Atomic .308 Ammo -- Please read!

[ORN197]

Well, earlier posters described various issues with failed cases, which would indicate problems with the brass case itself; GGaskill stated he thought the reconditioned military brass could have been previously fired in MG's, and the brass excessively work-hardened during the resizing process. So, the failure to fit a case gage would just be a symptom of an altogether poor case reconditioning process. Taking all that together, no, simply re-sizing the brass wouldn't solve anything.

My plan is to pull the bullets and scrap the brass. I've thought about saving the powder but since I don't know exactly what it is, and the relatively small quantity involved... probably put it on the garden instead. We're talking 300 rounds, or about 2 lbs of powder... just not worth it if you ask me.

The bullets are supposed to be Nosler 168gr HPBT's, so at least that's a known variable.

I might still have some Black Hills .223 match ammo in reconditioned cases, and I used to shoot a lot of it, with zero issues. But I haven't bought any in years. Beyond that, I think I'm done with "factory-reloaded" ammo. I'm sure the stuff from reputable manufacturers like BHA is probably OK, but I guess it's all just starting to seem like false economy. I'm kind-of surprised the CMP hasn't stepped up regarding the Atomic ammo they sold, but, whatever.

[AWOhio]

I have a batch of BVAC factory reloaded 308 ammo with lake city brass that had the same issue. Case separation near the rim. Blew out the bottom of a magazine. Thought it was a fluke, so I did some cautious test firing, and had a second one do the same thing in a different rifle.

[Big_Red]

All,
To piggyback on many of the posters here, had a similar negative experience with the reloaded Atomic ammo, purchased back in 2013 from CMP.

I forgot I had this box, though I remembered shooting an enbloc worth through a CMP Special in .308, and some through my Remington 700 SPS shortly after purchasing the ammo.
At the time I shot those rounds, I remember recoil in the Garand was more severe than any other ammo I shot. And in the 700, almost every round failed to feed, so I gave up after only 5 or so. I did pick up the brass, but don't recall seeing any split cases. I didn't think to look for overpressure signs...as others had annotated at the time, chalked it up to stout ammo.


Fast forward to today. Found this box as I got together with some family to shoot a few rifles, one of which is a Springfield Armory early receiver M1A built with USGI parts.
I loaded a Checkmate 20-round mag with the Atomic ammo...first round, no problem.
Second round, alot of smoke and heat in my face when the rifle discharged (didn't see anything on my shooting glasses, but felt the heat under them!).
As I brought the rifle down, my cousin and I noticed heavy smoke still in the action. I safed the rifle...the fired round did go downrange, the subsequent round had soot on it, as did the top 2 rounds in the mag. Fortunately, and surprisingly, no other damage to the mag, or the rifle!

We found the brass...and it was split exactly like RickRandR in the OP of this thread, docsparks experienced back in Oct, 2016 (see page 2 of this thread), dhuze posted about on a friend's rifle in Nov, 2016 (page 3), and as Shomway posted in Sep 2018 (page 4)...except it was cracked in 2 different places in the extractor groove!
I am amazed that the case head didn't separate on extraction, and even more so that there was no damage to even the magazine, let alone the rifle.

But there's more as this case also experienced a neck split! And the primers on both casings clearly exhibited overpressure signs.



Someone else had just finished firing 10 rounds in my SIG716. He said that every other round had difficulty chambering and they had to drop the mag twice....AND, there was one round where there seemed to be more smoke than normal coming from the BCG.
We dug around in the grass and found 6 of the 10 cases. Sure enough, found one with the exact same split in the extractor groove!
And yet again, no damage to either rifle or mag.
No way these malfunctions are weapon-related.

Just to make sure, I broke down both rifles, closely inspecting the bolt face and chambers of both, but not seeing anything unusual. Have fired 100's of rounds in both rifles prior to this with no issues whatsoever.

I then shot several rounds of Federal XM80C (LC 16 headstamp) and Federal XM118LR (LC 11 LR headstamp) through both rifles secured in a Caldwell Lead Sled. No feeding issues at all and we recovered all the brass for both. No signs of overpressure and cases looked fine.

Of the rounds that were fired, and the remaining rounds in this one box, there are 25 different headstamps, with over half of them being LC 09 (105 each), followed by LC 08, TAA (Taiwanese) and IVI (Canadian) at 15 apiece.

Interestingly, both cases that split were LC 08.

I will be contacting Atomic about this tomorrow.
Depending on what happens there, may just pull the bullets as they are Nosler CC 168 Gr HPBT.
But, would like to do some forensics as others have mentioned here, i.e. - dissect and measure the fired cases, weigh powder charges in the remaining cases (if I keep them). I don't have my Sheridan gauge with me, otherwise, I'd check the remaining rounds in it.

With all this, I've stickied this thread for others awareness.

NOTE: I can't speak to Atomic's modern production .308 ammo, which is advertised in new cases, though mentions the same 2600 fps on the label.
This applies to the reloaded ammo in fired military brass sold back in '13 and '14, and is so annotated on the box (see pics below).
As others have mentioned, and from what I've seen of the headstamps, pretty sure this is work-hardened machine gun brass, coupled with a stout load.



Packaging










Casing from M1A (2 splits in extractor groove, neck split)












Casing from SIG716 (one split in extractor groove)








Pic of primers from fired cases (both rifles...SIG716 on left, M1A on right)








XM80C fired cases from both rifles







XM118LR fired from both rifles (with 2 unfired cartridges for comparison)

[ceresco]

It might be helpful if you could provide information on the "base-to-shoulder" dimension of the suspect unfired ammo. I experienced similar case (extractor cut area) failures several years ago in a batch of 30-06 HXP handloads. My theory is the failures are a variation of classic case failure, occurring in the extractor cut rather than the web possibly due to the larger cut on the post 1973? HXP weakening that area of the case. I had taken care to resize my HXP cases to minimum (for match reliability) and was using a 1917 with slightly excessive HS. The aforementioned incident is unique in my experience. Good Shooting. ....

[GGaskill]

Besides weighing the powder charge, see if you can identify it by measuring the length and diameter of the kernels and comparing with known types. Could be that it was loaded with a safe load of one type but the wrong type was loaded in the hopper.

[rickgman]

Originally Posted by GGaskill

Besides weighing the powder charge, see if you can identify it by measuring the length and diameter of the kernels and comparing with known types. Could be that it was loaded with a safe load of one type but the wrong type was loaded in the hopper.

Rob, This issue has nothing to do with the propellant. It is simply a case of improperly resized cases which effectively yielded a headspace that was too tight. H.P. White Labs performed a study some years ago that documented that a case that was force fit into a chamber results in excessively high chamber pressures. Basically, the case is deformed by chambering to the point where the case mouth exerts excessive force on the projectile. This results in very high pressure before the projectile is released from the case mouth.

[ZvenoMan]

Atomic has an FAQ on their website about this where they pretty much say it's not their problem.
Are those of us with this ammo stuck with it; will CMP swap it out, or Atomic?
JH

[BobJ50]

Talk with your attorney, Bernie. If it is a defective product, they need to take care of it...before...someone gets hurt. I didn't talk with Bernie, I talked with my Attorney Daughter.
Any Forum member who is an attorney [you don't have to admit it!], can point in the direction of: "Torts."

[GotSnlB28]

I had called Atomic a couple years ago and talked to the owner. In a nutshell, he said the ammo had proper QC and was safe. He indicated that most of the issues reported (at that time) were with improperly built rifles. Also stated that once fired brass was a risk/reward proposition for the buyer and that ammo can go bad over time of which they don't have control. Basically gave me a variety of reasons and they weren't able to do anything about it of course.
I'm not real happy, have about ~800 rounds / 1000 that I bought to shoot in my Navy M1s. At this point it looks like they are only good for the bullets and I don't reload at this point in time so the boxes are expensive paperweights.

[rickgman]

Originally Posted by GotSnlB28

I had called Atomic a couple years ago and talked to the owner. In a nutshell, he said the ammo had proper QC and was safe. He indicated that most of the issues reported (at that time) were with improperly built rifles. Also stated that once fired brass was a risk/reward proposition for the buyer and that ammo can go bad over time of which they don't have control. Basically gave me a variety of reasons and they weren't able to do anything about it of course.
I'm not real happy, have about ~800 rounds / 1000 that I bought to shoot in my Navy M1s. At this point it looks like they are only good for the bullets and I don't reload at this point in time so the boxes are expensive paperweights.

Joel, It seems like some folks have been successful in separating the good from the bad by inspecting the cartridges with a Sheridan case gage. It is necessary to check each cartridge more than once by re-orienting the cartridge a few times to get a conclusive reading with the gage. It is up to each individual as to whether they feel confident using the cartrdiges that gage within spec. The bad ones can be broken down using a bullet puller and you can sell the pulled bullets to a reloaded. I think they used 168 grain Sierra Match King bullets so they are popular with many reloaders. Good luck !!!