I recently was offered several cases of Federal 223b. I was shocked to see that the current retail price if near $10 per box for 55gr FMJBT. Is there anything special about this ammo to justify the price? TIA.

Federal 223b has the same ballistics specs as their American Eagle brand 55gr FMJBT, per Federal's web site tables, so no apparent difference in that regard.

I use the AE brand consistently, but don't know what its MSRP is. I can get it at my local dealer by the 500rd case for about $110 or $4.40 for a 20rd box. Even in single boxes I have never paid more than $5 per box for AE.
I find the AE brand perfectly acceptable for casual target shooting: consistent shooting characteristics, appears well made, accurate enough for my purposes, and never had any issues with it in my DPMS 20" HBAR A2.

I have no experience with their Federal brand, so I cannot comment from personal experience on whether it's worth a much greater price than the AE brand.

IMHO it depends on what you intend to use such ammo for, and the actual price you were quoted.
But it seems to me $10 a box is a might high if you are only intending to put holes in paper.

40 or 50 round "value pack" perhaps?

Federal is going to be coming out with Value packs for .223 American Eagle 55fmj.
The pistol value packs are already out in 9mm,40s&w, and 45acp

Thanks for the all of the feedback. I guess that I am just like most of you, if I find ammo cheap enough, I will buy it, even if not needed (which is never). It was offed to me at $6 per box and I laughed (outloud DOH!) and thought to myself that I could get XM-193 or 3131A box for less.

Haven't seen the Winchester advertising yet, but one of the Black Talon patent-holders, Alan Corzine, who is now in the employ of ATK, told an assemblage of Primedia gunwriters two weeks ago that Federal would be discontinuing its immensely successful Hydra-Shok line (!!!) and debuting a new anti-personnel handgun round that's a successor to the Black Talon ([i]nee[/i] "Black Widow")/SXT cartridge.

See [url]http://www.thegunzone.com/efmj.html[/url]… more as more is known.

• Dean, jus' visitin' from [b][url]http://www.TheGunZone.com[/url][/b]…

Dang, Dean:

The news you posted is worthy of it's own thread.  Why'd you bury it in here?

I noticed ny Federal 2003 catalog no longer listed the 124/9 +P EFMJ at 1120 fps, just a std pressure 105 at 1230 fps. That 124 +P load gone too? Or gone to LEO?

Wish they would sell the Tactical/HST to everybody like they do the Gold Dot.