We experienced a first this evening...a box of perfectly nice looking Remington factory 270 gr soft point, .375 H&H Mag started blowing primers and completely flattening the primers. I fired 2 rounds and then handed it off to my son who was shooting them in a Sako Carbine. The rounds I fired were normal...rounded primers and nothing unusual. I walked back into my shop and when I returned my son said "Dad are these supposed to smoke this much" As soon as I saw the rounds he fired, we ceased fire immediately. This box is about 17 years old and to my knowledge has never been exposed to any extremes....as ammo goes this isn't THAT old. One primer had lost it's cup and the anvil was still in the primer pocket. In the other 5 rounds, the primers were flat but intact, and there was significant residue around the belt and head of the case. On one case you could barely make out the "RP" on the head becasue it was filled with powder residue.

After looking at the action of the Sako, it showed soot in the bolt lug recesses and inside the side vents indicating that the primers had in fact fail allowing gas to escape around the bolt. This is perfect proof that the safety vent did function as designed!!

This has never happened to me before with factory ammo...how about you folks?? I'm going to call Rem in the AM!!

After 17 years? I'll bet the ammo was fine 17 years ago. The neck can grip bullets tighter after several years and cause high pressure. Not to mention changes in the powder. Just pull the bullets and reload the cases, using new powder. Not all is lost. Good shoot'n

I had the same thing happen with Remington Bronze Points, in .270 Win.

They were old, but I really couldn't say how old - I had used part of the box some years before without incident. The first one fired fine; the second completely blew a primer, which fell out in my hand. I carefully examined the gun, and decided everything was fine. Thinking this was a complete anomaly, I tried a third - with the same results.

I pulled the rest (a dozen or so) and found that they appeared to have been sealed into the case mouths with some sort of red lacquer, which I assume changed it's characteristics with time.

I'm still shooting some ancient Dominion stuff in .30-06 that has to be 40 years old, and it works fine - in fact, it's probably stll the most accurate factory ammo I've ever used.

I also have a substantial hoard of old yellow-boxed Winchester 270 gr. Silver Tips in .375 H&H that I only dip into for "braggin' groups"..

I'll think twice before I ever shoot old Remington ammo again.

quote:

Originally posted by BiggestGun:
After 17 years? I'll bet the ammo was fine 17 years ago. The neck can grip bullets tighter after several years and cause high pressure. Not to mention changes in the powder.

gentlemen,
i shoot surplus ammo thats 50 to 90 years fairly often.. mebbe even over 100 in some of may 7.62x54r... so do thousands of other people...

this is a failure of this 375 ammo, if it was loaded such that a very brief period of time has caused this failure, and that should be taken into consideration when buying ammo. I would call remington with the lot information and discuss. don't except another box of ammo, though they may ask for it to be send to them.

remember, kynock ammo, anceint weatherby, milsurp, and "obsolete" ammo is sold every day, sometimes AS NEW ( i've got 2 boxes of first run factory 358 winchester).... and sold every day in africa....

thanks for the warning on this.. do call remington.. ask them if they would like to have ther remainer for ballistics testing.. and all you want is a swap-out for new ammo

jeffe

Jeffe,

That's my plan. I have a bunch of early 1900s 7.62x54R that works fine too and lots of other C&R stuff that's pre WW1. Really corrosive, but still shoots fine....it's collector stuff now.

I have 16 boxes of this stuff (used to own a gun shop), so I'm not shooting any of it now. I'll advise of Remington's response.

Lowrider 49,

My guess is that the throat on the Sako is shorter than that of your rifle (you don't say what you were using), and the bullets were engaging the rifling, raising pressures.

17 year old ammo that has been stored properly should not exhibit high pressures.

Take one loaded round from that box, and blacken the bullet with a marker. Chamber the round in that Sako and turn down the bolt.

Do you feel any resistance?

Now, open the bolt and extract the round. Does the bullet show signs of contact with the rifling (the black will be missing from those spots.

Let us know.

George

George,

Very nice Buff!!

The factory round definately does not touch the rifling. I used a fired case and a 300 gr RN seated slightly into the case and closed the action. By best measure there is about 0.356" jump from the lands in the barrel to the tip of the Rem bullet in the guilty rounds. Also, not all of the rounds that were fired showed high pressure.

It really looks like just plain primer failure. I have had similiar things happen before with loose primer pockets and hot loads, but never with a factory load.

Thanks for the thoughts!!

I will advise on what Remington says.

Folks,

Just talked to a very nice lady who was a senior tech at Remington Customer Service. I explained the problem and her reply was, "send them back UPS and we'll take care of it" Couldn't be easier...now we'll see how the "send it back " part works....but so far...GREAT customer service...just as I've had before!!

Thanks everyone for your input.

Ask Remington for a prepaid UPS shipping label.

George

Remingtons are definately not my favorite rifles, particularly because of the safety system, but I do have a couple of Model 7's. My Custom Shop mylar stocked .350 Mag had a huge bulge in the chamber, right in front of the belt. The gun was very accurate, but I didn't want to be the first on the block with a "rebated" belt.

I used the inquiry function at http://www.remington.com and almost immediately got a response. I sent pictures of the bulge in fired brass and got a UPS mailing label from Remington and sent the rifle to them. It took less than a month and got the rifle back with a new barrel. Funny thing was the rifle went from a 5/8" rifle to one that's about an inch. I guess that the buggered up chamber was not so important after all as to accuracy and the second barrel, while more than adequete, just wasn't as super accurate as the first.

A kudo, however, on how Remington handled the problem... btw, when I first got the rifle, it had feeding problems and the Custom shop fixed it using UPS one-day-service since I needed it for Africa... I was using "professional reloads from http://www.safariarms.com at the time and really didn't inspect the fired cases until a year or so later. A lesson learned, btw.

There is no excuse for screwing up the rifle in the first place (particularly since the Custom Shop rifles cost a premium), but when notified of a problem, they acted with professionalism and dispatch. The ironic thing is that they wouldn't need a complaints program if they'd just do it right in the first place! But at least I have a pretty good rifle now (with the added Sako extracter and aftermarket safety/trigger....

Beware this is COMMERCIAL ammo NOT MILITARY!

A friend of mine had a simmular problem a couple of years ago with Remmington ammo in 300 Weatherby The first shot from a brand new box of ammo caused the bolt to stick and he had to knock the bolt open with a hammer handle

The Remington Lab in Arkansas called yesterday and indicated that the ammo had been exposed to high temps that caused propellant breakdown which caused corrosion which caused primer cup failure. I told them that if that occurred, it happened between the factory and the distributer in Anchorage, prior to me owning it. After some discussion, they agreed to replace the ammo.

The fella told me it was not uncommon for this to happen when the ammo is exposed to "high temps" such as inside a closed car in the summer heat. I said "you mean like Iraq or maybe Vietnam or maybe Africa or Florida". I seem to remember pallets of WW2 carbine ammo sitting out in the sun in OD ammo cans for weeks on end and it went bang just fine. I know, that was military ammo and not commercial.

I'm not buying into that explanation, but bottom line is they are replacing the ammo which I don't think they would do if it was in fact "negligent handling"......so ends the saga.

thanks for answering one of my questions. I always wondered if factory ammo went off, now I know that it does, but blows up.