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Sig ammo problem

647 views 9 replies 3 participants last post by  John in AR 
#1 · (Edited)
Ran into a problem with some Sig brand ammo that surprised me yesterday. Running several different subsonic and supersonic loads through the blackout pistol, encountered one load that would not work at all; sig sauer’s 220-grain full metal jacket.

Was running the various loads at various distances just to get some reps in for familiarity with the variation between subsonic and supersonic trajectories. All was fine until the last load; the 220-grain sig. Got a click instead of a bang when I pulled the trigger. The round was seated in the chamber, bolt fully forward, but no detonation. Hand-cycling the bolt wouldn’t extract the round from the chamber, so I tried several times more to touch it off; hand cycling the bolt and pulling the trigger. No luck. I pulled the bolt carrier group to see if the firing pin and/or extractor had issues, but they both seemed fine. Tried a spare bolt carrier group with the same results.

Managed to finagle the still-live round out of the chamber and decided to try and press on with more shooting. Next round in the magazine, the exact same thing. Click instead of a bang, wouldn’t extract, tried several restrikes, tried both bolt carrier groups, and had to work to get the unfired round out of the chamber; it was stuck in there pretty hard. Two weird things - even after a half dozen or so restrikes of the firing pin on each one (from both bcg’s), the primers looked almost untouched. And secondly, the casings of both rounds appeared extremely dirty when I finally got them out of the chamber, so at that point was wondering if there was something wrong with the gun because it hasn’t had many rounds through it since its last cleaning and shouldn’t be that dirty. So I grabbed handful of rounds of two other loads and all fired and cycled just fine; and the cases weren’t nearly as dirty after being fired as the defective sig rounds were.

II’m thinking it’s got to be something dimensionally wrong with this lot of ammunition. The fact that multiple hits from two good bolt carrier groups wouldn’t ignite them when every other ammo tested worked fine; that’s about all I can come up with.
 
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#2 ·
From left to right, Remington UMC 220, armscor 147, Sig 220, S&B 124:
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Plenty solid primer strikes on the other brands, but the sig primers look nearly untouched. And don’t know why the Sigg cases look like they do; it’s almost more like tarnished instead of dirty. It won’t wipe or even rub off, and they didn’t look like that before being chambered :
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The lack of primary contact makes me think dimensional problems, and the discoloring from the hot chamber makes me think maybe even the metallurgical problems. Can’t explain it, but very disappointed in it. It’s factory ammo still in the sealed boxes, bought online from either optics planet or miwall; not sure which one I got this particular ammo from. I only bought three boxes and this is the first time I’ve tried to use it; makes me glad I didn’t buy more before testing it.

Getting less and less impressed with Sig. I sold my Sig mosquito last year because it wasn’t as good a gun as the inexpensive Taurus TX22. And now encountering Sig ammo that isn’t even as good as the cheap armscor stuff. Kind of pitiful.
 
#4 ·
From left to right, Remington UMC 220, armscor 147, Sig 220, S&B 124:
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Plenty solid primer strikes on the other brands, but the sig primers look nearly untouched. And don’t know why the Sigg cases look like they do; it’s almost more like tarnished instead of dirty. It won’t wipe or even rub off, and they didn’t look like that before being chambered :
View attachment 14657

The lack of primary contact makes me think dimensional problems, and the discoloring from the hot chamber makes me think maybe even the metallurgical problems. Can’t explain it, but very disappointed in it. It’s factory ammo still in the sealed boxes, bought online from either optics planet or miwall; not sure which one I got this particular ammo from. I only bought three boxes and this is the first time I’ve tried to use it; makes me glad I didn’t buy more before testing it.

Getting less and less impressed with Sig. I sold my Sig mosquito last year because it wasn’t as good a gun as the inexpensive Taurus TX22. And now encountering Sig ammo that isn’t even as good as the cheap armscor stuff. Kind of pitiful.
John, I've noticed that with several manufacturers of ammo and many other things.
It's like after I had gotten the replacement decapping pin and spindle assembly from Hornady in and I looked at the original one that got messed up. Well the original one didn't have the threads cut right. They were flat across the tops.
Back to the SIG ammo...made in Jacksonville AR. from what I can find out. And as far as I know they do own the place not contracting out production.
Kind of makes it doubly disappointing to me
Two things come to mind. First a shallow primer pocket. Second out of spec primers, the look of the light indentation made kind of screams too hard or thick primer cups.
If you want maybe call or email them and let them know what's going on ? They may track down the faulty primers or whatever is the cause.
 
#5 ·
I do have drop in go/no-go gauges for several calibers that I reload, but not for .300 blackout. But my thoughts are similar to yours; some dimensional issues, and possibly some metallurgical issues since I can't even scrub off the discoloration from where they've been in the hot chamber.


...Two things come to mind. First a shallow primer pocket. Second out of spec primers, the look of the light indentation made kind of screams too hard or thick primer cups.
If you want maybe call or email them and let them know what's going on ? They may track down the faulty primers or whatever is the cause.
If I had a ton of it, I'd mess with it. But I only bought three boxes of this stuff (probably a year ago or close to it) and I've just set it aside now to try in the single-shot carbine. If it works in it, great; if it doesn't, then I haven't lost all that much.


The two unfired Sig rounds with fired brass of other mfrs, from the same outing. For whatever reason, the Sigs are discolored much more than the S&B, Armscor, and Remington stuff, and it's not just soot or carbon. Even rubbing them a bunch doesn't clean them - this pic is after I rubbed & scrubbed them quite a bit, trying to clean them off. It's like the metal itself has changed color in splotches.
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Either way, just glad I don't have much of it. I'll just keep it for the single-shot, and know not to buy any more of it.
 
#6 ·
Have to admit an error. Looking at the unfired rounds, they just didn't look 'right' for 220-grain bullets. So I pulled one and sure enough, it wasn't; they're 125-grainers. Still Sig FMJ stuff, but I had the wrong empty box in hand when I first messed with these. Just an FYI, in case anyone thinks they might have the same ammo on hand.
 
#7 ·
Okay – the story gets deeper & weirder. I was digging around to see how much of this particular ammo I had on hand. I initially thought it was just three boxes, but at the time I was thinking it was the sig subsonic load, not their 125-grain supersonic. When I first started looking, I was relieved to find that I couldn’t find any more of this stuff. It was easy to look for, since it’s in a plain white box almost like WW/USA or Federal 9BP-LE stuff is.
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I did find some other sig ammo that looked functionally the same but was in sig’s typical black & gold packaging, so I took a box home to compare. Same specs: a 125-grain FMJ bullet listed at 2200 fps and marked "Made in the USA", but in a very different packaging – weird.
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Then, to see if I could tell which was newer-production or gather some other insights on it, compared the UPC number. Weird again – exact same UPC / SKU number: 7-98681-91963-4 on both (very different) boxes.
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Well crap. I have a fair amount of the stuff in the black & gold boxes, so was worried about it. Further weirdness – the stuff from the black & gold boxes runs just fine. To make sure I wasn’t having a senior moment or remembering something wrong, I tried the stuff from the white box again, and yes, it’s total crap. Absolutely no indication of primer strikes even after 4-5 hits from the firing pin; and they wouldn’t extract. Had to disassemble the gun to get them out.

So I guess the first part of the lesson here is that even though they’re the same manufacturer, the same description, and even same UPC / SKU number, they’re absolutely NOT the same.

The second part of the lesson is pretty sad to me; it’s that I may just be done with Sig forever. Decades ago, Sig was a brand that I really admired but couldn’t afford. Then when I finally did buy the only sig gun I’ve ever owned (a Mosquito .22LR), it was just ‘okay’. Not the worst .22 pistol I’ve ever owned, but nowhere near the best. When I accepted that the Taurus TX22 was a MUCH better gun than the Sig Mosquito, it was something that really hurt to admit; but I eventually gave in to logic and sold off the Mosquito. Then this nonsense with them changing a load while labeling it with the same UPC number, is likely my last straw with them. Sad, but it is what it is.
 
#8 ·
The only thing I bought from them that I liked from what I call SIG/USA are their red dot sights.
Thing is they do a crap ton of sub contracting and don't say it. Or probably use temp/contract employees some of whom don't care.
Makes me wish I had my old West German marked 236's and 220 back now.
 
#10 · (Edited)
I didn't know they made suppressors; interesting. It'd still be very hard for me to get past this blatant sloppiness on manufacturing and labeling. Two obviously different loads, but labeled with the same sku/upc number; I'd be surprised if that was done by even a cheezeball company, much less a long-term entity like Sig.

Not like I'm sitting around seething about it; I'm just done gambling on them anymore. Cheaper options like Sellier & Bellot and even Armscor have given better results than this sig ammo (which is very disappointing), and the Taurus is a substantially better gun than the sig mosquito was. It's disheartening, because sig was always one of those top-tier mfr's when I was young, and it's a shame to encounter this level of disappointment with them.
 
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