Silver State Armory Ammo Problem

[bigcheese920]

I'm new to the whole forums so hello everybody.
First off last week went out to the range to do some load testing for my new 10T. I picked up a box of SSA 175GR HPBT to shoot as my constant and to site in my scope. I ended up shooting around 10 rounds of SSA and there was no problems. Well yesterday I got a new steel target and I wanted to try it out and when I took the first shot there was smoke everywhere. Wasn't sure what happened and then opened up the bolt and saw that the primer blew out. I called Nosler today to get it settled because I'd rather not shoot the ammo and have something go wrong again. The guy from Nosler blamed me for everything and that it was my guns fault not there's. After I asked to speak to his supervisor he was even more rude saying that it's the old SSA ammo not Noslers. But the ammo has Nosler brass. So what I'm getting at is has Nosler always had terrible customer service and who has gotten a blown out primer and did they ever get it taken care of?

[J.Baker]

Just because SSA is using Nosler brass to make their ammunition doesn't mean a blown primer is their fault. A blown primer is a high pressure issue, meaning most likely it's a hot load issue. Even when I'm reloading I've yet to have a blown primer in any brand of brass even when a piece has a noticeably loose primer pocket.

The real question didn't you call SSA as the ammo is their product.

[CaptREDD]

Another good reason to load our own...You know who to blame if sumpin is wrong!


REDD

[pdcullen]

Nosler bought SSA and SSA no longer exists.

[bigcheese920]

If you go to ssarmory.com the website on there box. It brings you to a place where you can purchase it. They don't have a site anymore. So if Nosler isn't responsible then who would be. That's what I don't understand. If Nosler buys out SSA I feel like they should be responsible but they don't think so.

[BoilerUP]

Call again, email, and post a polite message (with pictures) to Nosler's Facebook page.

Include the lot number in all communication.

If 10 rounds were fine on one trip then on another it blew a primer...it ain't your rifle.

Were the rounds left to bake in the sun before shooting, by chance?

[bigcheese920]

No. The rounds went from out of my gun cabinet to in my magazine both times.

[bigcheese920]

I have a 100 yard range in my backyard.

[bigcheese920]

Well after 3 phone calls and a bunch of emails and who knows how many supervisors I had to talk to i finally have come to a solution with Nosler. I asked for my money back for half of a box because I shot half the box and I don't want to shoot the rest which I thought was fair but instead they're going to pay to ship the ammo from Wisconsin to Oregon and "inspect" the ammo and then ship it back... Wouldn't it just be easier and cheaper to just give me my money back? How are they going to be inspected. Shouldn't every bullet be inspected before leaving the plant in the first place? Now I just have to wait for UPS to come pick it up and 3-4 weeks later I'll get my 9 bullets back.

[J.Baker]

Simple explanation: Nosler wants the ammo back to inspect it to see if there may have been a problem with that lot so they can issue a recall if necessary. They also do it to verify a half box of ammunition actually exists before shelling out a refund.

As for whether or not it was inspected before leaving the plant, if you had any inclination as to how mass production works you would know most anything manufactured is batch inspected meaning they pull random samples from each batch over the course of the production run. Inspecting each and every single round that leaves the factory would make it too expensive and time consuming and would slow production down to a crawl. So they just pull a few rounds off the line to inspect every 500 or 1,000 or however many rounds.

That said, a production line will usually have built in safe guards such as automatically weighing each and every round and those that fall outside of tolerance (i.e. light or heavy powder charge) are weeded out.

[Robinhood]

What do you mean by primer blew out? Are there cuts and carbon around the edge of the primer pocket? Do you have cuts in the face of your bolt head? Or did you have a pierced primer?

[darkker]

That said, a production line will usually have built in safe guards such as automatically weighing each and every round and those that fall outside of tolerance (i.e. light or heavy powder charge) are weeded out.

No.
Ammo manufacturers do not load ammo using "Weighed" powder charges. They all use a VOLUME of powder, based on Testing the lots burning rate.I know their propaganda says they carefully weigh each charge, but they don't. All of their ammo is loaded on Dillon machines with random samples taken for QC.

Now interestingly enough, while major factories buy whatever they want; Nosler is still buying Canister grade powder. With the work done over Christmas, I would say that some stuff with Hidgdon's name on it has some disturbingly large lot variations. But since they refuse to tell you what the Nominal tolerances are, and they don't make shyte.....

[bigcheese920]

What I mean by the primer blowing out is when I opened the bolt the primer fell into my magazine and the shell was all black around the stamping and primer pocket. There's a small faint little mark where it must have hit the bolt face.