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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Frontier 55 grain boom and damaged extractor. *update Hornady says pound sand (Page 5 of 5)
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If the Blain thread is the primary, we can agree that a sample of ammo sent to Federal chrono’ed below a certain spec. “Some guys at the range” doesn’t do much for me, but let’s say the handful of folks you talked to ran into the same thing.
What I’m trying to get you to understand is there is no concerted effort going on to download ammo. That part of your argument is wrong. Just sticking with federal product, there are 3 powder charge specs being used, M855, M193, & AE223. (Hornady is a bit different in that they have multiple projectile offerings, of which most are offered in either .223 or 5.56...different powder specs depending on the two.). Blain’s experience with Federal can be true, and so can my statement that purposeful misrepresentation of cartridge spec is not happening. We’re talking over a BILLION rounds of 5.56/.223 getting cranked out of LC. Only the government’s roughly half of that volume has to go thru the “Mil-Spec” qualification. The stuff that ends up going to the commercial market does not. With the availability in recent years of Federal drums (massively bulk pack) available for sale, that should give you a small visual window into the production quantities we’re talking about here (the Hornady product was sold the same way at least briefly). The Lake City products are about cranking out mass quantities of an affordable product. In volumes of the 100s of millions, there will be variations. Let’s say you just ran a 10million round lot of 5.56 shortly after a new powder lot came in. When you test the lot, the question is not “did this hit Federal’s stayed velocity exactly?” It’s “is this lot within reason, I/E close to the stated velocity and still within commercial spec?” LC doesn’t exist to keep the forums happy. It exists to fulfill military orders. Allowing excess capacity to go into the commercial market is part of that, because it keeps the plant up and running. Running and producing is the goal. That’s it. There is no “let’s screw the commercial guy and download his powder charge.” I know nothing about Wolf Gold that everyone raves about. Maybe it’s being ran on dedicated commercial line somewhere that’s being monitored to closer spec. If it is, that’s great. Go buy it. I also know there’s probably a lot less of it sold here in the US. And if it was consumed in the same quantity, it’d probably get nit picked to death. But holy crap people, ammo is dirt cheap right now. Buy what you’re comfortable with and stack it deep. If you want the Frontier risk, buy it. Just stop speaking in absolutes that aren’t true. |
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Okay, I came across this thread and felt compelled to give my testimony. As you can see I have been a member a long time but mostly read and don't rant. I bought 12 boxes of Hornady Frontier 5.56 55gr. last June at Shoot Straight Pinellas (great shop, not their fault) the weekend before my brother came in town. I was excited about shooting with my bro, so I loaded my mags up that weekend, I didn't want to waste any range time loading mags. So I loaded it into some brand new pmags and threw away the boxes and receipt, smart right? So the next weekend my brother and I go to the range. On the first mag I get a jam about ten rounds in, no big deal right? I clear it and keep shooting. every few rounds... jam. Jam, jam, freakin jam. Five mags like this. I pop in some Winchester USA stuff I had left over in my bag, all 30 fire with no problem. Put a fresh unused mag of Hornady Frontier in and jam. Okay so at this point we are both like what the hell? Hornady makes the best, whats going on? The range master comes over (he probably got red flagged by seeing us clearing a lot of jams) and he asks my brother to see the weapon. It had just jammed again and my bro pulled the mag out to clear the action so he could hand it over and as soon as the mag came out BAM! Slam fired! My brother was a bit pissed and embarrassed, to say the least. I checked out some of the casings lying around and many were smeared on the head with odd swelling damage. We decided we were done with shooting the M4 that day after that. Before I put it away I noticed the trigger felt weird. When I got home I stripped it and looked to see what could have made it slam fire, and why my trigger felt strange. Wedged up under the trigger was a flatted primer! The hammer would not lock into place because of this. When my brother pulled out the mag the bolt dropped due to the stoppage being what was keeping it back, okay, that happens, but slam fire? Hell no! When the bolt closed the hammer was hot on its heels! This ammo, is not only crappy and unreliable, but downright dangerous. It does not appear to have done any damage to the weapon. I now have the rest of this sitting here, I can't return it. The weapon used is and M4A1 with CMMG upper, barrel and bolt. I have owned it for 14 years and never had so much as a hiccup from it, no matter what ammo. It has M4 feed ramps and 5.56 chamber. My brother and I have been shooting AR15s and M16s for 35 and 43 years respectively. Anyway I posted this because I don't want you to get hurt or damage your property. I still buy Hornady pistol ammo, but never this line again. |
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Quoted:
Okay, I came across this thread and felt compelled to give my testimony. As you can see I have been a member a long time but mostly read and don't rant. I bought 12 boxes of Hornady Frontier 5.56 55gr. last June at Shoot Straight Pinellas (great shop, not their fault) the weekend before my brother came in town. I was excited about shooting with my bro, so I loaded my mags up that weekend, I didn't want to waste any range time loading mags. So I loaded it into some brand new pmags and threw away the boxes and receipt, smart right? So the next weekend my brother and I go to the range. On the first mag I get a jam about ten rounds in, no big deal right? I clear it and keep shooting. every few rounds... jam. Jam, jam, freakin jam. Five mags like this. I pop in some Winchester USA stuff I had left over in my bag, all 30 fire with no problem. Put a fresh unused mag of Hornady Frontier in and jam. Okay so at this point we are both like what the hell? Hornady makes the best, whats going on? The range master comes over (he probably got red flagged by seeing us clearing a lot of jams) and he asks my brother to see the weapon. It had just jammed again and my bro pulled the mag out to clear the action so he could hand it over and as soon as the mag came out BAM! Slam fired! My brother was a bit pissed and embarrassed, to say the least. I checked out some of the casings lying around and many were smeared on the head with odd swelling damage. We decided we were done with shooting the M4 that day after that. Before I put it away I noticed the trigger felt weird. When I got home I stripped it and looked to see what could have made it slam fire, and why my trigger felt strange. Wedged up under the trigger was a flatted primer! The hammer would not lock into place because of this. When my brother pulled out the mag the bolt dropped due to the stoppage being what was keeping it back, okay, that happens, but slam fire? Hell no! When the bolt closed the hammer was hot on its heels! This ammo, is not only crappy and unreliable, but downright dangerous. It does not appear to have done any damage to the weapon. I now have the rest of this sitting here, I can't return it. The weapon used is and M4A1 with CMMG upper, barrel and bolt. I have owned it for 14 years and never had so much as a hiccup from it, no matter what ammo. It has M4 feed ramps and 5.56 chamber. My brother and I have been shooting AR15s and M16s for 35 and 43 years respectively. Anyway I posted this because I don't want you to get hurt or damage your property. I still buy Hornady pistol ammo, but never this line again. (Not that I will ever buy any of this shit). |
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I wish I had the numbers. I didn't think twice about throwing the boxes away. After all, it was made by Hornady. I thought it looked like the usual Lake City, ugly but totally functional. I have shot a lot of cheap and surplus ammo, some of it very old even. I have never experienced this level of garbage before. I usually do what everybody else does, store the cheap shit for a better than nothing rainy day. Not this stuff.
Please, if you have this stuff in your stash, don't shoot it, don't sell it. Get rid of it safely and responsibly some how. What worries me the most about this is how many people like me experienced this without saying anything. This happened over a year ago and I just kind of let it go. A lot of folks are sitting on this ammo out there without ever having tested it. That's how it always goes when brass cased stuff is cheap, people squirrel it, especially if it says Hornady on it. Anything that comes apart in your weapon is as serious and dangerous as it gets. As I experienced, this debris can cause OTHER unexpected malfunctions. My trusted, "long time, go to" M4A1 going off without the trigger being pulled was enough for me. This may also explain why some of the others had out of battery incidents, lights started going on reading this thread. |
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Quoted:
I wish I had the numbers. I didn't think twice about throwing the boxes away. After all, it was made by Hornady. I thought it looked like the usual Lake City, ugly but totally functional. I have shot a lot of cheap and surplus ammo, some of it very old even. I have never experienced this level of garbage before. I usually do what everybody else does, store the cheap shit for a better than nothing rainy day. Not this stuff. Please, if you have this stuff in your stash, don't shoot it, don't sell it. Get rid of it safely and responsibly some how. What worries me the most about this is how many people like me experienced this without saying anything. This happened over a year ago and I just kind of let it go. A lot of folks are sitting on this ammo out there without ever having tested it. That's how it always goes when brass cased stuff is cheap, people squirrel it, especially if it says Hornady on it. Anything that comes apart in your weapon is as serious and dangerous as it gets. As I experienced, this debris can cause OTHER unexpected malfunctions. My trusted, "long time, go to" M4A1 going off without the trigger being pulled was enough for me. This may also explain why some of the others had out of battery incidents, lights started going on reading this thread. |
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Quoted:
Okay, I came across this thread and felt compelled to give my testimony. As you can see I have been a member a long time but mostly read and don't rant. I bought 12 boxes of Hornady Frontier 5.56 55gr. last June at Shoot Straight Pinellas (great shop, not their fault) the weekend before my brother came in town. I was excited about shooting with my bro, so I loaded my mags up that weekend, I didn't want to waste any range time loading mags. So I loaded it into some brand new pmags and threw away the boxes and receipt, smart right? So the next weekend my brother and I go to the range. On the first mag I get a jam about ten rounds in, no big deal right? I clear it and keep shooting. every few rounds... jam. Jam, jam, freakin jam. Five mags like this. I pop in some Winchester USA stuff I had left over in my bag, all 30 fire with no problem. Put a fresh unused mag of Hornady Frontier in and jam. Okay so at this point we are both like what the hell? Hornady makes the best, whats going on? The range master comes over (he probably got red flagged by seeing us clearing a lot of jams) and he asks my brother to see the weapon. It had just jammed again and my bro pulled the mag out to clear the action so he could hand it over and as soon as the mag came out BAM! Slam fired! My brother was a bit pissed and embarrassed, to say the least. I checked out some of the casings lying around and many were smeared on the head with odd swelling damage. We decided we were done with shooting the M4 that day after that. Before I put it away I noticed the trigger felt weird. When I got home I stripped it and looked to see what could have made it slam fire, and why my trigger felt strange. Wedged up under the trigger was a flatted primer! The hammer would not lock into place because of this. When my brother pulled out the mag the bolt dropped due to the stoppage being what was keeping it back, okay, that happens, but slam fire? Hell no! When the bolt closed the hammer was hot on its heels! This ammo, is not only crappy and unreliable, but downright dangerous. It does not appear to have done any damage to the weapon. I now have the rest of this sitting here, I can't return it. The weapon used is and M4A1 with CMMG upper, barrel and bolt. I have owned it for 14 years and never had so much as a hiccup from it, no matter what ammo. It has M4 feed ramps and 5.56 chamber. My brother and I have been shooting AR15s and M16s for 35 and 43 years respectively. Anyway I posted this because I don't want you to get hurt or damage your property. I still buy Hornady pistol ammo, but never this line again. Have you tried contacting Hornady? I would. What do you have to loose? Also, do you have the means to pull the bullets and weigh the powder? You might not get any useful information doing that; unless you discover like over 28 grains of powder. Blown (especially crimped) primers is serious overpressure..Not good at all. |
| I shot 80 rounds of the 223 55gr bthp. It’s accurate ammo and I kept each piece of brass and the boxes with lot numbers. No signs of over pressure. So far I have shot 40 rds 5.56 75gr bthp and 40rds 5.56 55gr bthp and 120 223 55gr bthp. I have 2 500 rd packs of the 223 55gr bthp stocked. Other than a few of the 75gr stuff I have checked out each piece of brass since I use this stuff for grouping, not 3gun or training. I know early on people said it was light strike prone but I attribute that to weirdos with 223 bolt guns that can’t ignite military primers but outside of the 5.56 55gr fmj, has their been problems with 75gr, 62gr spire points, or has anyone had problems with 68gr bthp? Is it just 5.56 loadings and not the 223? |
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New kaboom:
https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/Another-KA-BOOM-with-Frontier-5-56-ammo/16-744066/ https://www.ar15.com/forums/Armory/Damaged-YHM-Turbo/17-503258/ 
 There have been many kabooms where the lot number was unknown or unreported.... but of the reported lots (so far) SMQ18C844-002 SMQ18C844-003 SMQ18C847-001 SMQ18C867-008 |
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I wonder if this issue with Frontier is the same issue that IMI--which a lot of us think is the gold standard--was having when it first came online. I shoot M193 exclusively through a CMMG WASP barrel, clean it every time I shoot, typically 2-300 rounds at a time. Anyway, haven't shot yet, but just googled and found all this bad info and am slightly concerned, but think it's equally possible it's out of spec guns, oil left in barrel creating excessive pressure. See below: Here's the SGammo statement on blown primers and IMI if interested. From their industry forum. IMI has and continues to load all their ammo to conform with mil-spec for that particular load, (M855, M193, etc), however some time ago we found that in the US commercial market there is a lot of diversity of firearms including some variations and combinations or attributes that cause problems, mostly non-standard AR15s have problems with ammo loaded at the higher end of the pressure spec, so we are having the ammo loaded at the lower end of the pressure spec to reduce the primer blowouts from the guns that cannot handle the stuff loaded to the top end of the pressure spec, while still conforming to mil-spec. Pressure problems from lots imported in 2015 and early 2016 most commonly have occurred with 18" barrels or guns that have non-standard gas systems or customizations that throw off the pressure curve that is normally expected. Until early 2016 IMI had been loading all their ammo to the upper end of the pressure spec with NATO standard AR15 / M16 16" and 20" systems in mind, and the USA commercial market is just so diverse with different AR15 variations that this causes problems for some users with non-standard guns, and since they tend to blame the ammo rather than the gun based on the logic that other types of ammo work fine we had to make adjustments to the pressure levels to insure that people do not go around telling everyone the ammo is bad when if fact its their gun that just cannot handle ammo built on the upper end of the pressure spec |
| There is a thread that has been consolidating these issues with Hornady Frontier here. |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Frontier 55 grain boom and damaged extractor. *update Hornady says pound sand (Page 5 of 5)
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