I just got this email from ammoman.  My question is, if Lake City will no longer bulk pack their ammo, will it become harder for us to tell when we are buying garbage, and therefore make it harder to know what to stay away from?


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" FRONT LINE FACTORY SEALED AMMO
223 / 5.56 M855 GREEN TIP AMMO - 62 GRAIN LAKE CITY WITH STEEL PENETRATOR PACKED ON STRIPPER CLIPS (10rds. EA.) 120 rounds IN BANDOLEERS WITH GUIDES.
7 BANDOLEERS IN CANS ( 840rds PER CAN )
2 CANS PER MILITARY CRATE
$249 can of 840 delivered
$489 crate (2 cans in wirebound crate) delivered $2400 for 5 crates delivered.

We hope to get more but this is contract ammo and we have sold lots to certain contracts in the 500,000 round range.
This tends to make the millions we get go very fast.
We do hold some back for the retail market.
We also have the loose green tip (sold bulk) in stock.
Lake city is now packaging all the ammo they release so when the bulk (loose packed) is gone, it's gone for good. "
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So what you are saying is,  the quality control failures which are currently sold as bulk pack, are going to have their own quality control, and it is going to be packaged and cost us more?  So that means no more split or gouged necks?  Or upside down bullets? Or deep seated or loose bullets?  But they still won't meet combat spece right?  I mean, they were rejected for a reason.

As far as throwing a few more in the box and calling it good.  I have bought three  cases of the bulk pack stuff.  2 from you and 1 from another source.  Each of those bulk packs had between 9 and 12 extra rounds but I was rejecting between 20 and 24 from each batch.

you know I have been hearing all these reports of training ammo garbage and I must say that after 7,000 rounds of this stuff I have yet to find any rounds that were unsafe to fire (ie split necks, set back bullets, or "upside down" bullets). All of the 7,000 rounds that I have fired have been Lake City XM855PD and maybe its just that I have had good luck or something but I will also apreciate the fact that they happened to sell that "garbage" ammo and I do not look forward to the day that it is unavailable. Just my .02.
And now that I am out I will definately be sending an order off to the AMMOMAN!

Quoted: you know I have been hearing all these reports of training ammo garbage and I must say that after 7,000 rounds of this stuff I have yet to find any rounds that were unsafe to fire (ie split necks, set back bullets, or "upside down" bullets). All of the 7,000 rounds that I have fired have been Lake City XM855PD and maybe its just that I have had good luck or something but I will also apreciate the fact that they happened to sell that "garbage" ammo and I do not look forward to the day that it is unavailable. Just my .02. And now that I am out I will definately be sending an order off to the AMMOMAN!

Actually, I have to restate my numbers.  I had 45 and 27 defects from my first two batches from ammoman, and 21 defects from the third batch from Mirage.  Since I am reloading, some of these may not be dangerous to shoot, but I wouldn't be able to reuse the brass, and some of them I think they are dangerous to shoot.  If you haven't seen any of this in your ammo, you just haven't been looking for it.

Sorry for the poor pictures, but that is the best I can do with the camera I have.  On the one sole round,  it may be hard to see but the necked down portion is canted, I haven't tried it, but I don't think it would even chamber.

855PD says "FOR TRAINING ONLY" right on the box. What are we going to be using it for? Training maybe? So what's all the fuss over? You check your gear before you train with it, no?

Out of 1,010 rounds there were 15 that were questionable. I seperated them from the rest. Yes, it's a hassle to check each one. Don't want to do it? No problem, just spend more money for ammo. Even after deducting the questionable rounds it's still a better value IMO (for training) than most other options currently available.

BTW, 14 out of the 15 questionable rounds fired and functioned as expected. The one that did not was due to dented/mishaped case that would not chamber properly - exactly why these was seperated from the rest of the pack from the get go. With the exception of the one that is seated backwards I'd guess the rest of the rounds pictured above, while not pretty, would function as designed. Would I absolutely count on it? NO, which brings us back to the check your gear before you train with it or pay more up front for someone else to check it.

As long as it's labeled properly and priced nicely that leaves it up to us to decide what what we want to spend our money on. I'm glad it's an available option although it looks like that won't last.

my local gun shop has ammo cheaper than ammo man/I don't understand all the thrill over that dealer.

Quoted: my local gun shop has ammo cheaper than ammo man/I don't understand all the thrill over that dealer.

It depends on your local shop though, my local shop is selling their M193 20 round boxes for something like $8.99 per.  The other thing is, his prices used to be a lot better.  They have crept up quite a bit in the past couple of  years since I have been paying attention.  That is why that last case I bought didn't come from him.  It came from Mirage, and I paid almost $40 less than if I had bought it at ammoman.

Quoted: 855PD says "FOR TRAINING ONLY" right on the box. What are we going to be using it for? Training maybe? So what's all the fuss over? You check your gear before you train with it, no? Out of 1,010 rounds there were 15 that were questionable. I seperated them from the rest. Yes, it's a hassle to check each one. Don't want to do it? No problem, just spend more money for ammo. Even after deducting the questionable rounds it's still a better value IMO (for training) than most other options currently available. BTW, 14 out of the 15 questionable rounds fired and functioned as expected. The one that did not was due to dented/mishaped case that would not chamber properly - exactly why these was seperated from the rest of the pack from the get go. With the exception of the one that is seated backwards I'd guess the rest of the rounds pictured above, while not pretty, would function as designed. Would I absolutely count on it? NO, which brings us back to the check your gear before you train with it or pay more up front for someone else to check it. As long as it's labeled properly and priced nicely that leaves it up to us to decide what what we want to spend our money on. I'm glad it's an available option although it looks like that won't last.

I dont usually get involed in the XM/PD topics, as I do not buy the stuff, I load all my own ammo, so I do not have to worry about  suspect ammo...

What is posted by BH1, I have to agree with him... you knew what you was buying, deal with it.  Inspect your ammo, hell, I drop every case I size, load it, then drop each round back into the case gauge.   No reason  you cannot buy a  $20 gauge and drop all your ammo while listening to the TV or radio, take maybe 1 1/2 hr to drop 1000 round.    Should have no more stupid stoppage/malfuntion that send you home from range early.

Dings in the case body,  SHOOT THEM, brass is soft, 50,000+ psi chamber pressure will iron ouththe brass to the chamber, problem solved.  

Upside down bullet, thats a given... pull it, inspect powder charge, and re-seat correctly if you have the equipment to do so.  Mangled neck, pull it apart, salvage the bullet and powder, load it in different case.

Remember,  AMMOMAN does not make this stuff,   some manufacturer does,  they stick thier product in a box and sell it.  

I fired all the "suspect" ammo from my case of XM193 all out of the same magazine.  It all fed, extracted, and ejected perfectly and hit the target at 50 meters.  Beat to crap or not, it still worked just fine.

You ammo snobs are never going to cease to amaze me.  Just shoot the stuff.  If you want perfect ammo, load your own from new components on a single stage press.

So you bought ammo that was packed loose, labeled as throw aways from LC and were deliberately picked up off the floor and tossed into a box so people could buy some cheap ammo for plinking, and everyone down the line has made it clear that it is "training ammo" which an individual must then read between the lines and come to grips with the fact that not all of their ammo (that they knowingly bought were LC rejects) is going to have some rounds that cant be used. And then get upset about it.

Sounds like you got what you paid for. Sounds like LC's trash is your treasure, and then your upset over that ammo for the same reasons why LC rejected it. Good ammo costs money, thats just the way it is. I cant find the logic in the situation.

I dont buy that stuff for the very reason why you are here complaining about, but i didnt have to buy 3 cases of it to realize the obvious.

different strokes for different folks i guess.

Some of you are outright idiots or simply do not posses an ounce of reading comprehension.

My question was, if LC is going to start packaging all their ammo, how will we know to stay away from the reject training stuff?  Eric pretty much answered the question by stating that they are going to start inspecting the rejects, with the reject quality control system.  I then asked if that would be the end to the split necks, loose bullets, upside bullets, deep seated bullets and never got an answer.  My main concern was shady merchants that would start selling this new packaged stuff as the non reject stuff because they are going to the same packaging.

The reason I posted the pics of my rejects, was because someone stated they have not found any "reject" ammo in the cases they bought.  After seeing what I was talking about, I am sure that they can now look back and say, "Hey, maybe I should take a closer look at my ammo before it blows up in my face".

So it didn't take three cases to open my eyes.  I have 6 more cases of what I don't consider reject ammo on stripper clips, and even that was inspected, not just allowed to slide because it came in pretty boxes.  This other  stuff is range ammo, and I have saved the rejects of the rejects so I can recycle some of the components.

Quoted: Some of you are outright idiots or simply do not posses an ounce of reading comprehension. My question was, if LC is going to start packaging all their ammo, how will we know to stay away from the reject training stuff?  Eric pretty much answered the question by stating that they are going to start inspecting the rejects, with the reject quality control system.  I then asked if that would be the end to the split necks, loose bullets, upside bullets, deep seated bullets and never got an answer.  My main concern was shady merchants that would start selling this new packaged stuff as the non reject stuff because they are going to the same packaging. The reason I posted the pics of my rejects, was because someone stated they have not found any "reject" ammo in the cases they bought.  After seeing what I was talking about, I am sure that they can now look back and say, "Hey, maybe I should take a closer look at my ammo before it blows up in my face". So it didn't take three cases to open my eyes.  I have 6 more cases of what I don't consider reject ammo on stripper clips, and even that was inspected, not just allowed to slide because it came in pretty boxes.  This other  stuff is range ammo, and I have saved the rejects of the rejects so I can recycle some of the components.

Understood, forgive my level of intelligence, its rather low today.

Wouldn't it still be labeled "training use only" on the individual boxes as well as on the outside of the case?