Pecos45,

I hope you don't mind me taking this thread in a different, but related, direction. The title made me think about how blemished is too blemished. How damaged or imperfect are these bullets? Have you shot these before? I assume you have and would do it again because of your post.

I was ready with some thoughts on my experience with less than perfect bullets, which I'll share now. The most I've shot with something you might call blemished are some antique (visible machining on the nose) Partitions that showed varying degrees of oxidation. These bullets have shot as well my MatchKing loads, and that at full speed. I've also pulled some bullets, after crimping, and those shot quite nicely.

My theory: as long as the damage is concentric and no deeper than the rifling's engraving performance from a non-benchrest rifle will be fine.

Please excuse my hi-jack, but I had to get this out.

On the last blem sale that Midsouth had, I ordered 500 of the Hornady .30 cal 165 gr Spire Point Boat Tails and 500 of the Hornady .30 cal 180 gr Spire Points. Upon receiving them, I looked them over and compared them with some of the same ("firsts") that I had previously purchased at a gun store. I can't really tell any difference between the blems and the firsts. There are some that have a jacket that's a little dull in spots but physically I couldn't detect any difference. However, let me state up front, that I have not done any concentricity (is that the correct word?) measurements as I don't have the tools. Also, I have only loaded and fired about 40 of the 180 gr bullets and none of the 165 gr bullets so far. (I've been working with other calibers and bullets. I bought the .30 cal blems just to have on hand and stock up with as the price was too good to pass up.) So, I haven't done a lot of accuracy testing. But, from my admittedly very limited experience, they seem fine to me.

Just my two cents worth if it's of any help....
-Bob F.

At the last blem sale I bought a couple hundred of the 300 gr. FP bullets for the 405 Winchester. I weighed a bunch of them and they were all withing +/- 1 grain if they even varied that much. The only problems with them were that some of them had spots on the jackets and some of them had the nose with a little "ruffle" in it for lack of a better work. Even the bullets with the odd looking nose weighed 300 grains.

The only problem with the blem sale this time is everything that I saw was listing in quantities of 1000 or something huge like that. Last time you could buy the stuff 100 at a time.

From Midsouth's web site:

"We plan to break these down into smaller quantities soon! However, for a limited time, we are selling these by the case quantities! Huge savings when you buy bulk!! You can keep checking back for break-down quantities, but beware, they may sell before we get a chance to break them down!

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/oem1.asp

Yeah, the case quantities are a little large.

-Bob F.

The prices are MUCH higher than last time!!

Thanks for the note BFaucett, I completely missed that. That's good to know. I am almost contemplating buying one of those cases of 500 S&W bullets, but can't bring myself to drop the cash at the moment.