG Ss109 i got for 0.25rd shipped a few weeks ago is rock bottom. Surely the other sellers that are claiming a loss at $339+shipping a can cannot be true.

I'm not sure that it's not selling. I think the first run was a test run then they ordered a metric shit ton of it. It's gone below 999+ twice that I've seen. After that it's been steady showing 999+. I think they have quite a bit of this stored up.

I think you may have missed my point. I'm sure there is a small trickle of orders. By not selling, I mean HOT deal flying off the shelf servers shutting down. The point is, I think as of now 0.30rd m855 isn't a deal. It's pretty much normal price...for now.

I should add, it did fly off the shelf when it was first put up for sale. But this is a case of supply outweighing demand. Demand is very low right now and will likely be for atleast the next two years, and prices will likely fall.

I hope you're right. I'd like to see some $200 cases. Hell I'd settle for  $250

FN has been outsourcing some of its production to CBC in Brazil last few years.  We bought a four million rounds from FN a few years back, and it turned out to have been made by CBC.  We had some quality control issues with it.

all of the CBC 5.56 ammo that I've seen has been very high quality.  I know they make a 55gr M193 load, a 62gr FMJ (non-SS109 type bullet) load and a 77gr SMK load that's a Mk262 clone.  What round did NZ buy?

Fyi many European NATO countries have re- engineered their SS109 bullets to NOT fragment on impact to follow the spirit of the Hague convention. I wouldn't be stockpiling this ammo for shtf unless it was frag tested first.

OP, what else does your head stamp say? I also ordered some of this $.30/rnd stuff and the ammo I received is stamped with "FNB" indicating that it was manufactured in Belgium.

I think don't they're changing existing rounds.  What they are going is going to non-fragmenting rounds like the NAMMO NM255 that have dual steel cores (but are not AP)

ALL M855 cartridges use the SS109 projectile.  M855 is a US military nomenclature for the loaded round using the SS109 projectile.  
Its called M855 outside of the factory in civilian hands because its specifically exempt from the Armour Piercing rule (as is the 3.06 M2AP).  If not, and call it the "ss109 cartridge" you would not be allowed to own them.  
Once you change the design, you need to reapply for a patent, and than its called something else. You just can't change a government contract.  
With the SS109 projectile being the constant in your experiment, you really tested everything else, like powder, primer, and case.
Unless you buy high end brass, the primer hole is almost never perfectly centered.

This is going back a few years now.  We bought the M193 Ball and had significant problems with it.  I had a call from a unit wanting to know if we were issuing hollow-point ammunition - which of course would be contrary to the Laws of Armed Conflict -  as they had a number of rounds which seemed to be HP.  When they sent me a photo, I just had to laugh - the projectiles were in the case backwards. Others complained that the projectiles were coming out of the case during handling, spilling propellant all over. Others had projectiles pushed-back into the cart case during recoil -  basically no neck tension whatsoever.  Firing through 1-in-7 twist barrels, we had significant numbers of projectiles fragment in flight. We took FN to task about this, and their answer was that we should have told them that we were planning to fire it through 1-in-7 twist barrels, that it was designed for the earlier 1-in-12 twist barrels.  We ended up wholesaling the lot and getting some made locally.  The ammunition was all head-stamped FNB.

I am reliably informed that FN actually makes very little ammunition - primarily only .50 calibre and 5.7 mm.  The rest is actually produced by Fiochhi and Sellier & Bellot (which is, in fact, owned by CBC in Brazil).  Regardless of where it is produced, the ammunition is still head-stamped FNB.  

In the 20+ years I have been involved in ammunition purchasing, we have had some shocking stuff.   We have had cart cases with no flash holes, primers in backwards and sideways.  Tracer elements that did not trace - we had to do a rework of an entire order of .50 calibre one time, replacing every tracer round.  A commercially packaged carton of 9mm Ball, which had a couple of hundred rounds of .38 Special packed in the middle.   The list goes on.

wow, that's pretty crazy.

Is it true that NZ is using a 77gr (Mk262 type) round as standard issue?

The specific change was to the British SS109 bullet I believe, you would have to ask Anthony G Williams about it which is where I got wind of it. He stated other European countries did it as well but did not mention which ones.

Thanks for this , I was wondering about this ammo.

The case of the FN ammo for $299 that I received looked sealed and un-tampered with. It even had the wire with led seal on the ammo can. All the boxes inside looked un-opened and the rounds inside look beautiful. It shot like typical XM855 variety, giving me just over 3MOA on average due to the occasional flier that is common among the M855/SS109 ammo.

Since the ammo is new production (2013 according to head stamp) it must be reject ammo for some reason. I doubt any country would dump new production ammo. Even if they were experiencing a military draw-down or whatever since it would have been paid for already. Most likely, they had a problem with some, for whatever reason, and pulled the whole lot. Maybe even the whole production year. Lake City probably does the same thing as long as the ammo is safe to shoot.

Most likely, 99% of the ammo is fine. Or, your/my case may have problems such as poor neck tension or sub-par accuracy. For all we know, Belgium could have rejected it because it is too affective, fragging consistently etc...

My most recent accuracy results for the current Herstal SS109 ammo...Headstamp "13 FNB"....My case says "LOT 218 FNB 13"
5 shot groups at 100 yards from a seated bench, sandbag support, PSA 16" middy non-freefloat CHF with 6X scope: I was having a great day until I tried some Hertal...which turned my AR into an AK...

Group 1...4.4"
Group 2...4.8"
Group 3...6.0"

During the same session, I fired a few groups with my favorite load (GECO 55 FMJ)

Group 1...1.05"
Group 2...0.85"
Group 3...0.75"

Good data.

Yes, the operational round for the new MARS-L (LMT LM8 CQB)  is Mk 262 Mod 1.  The new rifle is being introduced as a system - the rifle, ammunition and ACOG TA31NZ556 sight.

I have had some terrible CBC ammo before. The .308 ball and 62gr ball ammo has had bad production lots. I think overall they are good company but they do have QC problems from time to time.