Quote History Quoted:
Having answered your own question, a side note.
If you have to sort ammo for your gun because of primers, something is wrong with your gun.
I 've popped 1000s of CCI primers every year in a dozen guns year after year.
If CCIs don't pop sometimes, its marginal with other brands just waiting for a cold, wet,dry of oil, hot, sweaty, take your pick, to fail with your chosen brand.
Guys tell you this because they know this. They don't expect you to want to hear it.
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Also Quote from site URL noted above. This is why you should test YOUR guns with the ammo YOU intend to fire in YOUR gun. And why one box of this lot and one of that lot is silly. If it matters, buy multiple boxes or a case and make sure you test it.
"Response from Buffalo Bore
Folks,
I’ve been reading some of your posts regarding Buffalo Bore Ammo and I am alarmed by several things in some of these posts. I tried to log on so I could post, but could not get logged on, so I’ve written this post and am asking one of your members to post it. I am very busy and won’t be posting further.
First, allow me to point out that my name is Tim Sundles and I own Buffalo Bore Ammunition, Inc. My identity is not hidden by user names, etc.
In reading these posts I see that speculation and statements from anonymous posters is somehow taken by some readers as true or possibly true. If you guys spend very much time on the internet, you’ll eventually learn that EVERYTHING you read there is subject to serious question. To automatically believe stuff you read from unknown sources is a flawed concept to begin with. As the company owner, I can tell you that a couple of these posters are out right lying, while some others are laboring under assumption or misunderstanding.
In some of these posts, several issues should be addressed. First, EVERY gun maker including Ruger and S&W has had recalls ON MANY MODELS for a variety of reasons, (Rugers latest recall was on their new LCP) but when a FTF occurs, the ammo gets blamed by unknowing shooters, because it was the ammo that didn’t fire. S&W did have recalls on their mod. 329PD for a couple reasons, one of them, is too short a firing pin on some 329’s. Some 329’s worked perfectly with all sorts of primers, but others would only work with certain brands of primers, but when ammo fails to go bang, it is obviously the ammo’s fault because S&W has been making guns for decades, right????? I’ve personally seen mod. 329’s that would not fire CCI primers, but would fire Winchester primers. I very much like the concept of the scandium 329 and I own and shoot one. S&W also had may recalls on their X frame 500’s and 460’s and I could go on and on. This is public knowledge.
When Ruger introduced their SRH in 454, they left the firing pin large for large pistol primers. However, the 454 Casull cartridge uses a small rifle primer, not a large pistol primer like the 44 mag. or the 45 Colt. For many years prior to introducing the 454, Ruger had chambered the SRH in 44 mag. and 45 Colt. For some reason, when introducing the SRH in the 454 chambering, Ruger did not use a smaller firing pin, but stayed with the firing pin designed for large pistol primers. Hamilton Bowen was the first person to point out this problem to me. The larger firing pin, had too big a “foot print” and would spread the energy of the pin strike too wide, thus failing to ignite some small rifle primers. A smaller firing pin would send the strike energy inward more, not outward. Ruger is now aware of this, but when I last checked they were still using the old large firing pin that was designed for large pistol primers, not small rifle primers. We eventually changed primers in our 454 loads in order to address the problem with Rugers firing pin, but in most shooters minds the problem was with the ammo, because it was the ammo that failed to go bang. Never mind that very same ammo would fire every time the Freedom Arms revolver, which is the “test bed” we originally used to develop our 454 loads, since the FA revolver was on the market 20 years before Ruger chambered the SRH in 454. Still, in shooters heads, the ammo was at fault and me trying to explain the details of Rugers mechanism was simply blaming Ruger for our problem?!?! Go figure.
Sitting right here at the factory, I have newer Red Hawk with a 4 inch barrel, chambered in 44 mag. I’ve shot the gun enough to know it fails to fire 50% of the time with CCI 350 primers, but works 100% with Winchester primers. Yes CCI 350’s require more strike energy than Winchester large pistol primers, but this is not CCI’s fault. CCI makes their primers within SAAMI spec. The fault in this particular case lies within the Ruger mechanism, even though it is a 44 mag. and not a 454. Since I have not heard of this problem with other 4 inch model 44 mag. Red Hawks, I have to ASSUME (always dangerous) that the problem is isolated to my particular Ruger, but an unknowing shooter would assuredly blame the ammo for the FTF.
We don’t use Chinese components. Never have. This kind of statement (speculation) is pure goofiness and serves no useful purpose—welcome to the internet.
We use CCI, Winchester and Federal primers. On rare occasions we will use Remington primers. CCI primers are the “hardest to ignite” primers I’ve found, but they are within SAAMI spec and they are the most consistent primer I’ve found, so I use them more than others.
I personally test fire every batch of ammo we make. I do not have others do that—I do it. I test fire in every make and most models of handguns made in the USA. I also use 1892’s, 1894’s, 1895’s 1886’s, 336’s, T/C and almost any/every fire arm you can imagine in testing our ammo. Which leads me to the most important aspect of this post. ALL FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION COMBINATION need to be tested thoroughly before you rely on them. Ammo that works great in one firearm, may or MAY NOT work so great in another identical firearm. Firearms have a lot of moving parts, ammo does not. Fire arm tolerances are critical and mass producing them is a tough job, much tougher than mass producing quality ammo. Most FTF with BB ammo that I have encountered has happened because some one did a “trigger/action job” on a gun and as part of the process they lightened the main spring too much, but I’ve seen just about every combination of FTF dysfunction you can imagine after producing ammo for the public 12 years. There are times, rare occasions, that the primer itself is to blame, not that it was contaminated by something—just simply a bad primer, but this is rare. Terry Murbach at Cor Bon told me that on average, one in a million American made primers are bad. Of course, the ammo brand will get the blame for that too. In short, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Believing “stuff” you read on the internet is even more dangerous.
Have we at BB ever made mistakes in production? Absolutely we have. So has Winchester, Remington, Federal, Cor Bon, etc, etc, etc,. If we find an error on our part, we correct it. ALWAYS, ALWAYS test the ammo you intend to carry in a particular fire arm, in that very firearm. Never assume that because certain ammo works well your friend’s identical fire arm, that it will in yours. Best regards.
Tim Sundles"
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"Murphy
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I'd like to try to make sense of this and ask that whatever decision everyone makes is based on your acceptance of BB ammo for your particular gun. Buffalo Bore uses mostly CCI primers for his "bear" loads, we know that. It is flat out true that some guns will not fire CCI primers. Also Hamilton Bowen replaces the firing pin in the Ruger Super Redhawks for good reason, when building the highest reliability in his guns. I have owned and fired hundreds of handguns, I just don't remember much in the way of failure to fire in much of anything I've owned. I've had guns brought to me because they failed to fire and not been able to duplicate the problem with my handloads. I can say with certainty, when in competition, the ones I remember of those failures to fire were with factory ammo not my handloads. I've found primers in backwards in Winchester ammo three times while shooting bullseye matches.
Most ammo manufacturers use their own primers. Remington, Winchester, and Federal use primers of their manufacture. As Sundles pointed out, all those are softer than CCI. Many folks here and elsewhere have cussed CCI primers for FTF when other brands work. I have twice met folks in local shops here in Fairbanks and bought their "old crappy" CCI primers from them (cheap) when they were in the shop complaining about the CCI's and they then bought Winchester or others. All of those CCI primers were fired by me personally, a total of more than 3 thousand in the past few years, all worked fine.
So, I'm not going to defend Sundles. I've know about him from his work with the 475 and his association with Starline and Linebaugh. We've met him and talked but I doubt he'd remember me. He is an upstanding guy with a lot of experience in this field. In any case he's a big boy and if this is his problem he will address it and straighten things out. A problem with ammo is shipping it back to any manufacturer for testing or replacement. Shipping cost exceed value very quickly.
I don't know what the answer is here. I can honestly say I've never had a round of Buffalo Bore or Corbon ammo fail to fire. I've shot more Corbon than BB but still about 600 rounds of BB in handguns in the past few years and some of that was given to me because the original owner didn't trust it. All of that fired and in all cases at least two guns were used to test it. This is no real test as all my handguns are slightly modified with emphesis on reliability. Most have trigger jobs yet somehow work with all BB ammo.
There is another prevailing point here to be considered and that is the FTF with BB ammo is, as far as I have heard, only with the 329 S&W and the Super Redhawks. If I'm wrong about that someone please enlighten me.
I have several old S&W handguns with the firing pin mounted on the hammer. I tried some old Alcan primers (these primers were very old and had been the barn for years) in a 44 special load in a 696 L frame revolver. This gun would fire Corbon, Triton, Winchester and Remington factory loaded ammo and my handloads using Federal and CCI primers. It would not fire any of the Alcan primed loads. I shot all the 100 rounds of Alcan primed loads including the ten that the 696 didn't fire in four different S&W hammer mounted firing pin 44 special/mag revolvers. I don't now much about Alcan primers, I used to use them back many years ago, but the point is some guns don't shoot some primers.
On any forum such as this we get a collection of often very vocal folks who have a gripe, well founded perhaps, and it seems to concentrate and exacerbate the problem when it may just be in one or two particular models of guns. In any case you would be well justified to never use that ammo again but I would never trust that gun again until I had it fixed to fire everything. You never know what ammo you may have to use.
I'm not saying we don't have a problem with Buffalo Bore ammo, but I am also saying I've seen problems with the two models of guns mentioned above. If you own one of those, be advised.
The 454 with the thicker, smaller rifle primers and the large diameter firing pin of the SRH are not a good mix. Sometimes they work fine, sometimes they don't. I've had many discussions with Ruger about them. Just consider all factors when making decisions about which products to use or not use.
Is there nothing so sacred on this earth that you aren't willing to kill or die for?"