I had a customer in my store last night with half a box of Hornady 454 Casull ammo. He was firing it out of a brand new Ruger SBH 454 (that he bought from us). The bullets were walking out of the cases under recoil. I visually compared the ammo to a box of Winchester supreme 454 ammo, and you can see an obvious difference in the crimp. The Hornady crimp looks much milder than the Winchester crimp. When my customer talked to Hornady, they "blew him off", according to him. They told him it was "our" (the retailer's) responsibility to replace or refund the ammo.

HUH?

What about his gunsmithing bill to have the gun disassembled to get the stuck bullets out? According to my customer he couldn't get the cylinder open to unload the gun, and had to take it to a gunsmith. This customer is new to large bore revolvers, so he wasn't looking for the bullet crimp/bullet walking out under recoil problem. I told him it was very common with large caliber handguns if the crimp was too weak, or if the bullet tension was too light.

I would think that Hornady would want to be aware of the problem. I would also think that if this customer is having the problem, that other customers must surely be having the same problem.

Anybody care to comment on the above?

I bought the customer a box of Winchester ammo out of my own pocket to help him out, I felt bad for him, even though I feel that Hornady should be accountable for the quality of their products. I also told him to keep trying and follow up his emails with phone calls, try to get names, ask for supervisors, etc, etc.

I've shot some Hornady factory rounds in both .454 Casull and .480 Ruger without any problems...guess I've been lucky to date. Too bad for the customer mentioned to have problems right away...that always leaves a sour taste in one's mouth.

Congratulations, SloPoke, on helping him out. Did you keep the faulty ammo? Can you send it back to Hornady and demand a replacement? Or is the customer doing that?

Hornady used to have excellent customer service, but things have changed there it seems. A while back, I e-mailed Hornady to inquire about listing "Contender" as the firearm used to test 7 BR loads, noting that this round was way too stout for the Contender and wondered if they must have meant Encore. "Steve" e-mailed back, basically calling me an idiot. By his reply, it was obvious that he thought Contender and Encore were one and the same. But I see that in the very latest manual, it has indeed been changed to "Encore".

Hornady's second-to-last reloading manual was a joke. It was so full of errors that it was almost laughable. The writers did not know the difference between "improved" cartridge and "wildcat." There was apparently no editing: the typos were so promninent that they were extremely distracting.

And the data...well, lets just say it was horrendous. For instance, the 7mm, 120 grain Single Shot Pistol bullet was listed as something like 2600-3500 fps for useful velocity range. Gee, do you know any 7mm TCU pistols that will develop this in a 10" barrel? These bullets should have been listed at 1800-2500 or something in that range, but the same "Steve" told me they didn't want to confuse anyone and wanted to make things simple. Yea, right.

I also was told that the 120 grain V-Max should not be used for game in the single shot pistols such as the 7 TCU, 7 BR, etc. But now that Hornady has dropped their single shot pistols bullets, they are telling us that the V-Max and SSP are one and the same. What gives???

I still shoot lots of Hornady bullets. I just don't take any stock in what their reps may be saying...

SloPoke,

Like you, I would think Hornady would want to make good on a problem with their product. You showed great integrity but your actions. I applaud you on that. Several years ago Hornady let some very hot .454 Casull ammo out that had similar problems.