I was at a Cabela’s and they had this stuff on sale for $4.49. Being that I was heading of to a friend to do some recreational shooting I thought I would try it out. If it worked I would consider it for a class if it was that cheap. I bought 3 boxes.
I have a LE6920 that has NEVER had any malfunction and chews up anything including 1000 rounds of Brown Bear without a hitch (even running back and forth with xm193).
This stuff would not feed from any magazine; GI, Fusil, Magpul. I could load the first round but that was it.
Also, had a FTE (first round on the second mag I tried). Nearly stuck in the chamber.
I shot a mag of Brown Bear and about 5 mags of XM193 without any issues before and after.
That stuff is really dirty, even the exterior of the cartridge. Firing 60 rounds of that through my rifle looked like 200+ rounds of Wolf or other ‘cheap and dirty’ ammo…and even just loading mags turned my fingers black.
Herter’s is actually Tulammo, and I get it for less than $.10 a round, so far I’ve shot about 1000 rounds of it without any issue, and spent $28.63 tax included for 300 more rounds of it…100 in 62 grain and the rest as 55 grain HP. My BCM doesn’t seem affected by it, and it is pretty dirty, but no more so than wolf, silver/brown bear I have shot.
It is certainly mediocre ammo, but it’s run fine in several guns I’ve watched. I don’t recall the quantity, but it was enough to provide some useful info.
I don’t usually buy loaded ammo but every once in a while I pick up a few boxes of Federal XM193 when my brass supply needs to be topped off.
I get it when it goes on sale at my local Bi-Mart for $5.99 a box. It is inexpensive enough that the russian steel cased stuff never gets my consideration.
Cabela’s is not allowed to accept ammo returns, but they actually do from time to time. When they accept returned ammo, they cannot sell it to the general public. In regards to the Herter’s, a buncha uninformed, illiterate folk buy this ammo in the bulk case, get it home, and go, “OMG it’s steel case. I can’t shoot this!” They then return a 1000 round case to Cabela’s, pitch a fit, and it ends up in the back. My buddy works for Cabela’s so he gets it for 10% off of a discounted price. Then we shoot it in my AR, as he doesn’t own one. He cannot outright buy it for me, or give it to me, so he holds onto ity until we go shooting, and his ammo my gun, at that price it’s a fair trade for us both.
He took the armorer’s course for S&W M&P and is getting a NIB M&P 9mm for $199…, if he wasn’t my friend I would be extremely jealous.
…so actually I lied…I don’t get it for less than $.10 a round, he does. I get it for free
I’ve shot a bunch of herters 7.62 and have seen it with wolf headstamps as well. Its seems no different then any other russian steel cased ammo l’ve shot. l have no idea who actually makes it, seems to me like they probably just package whatever russian ammo they get the cheapest and put it in a Herters box.
From what I’ve read, Cabelas bought the Herter’s name years ago and last year they bought 2.5 million+ surplus rounds from “someone” and repackaged it in their Herter’s box to test the market. Evidently the market tested well because they are now selling brass Herter’s ammo as well.
I went out this morning and fired 150 more rounds of Herter’s (50 x 55gr HP and 100 x 62gr HP). I fired the 1st mag (25 rounds per mag) from bench rest (Caldwell Leadsled) to sight in my new Eotech XPS 2-0 (been using a Leupold VX-R 3x9 on a LaRue QD mount, and IS). I then fired the rest in quick succession at multiple 25 yard targets (I’m not really discussing the accuracy of the bullets here, as I had nothing to compare with). I did 1 mag doing 2 rounds per target x 3 targets, then reset…next 2 mags were 3 x rounds per 3 targets, and last mag was 5 rounds per target x5 targets. No failures, and out of the 1800 rounds fired thus far I have had 1 failure to extract (the extractor tore the lip of the bullet off). I have read (this has been my 1st experience) that steel cased ammo does this due to the slower rate of cool down. My rifle experienced no damage, and has fired the Herter’s perfect since then (happened around the 900-1000 round point, most trips are 300 rounds, with a 150 round minimum). As a frame of reference the platform is a BCM 16" middy, and the BCG is cleaned every 500 rounds, bore cleaned every 3000, lubed generously every 300 rounds with EWL. I have fired 9600 rounds to date through this platform (I purchased the rifle from G&R in February), and I have fired 55 & 77gr black hills (reman., 2nds, and new), American Eagle XM193, Wolf Military Classic 55gr FMJ, Silver Bear .223 55gr FMJ, and Herter’s 55gr FMJ & HP, and 62gr HP…the 1 failure to extract would be the only failure to date (that wasn’t created with snapcaps for training purposes).
Herters/ Tula will not run in any of my Colt or DD barreled rifles. I am chalking it up to gas port size or chamber spec. Everything else runs fine in my rifles.
My issue was mainly failure to feed off of 3 types of magazines. I also noticed that the rounds got hung up when trying to download the mags when I got home. It seem like the neck is not crimped enough.
Correct. What is happening is there is not enough gas coming back through the gas port to cycle the bolt all the way to the rear, causing your issue. Put this ammo in a commercial RR or BM etc and the rounds will cycle due to the larger gas port sizes.
