Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Problems with Nosler factory .223 ammo?

I was wondering if there is a general issue with Nosler factory .223 ammo.

I've been shooting an AR for a while, not a rabid long time fan, but I like mine and have put a few thousand rounds through them. The only misfire I've had so far was with Nosler 60 grain ballistic tip "match grade" factory ammo. I more or less shrugged it off.

Last weekend I took a new 700 VS that's been languishing in the safe unfired for a year out to sight in. I wasn't ready to play with handloads, just took a few partial boxes of factory ammo. The WW 64 grain powerpoint stuff worked fine. Didn't shoot for [bleep], 4+ inch groups, but it went bang and gave me no guff. The first 2 rounds of 55 grain "Varminator" Nosler ammo fired fine. The next 3 misfired on the first try. I extracted each, turned them part of a turn, put them back in the chamber, and pulled the trigger again. All fired on the 2nd try. The 2nd of the 3 had a wildly protruding primer after the shot. The third ruptured the primer .. punched the firing pin right through the cup. A single round of the 60 grain factory ammo, same as misfired in the AR, would not fire at all.

I'm wondering a couple things ... first, the symptoms suggest excessive headspace and since it happened in 2 different guns, especially in the AR which has a fairly significant history of no other issues, I think it is ammo, not the guns. Does that seem reasonable?

Second .. is there a known issue with Nosler factory .223 ammo and misfires?

Tom

Dunno about Nosler factory .223, but this morning I lit off a Nosler "Trophy Grade" 9.3 Mauser 250 NAB and all it did was go 'click'.

'Course all I have to do is guess which ones won't fire and leave those at home when I head out to knock down dinner...

Easy Button...

Nosler makes chit ammo. I tried some of their 22-250 factory loads and they were worthless... On top of not shooting worth a fuqk, whatever powder their using is filthy. The Hornady super performance 22-250 with the 55 grain V max shoots very well out of my Sako as does their 243 with the 75 grain V max.

Whatever powder they're using for the 9.3 Mauser 250 gr. NAB it burns really clean. Some of the cleanest I've seen from factory ammo.

A couple of comments:

Have been slowly using up a supply of around 1000 rounds of Nosler Varmageddon .223 ammo for a decade now. No problems with accuracy or going bang in various rifles, including my AR-15 and several bolt guns--but if you are having the difficulty described you should contact Nosler.

Nosler folks have also told me the powder they use in most (if not all) Nosler ammo is one which has proven accurate during their testing for their handloading data. In other words, it's probably the powder that's listed as most accurate for that bullet weight in their on-line and manual data.

Well, for the 9.3 250 gr. NAB that just might be Varget. When I took apart the round that didn't go bang the charge weighed 53.0 gr. of short cut something...

I won't get started on Nosler QC.

They must be drawing out of the same gene puddle as Leupold?

Buy their bullets, not their loaded ammo. Barnes makes some chidt ammo too, but we love using their bullets. WhoTF wants to pay the asking price for that Nosler ammo anyway?