I opened one of those "120rd XM855 range packs" (Lake City) maybe two years ago and found one weird bullet in the box, all '15 headstamp:



I've hung on to it ever since as I thought it was bizarre and possibly unsafe to shoot.  I assume maybe an M193 projectile was loaded by mistake?

I started thinking about it again because last week I got a large shipment of 7.62x51/.308 in.  I was loading a bunch of mags (one nice thing about 20rd mags is 1 box = 1 mag) and came across another oddity:



The bullet I stumbled across is on the far right, it seemed blunted/smashed.  I then noticed the next one was very similar only not quite so bad....and the trend continued for a few rounds until I found "normal" looking ones again like the one on the far left.  The right most two that are the most disfigured also have a ring on the ogive almost like a seating die would leave.  This is Fiocchi 308A, my go-to blasting round since it is over 2800fps in a 20" but non-magnetic (unlike LC M80C or CL) and usually around .55/round.  I noticed they stopped polishing the cases and started using a different color primer a while back.

I've been doing this for years now and seen a some weird things (backwards primers in pistol ammo) in new ammo before and believe me, I'm not trying to raise some strange kind of alarm but man stuff like this makes the ammo whore inside me shudder a bit.  No way am I going to crack open every case and box to check for issues.  I had probably handled 12-15k worth of M193 or M855 before finding anything like this.  Although I would hardly call the .308 projectiles "issues" as I am going to blow through this mag first on my next range trip.  You just get to wondering what else may be awaiting you in that next box or case.

What kind of weird defects have you guys discovered in ammo?  Projectile ones can be concerning if they are horribly disfigured IMO due to potential pressure problems but if the wrong bullet can be loaded I wonder what can happen with the powder charge.

Have you had the pleasure of shooting Lake City ammo labeled "PD"?  The ammo you pictured is "pristine" compared to PD ammo, and yet thy sell it. Military General Issue fodder is often considered the bottom end of the ammo world. It is also considered the least expensive. Quality Control runs off of "parameters", you can visualize this in a "bell curve", a certain percentage will be above the average and some will be below the average.  ALL sold to you with jubilance.  Enjoy your cheap ammo, with CAREFUL INSPECTION.

I must say during my time in the Army the issue ammo was always pristine, at least that I saw.

I once got a round of winchester 9mm 127 +p+ with no hollow point. I  shot it.

I have been an Ammunition Technical Officer for more than 30 years.  Over the years I have seen multiple examples of each of the following:

- wrong ammunition type in a belt or box  - i.e. AP, API, or API-T in a belt of 4B/1T
- projectiles pushed down into the case mouth
- projectiles that came out in shipping, spilling propellant all over the inside of the packaging
- a commercially packaged case lot of 9mm ammo that had a dozen boxes of .38 Spl in the middle of it
- projectiles in backwards
- primers in backwards, sideways or missing altogether
- no primer pocket in the case
- no flash hole in the primer pocket
- no propellant
- damp propellant

Kind of makes you appreciate good quality control when you find it.

There is no way for any human activity to be perfect.  Quality assurance is a statistical science, not some magic spell for perfect products.  In other words, crap happens, and sometimes the checks and balances don't catch that crap before it gets boxed up and shipped.

Military ammunition is purchased in multi-million round batches, and despite the fact that the LC loading system is extremely good and extremely consistent, there WILL be a visibly bad round now and then.  If it isn't grossly malformed, it can slip through the cracks and get included in a "lot."  When the inspections on finished lots are conducted, those doing the inspection for government acceptance use a statistical model to select rounds, batches, piles, etc. of that lot for testing.  If the offending round isn't seen because it isn't chosen by that model, it just "isn't seen."  While the statistical selection (and pretty harsh go/no go criteria for testing) is really good at keeping what goes out to the field top-notch, it again isn't perfect.

As for "pristine," GI rifle ammunition must have a visible "annealing iris" on the shoulder and neck, which means finished rounds are not polished the way commercial rounds are.  They will look kind of dingy and sometimes even slightly tarnished.  A fresh can of GI ammo should not be "dirty," but it will definitely not look like commercial.