Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire BLEM BULLETS

Every time I'm in Sedalia I go by Sierra and go to the little factory outlet store . I've bought bunches of their blems and never had any issues . Some of them will have little lead tits on the points but a few hours in the tumbler fixes that .

Same. Have used thousands of Nosler blems...all great. On the other hand, the "factory second" bullets I have gotten from Midway (mostly Hornady) have sometimes been pretty messed up looking and occasionally the weights have been all over the place as well.

In this day and age, is there such a thing as excess firsts? Maybe that explains why there's not much in stock at SPS these days.

Sometimes you win the lottery, sometimes you lose.

I've had good batches of blems and I've had bad batches.

I have a bag of blems from the Sierra store.
Half of the green tips are missing. They're not good for anything but case forming

I’ve bought blems and breakdown loose bulkies for 30+ years from Midway and Midsouth. Deer haven’t complained.
Most of the blems seemed to be Hornady but the retailer would not identify them by manufacturer.

Never noticed any problems with them other than a few scuffs. I do not weigh bullets, I don’t give that much of a shît for less than 200 yard shooting.
Check zero, kill deer. I don’t punch paper on weekends. i build stuff and dig dirt, like a man

Like slummy the deer I have shot didn’t even complain.

My experience mirrors the above posters as well. No issues with either Hornady or Nosler blems . Load shoot gut.

A lot of the blems are just the first bullets ran when setting up a machine. Run a few, make an adjustment, run a few more, make an adjustment. Get it set perfectly, and run a few more before running the ones going in a box.
Like was said above tits on some soft points, missing tips on Plastic tipped bullets are common. Open points like SMK's with the HP tips not closed to perfection. Normally lots of bullets that look perfect.
I went by Sedalia a lot years ago. I bought lots of Sierra Blems. They were pretty much selling the blems to the public for the wholesale cost of first quality bullets going to a dealer. I have shot lots of 168 SMK blem bullets that shot as good as boxed bullets. I very seldom had a cull bullet with them. I did get several tipped bullets missing tips when they first started using plastic tips. Not sure how common this is now days.

Bob R

I haven’t bought any in many years. I bought some (they were Hornady’s) 130 grain 270 cals, and some 270 grain SP’s for .375.


I measured a bunch, weighed a bunch……could find nothing wrong. In fact, I was using the 375’s to fire form H&H’s to AI’s……made a ragged hole in the target @ 100 yards. I was both amazed and impressed. At about 1800 mv, very mild recoil, and very accurate ……great plinking stuff! memtb

I've bought a lot of the Nosler handgun bullets(Blems) with zero issues.

I haven’t bought any from SPS in quite a while because I stocked up a few years ago. 😁 The only odd things I’ve seen are some dark stains on a few and a few 180 Accubonds with loose or missing tips. They all went into the same group.

If I need some more Noslers, SPS is the first place I’ll check.

I've thought several times of latching onto some "blems" from Sierra, but by the time you make a minimum purchase and pay shipping, I may as well go to a store and pay full retail! 😖
Sometimes (quite often?), "online" means they have it to sell, no savings implied!
Guess what I "otter" do is save my money until I can buy several hundred dollars worth and just "drive" to Missouri (about 400 miles!) and pick them up! LOL!

Yep……the savings aren’t as great as the used to be!

It’s been a long time ago and if memory serves me correctly….. I paid $112/1000 for my .375 Hornady’s! Today…..that would be a steal! memtb

As others have said, I shoot lots of blems and can't see any significant difference between them and the full price versions.

I have a lot of blem SMKs that shoot fine. I use them in applications where extreme accuracy isn’t the goal. They’re good enough to hit steel at modest distances.

Thanks for the replies. It looks like fire away.
Have a great day.
Jim

Jeez- what a bunch of losers.

You absolutely have to have Barnes, NP, Hammer, Siccoro, Senare or some other fancy dancy non- seconds boolits to even get the damned things out of the muzzle. Much less kill anything with it.

Educate yourself...

For hunting or shooting?

typically blems can be when they pull X out every so often and shoot for accuracy and they don't quite make it. IE the press needs a bit of adjustment usually due to wear. Won't be as accurate but often accurate enough.

I often wondered what effect that had on game performance.

as much as I respect game there is no way I'd ever risk anything considered a 2nd or blew on an animal. Bullets just aren't expensive enough to worry about in that instance. otoh I might shoot the bless all year practicing...

Correct...

Do a weight check to verify consistency... then shoot/hunt.

I have bought 10s of thousands if SPS blems over the years.

Some guns simply do not like Nosler E-Tips and load development can be atypical. I.e. Sometimes it takes a bit more effort... but for me... once dialed it... very accurate.