How you know your ammo had a rough shipping life

[ToddM]

Got these the other day in a shipment of a couple cases order. Hornady 140gr 6.5 ELD that a site had on sale for $30 a box delivered.

One of the cases was fine, so I doubt it happened in transit to me, and they were still in the larger factory packing so the store probably didn't even know, but I don't think I've seen a box of ammo in factory packing that was clearly dropped so hard that the tips punctured not only pictured the ammo boxes but also lightly dented the tips. Even more weird is the outer factory case box didn't have punctures in it, so I'm wondering if this happened to them before they even got shipped from the factory. Though I make that assumption because it seems unlikely unless they tips hit something hard they'd dent, granted the tip damage is very minimal, but you can definitely feel a ridge on them that they've been flattened.

Knowing me they'll probably shoot better than the rest.

 

[Budrichard]

Who shipped them to you?
Email Hornady with pics.

 

[ToddM]

Not going to call out a dealer when I don't believe they had any wrong doing. 20rd boxes were still in their sealed Hornady 10 box case, the cases were well packed in a thick exterior box with padding and no obvious damage to the exterior box. There was also no obvious damage to the exterior of the factory packaging and the other case that shipped with them was pristine.

Reaching out to Hornady is a good idea though, I had not thought of that.

 

[ironpony52]

Looking at your picture I would say the boxes had to hit perfectly flat to have all the tips poking thru like in the center boxes and the edge boxes didn't hit flat, very odd.
My guess is if you contact Hornady the will know exactly where it happened if it is on their end.

 

[lash]

Not going to call out a dealer when I don't believe they had any wrong doing. 20rd boxes were still in their sealed Hornady 10 box case, the cases were well packed in a thick exterior box with padding and no obvious damage to the exterior box. There was also no obvious damage to the exterior of the factory packaging and the other case that shipped with them was pristine.

Reaching out to Hornady is a good idea though, I had not thought of that.

Sounds like someone along the line before your shipping dropped a pallet by mistake. I’ve seen things over the years when it comes to forklift screw ups. Dropping a whole pallet from even a couple feet will create a lot of inertia for heavy rounds to deal with.

 

[ToddM]

Yeah I've always thought it was a bit odd Hornady packages their ammo in plastic holders where the tips are not protected/supported at all. Like say Federal/Barnes/Remington/Berger all do and in the past Prime did.

 

[lash]

Yeah I've always thought it was a bit odd Hornady packages their ammo in plastic holders where the tips are not protected/supported at all. Like say Federal/Barnes/Remington/Berger all do and in the past Prime did.

Maybe exactly because much of their ammo is ELD types with polymer tips.

 

[DownhillFromHere]

If there is any visible damage to the polymer tips, call the selling vendor. In fact, call them anyway.

It may make a difference, it may not. Years ago, I had a shipper - I don't even remember which one - drop a case of CCI SV .22 on my brick front porch. The box split open, one of the ten bricks burst, and at least one box popped (I wasn't here; my wife told me about it). Boxes and loose cartridges gathered up... I only paid $255 shipped for the whole case and there were no obviosuly damaged rounds so I just did nothing. Cartridges were fine for the short-range positional practice for which I bought them.

I had another shipment of two 500-count boxes of Hornday 6.5mm 140 ELDMs which were damaged inside the clearly damaged shipping box. Bullets looked fine. Vendor didn't want to do anything. I ran them. They shot fine.

But wait. There's more.

I ordered five bricks of Lapua Long Range .22 earlier this year and opened the properly-padded, properly-sealed but clearly damaged box to find damage as shown. The shipping box had clearly been dropped on a corner from significant height, and the 50-round boxes that took the brunt of the impact actually had deformed and broken cartridges. Had I been home when they arrived, I would have refused delivery.

Cheap ammo and bullets are one thing. Near-$20-per-box rimfire match ammo is something else. The vendor - I won't say who it was because they did nothing wrong - replaced all the damaged boxes. I offered to just take a credit toward my next purchase, but the response came across to me like they would make a claim against the shipping company.

Fwiw.

 

[Baron23]

Those cases were dropped.....with the tips being exposed, it really doesn't take much. Gravity is a mofo.

I agree with some of the folks above...yeah, the vendor is not at fault but that's where you start and the vendor can go back to Hornady with a "WTF...you shipped me damaged product" and they will likely get a better reception than you as a retail customer.

 

[ToddM]

Actually interestingly enough, the tips don't appear to actually be damaged beyond "normal". I have several lots of that ammo over time from various vendors, I've never really deeply inspected the tips but they really are not all that uniform, quite a few have and these don't actually see to be any worse than others with no box damage. Even ones in pristine boxes have tips that have "lips" on them like they've been "smooshed" So it seems like while they punctured the box, they didn't damage the tips, I did check overall length of quite a few, seems the same as others.

I agree on 22 shells, I've had some of those come this year dropped on corners and it doesn't take much to damage those since usually the boxes don't have any protection there. I've also had them come just thrown into a box with no padding at all and show up all out of the box. Good or bad vendor doesn't seem to matter, must be luck of the draw of who packages them, cause some times they are great, others horrible.

 

[carbonbased]

I had that happen on some Hornady 40gr Superperformance 204 cartridges. Box of 50. Changed the e OAL of some.

I sighed and tossed the OAL-changed ones into the dud can at the range (sub-10 rounds) and shot the rest. Some had dented tips. I just was too lazy to complain, and it was for sure UPS. Shipping box was smooshed on one area (right were the effed up box was) and the 5 other boxes of 50 were fine.

Only time that’s ever happens to me.