[ShooterMcGavin]

I bought a bunch of cheap, factory reload ammo from a gun show this weekend. The casings have been used one time. My friend says that people who shoot reloads buy a spare barrel to use only for the reloads. He said that reloads are bad for the gun. Are they?

 

[YukonGlocker]

What factory are they from?

 

[jtaliani]

That largely depends on how hot the reloads are. The use of +p or higher pressure ammo. on a regular basis will wear any gun prematurely, whether factory loads or reloads. The main apprehension I would have with someone else doing the reloads is that you don't really know what they are doing. The potential to have a kaboom or a squib is much higher. I personally wouldn't use purchased reloads but pretty much only fire reloads through my .40.

 

[G56]

As a general rule you should avoid reloads purchased at gun shows, in that situation you usually won't know who made them or the quality, and the quality of most gun show reloads for sale is pretty poor, some can be outright dangerous.



There is only one brand of commercial reloads that I would even consider shooting, that is Black Hills, too many other companies just aren't consistent with their quality.

 

[ShooterMcGavin]

OK. I'm not sure how much of this I should use then. I bought a lot since ammo prices are rising. My friend was saying that the stuff I got was some of the best reloads available. I'll have to find out what brand.

 

[raz-0]

OK. I'm not sure how much of this I should use then. I bought a lot since ammo prices are rising. My friend was saying that the stuff I got was some of the best reloads available. I'll have to find out what brand.

Your friend also says people buy spare barrels for reloads, which of the couple of hundred people I have met shooting competitively, isn't true. the closest thing to that is the glock people buying aftermarket barrels because they want to shoot lead, or they don't trust the poorly supported chambers for .40





Pretty much any major reloaded brand that is produced on the heavily autmoated machinery like factory ammo is pretty safe. That covers black hills and ultramax (which based on the packaging and the company's location looks suspiciously like black hills in disguise). There are a number of smaller shops using good quality gear, but they tend to be regional, and tend to cater to police. Which usually means the prices aren't much better than mail ordered bulk of a budget round like S&B or blazer.

 

[G56]

Pretty much any major reloaded brand that is produced on the heavily autmoated machinery like factory ammo is pretty safe. That covers black hills and ultramax (which based on the packaging and the company's location looks suspiciously like black hills in disguise). There are a number of smaller shops using good quality gear, but they tend to be regional, and tend to cater to police. Which usually means the prices aren't much better than mail ordered bulk of a budget round like S&B or blazer.

You might be really surprised how many guns Ultramax has blown up, I wouldn't use Ulatramax under any circumstances. Ultramax doesn't even begin to approach the quality of Black Hills reloaded ammo, there's a lot of junk on the reloaded ammo market, while Ultramax might not be the worst, it certainly isn't among the best.

 

[ShooterMcGavin]

I'm not overly worried, since a bunch of my friends bought a lot of the same ammo and a couple of them knew where it came from.



If the ammo does not blow the gun up, can other damage be done which shows up over time?

 

[G56]

If an ammo was loaded on the hot side, it could cause additional wear and tear on a pistol, shorten the life overall, but I don't think that's a big problem.



The only case that I have heard of with too hot ammo really causing problems was in the K frame S&W revolvers, the K frame was originally for 38 special, then S&W came out with 357 magnum, it became common knowledge that you should not shoot a lot of full power 357 mag loads in the K frame guns, then in the 80's the 125 gr JHP became the popular load for 357, that load was particularly hard on K frames and S&W recommended that shooting the 125 gr loads be very limited, that's essentially why S&W came out with the new in between frame size for 357 mag.