Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles SSA 6.8 Ammo

Bought a 200 round lot of 6.8 ammo from SSA. Half 110 Pro Hunters and half 85 Barnes. Brand new AR Precision Recon tube screwed on a YHM upper with a PRI VTac rifle length tube.
None of the ammo would chamber proberly. Hung up in feed ramps Barret and PRI mags. And the ones that would chamber wouldnt go in all the way. Put calipers on em and the necks were all way out of spec and lengths were all over the place too.
They sent me a new lot of ammo and i sent the old ones back. New ones work like a dream. Cycle and fire just fine. There are some "swipe" marks on the back of some of the brass, but not all. All primers look fine.
Anyone else have any trouble with SSA being out of spec or have pressure problems with it?
I'm gonna have to be really careful witht his stuff I guess, but from everything I heard this was the best 6.8 factory ammo i could get my hands on.

Never had a problem with their ammo. My 6.8 with the 90 gr TNT SSA factory groups under 3/4 inch out of my Bison Arms barrel. I purchased this ammo for the brass but it shoots so good I'm using it to hunt with.

I use their 110 tsx loads for hogs and have never had a problem in my Noveske.

I've fired several hundred rounds of SSA 110 gr. Sierra Pro Hunter ammo in my Stag Arms AR without a single malfunction.

IIRC there was an issue with Silver State back in the spring. It seems as if they corrected the problem though and stood behind their product. Maybe somebody with more knowledge on this will chime in.

I had an issue with some SSA 90 gr. TNT ammo in my Stag Arms AR. Apparently the powder they were using in this ammo didn't function well in Stag rifles. When I fired this ammo I encountered several rounds that had lost their primers. SSA has since changed the powder to one that is compatible with Stag Arms. SSA gladly exchanged all of the troublesome ammo and even paid the shipping both ways. I have not had a malfunction with their ammo since.

Don't think it had anything to do with the Stag.

Cliff444,

I don't know whether their explanation was valid or not. Are you suggesting that their 90 gr. TNT ammo malfunctioned in rifles other than Stag Arms?

Mike

SSA was going through a transition with the move to packwood and there was an adjustment period where they were tooling up. The issues have been fixed and they are running smoothly now. There is no better factory 6.8 or 308 ammo on the market IMO.

I have shot 1000's of rounds of SSA 6.8 ammo in more types of AR's than i can remember, and never had a problem with it.

They will stand behind there product, Jeff and Art are first rate guys.

Heavywalker is correct, the folks at SSA are great people to deal with. They really do stand behind their products. Since my initial problem, which they corrected to my complete satisfaction, I have had fantastic results with their ammo. I would highly recommend them.

Mike

I use their ammo, too. I haven's shot their lighter weights in my Stag, but have loaded some 90's of my own with several different powders with no problems. I can tell you that in 3 different Stag 7's, the SSA 110 accubonds and 110 prohunters are both well under an inch and in one case shot an inch at 200 yards. These were the combat loads and chrono at 2750. I don't envy them having to produce top performance in semi-auto weapons with barrels which range from short to long with gas ports in various configurations and piston guns, too.

My Stag 5 didn't like their early production 90 gr. TNT ammo and according to SSA the porting of the Stag Arms rifles was incompatible with this ammo. This situation precipitated their powder change in their 90 gr. TNT load. I haven't tried their later production 90 gr. TNT ammunition but supposedly it works well in Stag rifles. Their 110 gr. Sierra Pro Hunter has worked flawlessly in my Stag AR.

What was the lot #?

The subject SSA 90 gr. TNT ammo was made in March of 2009.

All of mine was made oct of 2010. The new lot of ammo shows some swipe marks, light ones. Some primers are slightly flattened but otherwise the ammo is running fine.
8 deer shot so far with the 85 tsx out of this gun all double shoulders all DRT. 150-225 yards. Massive damage on exit wounds. Some of the exit holes were 2" plus. One head shot did plenty damage too.
Don't think I'm gonna fool with the 110 grain tsx at all after seeing what the lighter ones are capable of.

By double shoulders you are meaning breaking both bones and then exiting right? Not simply in teh area of the shoulder like so many folks use the wording to mean.

Yep, busting em both and exits. Sure there were some high hits with some busted vertebra as well. All were shot from prone postiton or off of sitting bipods. I told em to shoot as much bone as they could so we could see what these bullets could do. So far so good.
Hard to really break both shoulders at most angles. But even a little high, forward, or to far behind is gonna put em down pretty quick in my experince.
On deer that size at those ranges I'm really pleased. Shot the rifle again today and the groups are tightening up a bit the more I shoot the barrel. Had a 100 yard group today that was close to a half inch factory ammo.
I'm gonna shoot a doe this weekend with a frontal chest shot and see how far these bullets will go.