BAD AMMO WARNING - HORNADY .45 ACP !!!

[GunnyGene]

A member on another forum just posted this and I'm passing it around in the interest of getting the word out. Please pass it around to others. THIS IS A CRITICAL SAFETY ISSUE! THERE IS NOT YET A RECALL PUBLISHED BY HORNADY!!

bought at the Academy inTupelo few weeks ago today tryed them frist round fired great ,next felled to feed then ,pulled mag to cheack this what i found ,my glock 21 sualy eat everything you feed it .hornady is usaly good ammo,lot #3194048,WILL BE GOING TO ACADMY IN MORNING TO LET THEM KNOW .

[BrokenolMarine]

Thanks for the warning.

Luckily all the ammo I bought out of pocket under contract, was American Eagle....
We bought 20 to 30 thousand rounds a year for department training, and our supplier would sell me a couple cases a year for competition in Police Pistol. I always bought an extra.

No shortages back then, just thinking like a boy scout.

[GunnyGene]

Thanks for the warning.

Luckily all the ammo I bought out of pocket under contract, was American Eagle....
We bought 20 to 30 thousand rounds a year for department training, and our supplier would sell me a couple cases a year for competition in Police Pistol. I always bought an extra.

No shortages back then, just thinking like a boy scout.

I'm thinking about all those brand new gun owners, who wouldn't have a clue whether this ammo was usable or not, and might be unlucky and end up with a mutilated hand or face.

[Travlin]

Thanks for the heads up on that. That makes me glad that most of my .45 A.C.P. ammo and all the others that I shoot come from Travlin's reloading bench.

[markiver54]

How do Ya suppose that happened Gunny?

[GunnyGene]

How do Ya suppose that happened Gunny?

Looks like they weren't crimped at the factory, and recoil from first shot set back the rounds in the mag . I know this gentleman, and he's a long time shooter. He'd have spotted them if they'd been set back prior to loading the magazine, but apparently didn't notice the lack of crimping.

In a later post, he stated that the round on the right in the pic above was fresh out of the box, the others were in the magazine.

[markiver54]

Thanks Gunny. I don't reload, so, was just wondering...not good.

[GunnyGene]

Thanks Gunny. I don't reload, so, was just wondering...not good.

Not good indeed. Spotting a weak or missing crimp takes some sharp eyeballs, and it's very unlikely that a new shooter would take the time to inspect every bullet in a factory box, even if they knew what to look for. I hope that Hornady gets on top of this quickly, but even if they do they likely won't be able to pull back every box in that lot that's been sold in the last few months (assuming this box was not the only one with defective ammo). They could get hit with a few very costly law suits sometime down the road if someone gets hurt - or worse gets killed by an attacker because of this. This stuff is marketed as hi-end Defensive Ammo, which is what a great many people have been most interested in recently.

[John E Davies]

That is very scary. I have long been a fan of their Critical Defense handgun ammo, it has always performed well and is affordable..... but this has me rethinking my choice of manufacturer. I wonder how the crimp could be skipped? I have always been reluctant to reload my own self defense ammo, but even as an aging senior I can do way better than this....

John Davies
Spokane WA

[BigAl52]

Thanks Gene. I think I would return that to where I bought it.

[GunnyGene]

That is very scary. I have long been a fan of their Critical Defense handgun ammo, it has always performed well and is affordable..... but this has me rethinking my choice of manufacturer. I wonder how the crimp could be skipped? I have always been reluctant to reload my own self defense ammo, but even as an aging senior I can do way better than this....

John Davies
Spokane WA

Automated production. Sometimes the machinery has a hiccup, or drops out of calibration, etc. And when you're pumping out thousands of rounds/hour it's impossible to inspect every round. That said, it's very likely this problem was restricted to one lot from one production line, so I wouldn't worry about other calibers. I don't know how Hornady assembles a lot (how many rounds/lot) but typically it will be something under 50,000 rnds in the industry. We won't know how extensive the problem was until Hornady releases a recall.

I was up to my eyeballs in high volume production processes for 15 years when I worked for Boeing in the 80's & 90's. You should see how they build the wings. All robotic even back then, and the robots were the size of a medium size 3 story house. Even drill changes were automated for drilling 20,000 or more holes in the spars and stringers, and installing 50 different sizes of threaded titanium fasteners to hold all the pieces together. We could pump out a 747 in 4.5 days once the production line was filled up, from 10's of thousands of parts and miles of wire and tubing from all over the world. It's absolutely mind boggling.

Check this out. This was the plant I worked at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vInrQj-q-es

[Grunt67]

Good stuff. I worked in a tool & die shop from 1985 to 2000. We built a part of the wing for the B-1 bomber back in the 90's.
Heck of a job. Some good money involved back then. A company in Nashville( AVCO, at the time ), built wings, and farmed some of it out to small shops. Lot of OT too.

[fortyshooter]

There's not a lot of crimp on a .45 ACP round about .002 at most. That is a lot of recoil to do that.

[GFK]

Not an excuse, but this climate of social distances may not a great environment for a good product.