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I have been buying my 9mm target rounds at Acadamy (Monarch in the green box of 50 9.99) or Walmart
(Winchester target rounds 19.98 for 100) I also noticed Walmart has Remington UMC which in a 250 is still cheaper than both i mentioned. Just wanted to get opinions and or comments on the different brands of ammo you frequent shooters use. I shoot around 650-800 rounds a month, all my handguns are 9mm XD9SC Glock 26 and a Kahr PM9. I have yet to try any Blazer or Monarch blue box I have heard they are not very good and kinda dirty but they are the cheapest of all the 9mm I have found.

I have never had a problem w/ UMC ammo. Been a long time since I bought any. My son keeps it all the time & tote9 has too. Neither have complained. If it were giving MTICop trouble I would know.

I've shot plenty of the monarch and the remington and never had a problem with either. The remington is loaded noticeably hotter than the monarch so I usually buy the monarch for target shooting.

wilder wrote:I've shot plenty of the monarch and the remington and never had a problem with either. The remington is loaded noticeably hotter than the monarch so I usually buy the monarch for target shooting.

Any difference in the 2 types of monarch Blue or Green box.

The Monarch is not hot enough to properly cycle my Sigma. It ejects the brass about 4" from the gun and won't lock open on the last round, plus we had a couple of FTFs with the Monarch and not a single one with Winchester White Box. WWB brass pops out about 4-8 feet from the gun. It only took one box of Monarch for me to figure out it was false economy.

I have heard and read a lot of smack directed toward WWB and Blazer aluminum, yet both of those have always been 100% reliable in my experience to date. I am a stickler on keeping my handguns clean, though, so that could play a role in my experience.

I buy ammo like I buy staple goods. When a good deal comes along, I buy. I tried Sellier & Bellot after a gun store recommendation and found it very satisfactory for the price. I've stuck with it for range ammo ever since because it is reliable, reasonably clean, and I can usually get it for less than the other brands. I cannot recall one dud or a feed problem.

Mag-tech is good ammo, from what I have found. It's pretty slick on the finish so that it feeds well, and I've put a few hundred rounds of it though my LCP and my Hi-Power, and both have operated nicely on it. It's usually cheaper than WWB if you're at a store that carries it (such as Cabela's). It's not terribly dirty for cheap ammo, as far as I can tell.

Monarch and UMC have both worked well for me. I've shot several hundred rounds of both Monarch green box and UMC through my Hi-Power without any problems. It seems to me that the UMC is better ammo, though - it just feels better to shoot. Both are rather dirty.

I've shot WWB on and off, but can never seem to score a decent deal in any quantity.

I also shoot Sellier & Bellot from time to time, and it seems to be rather consistent ammo. Depending on where and when you get it, you can sometimes find it for a decent price, and it seems to be cleaner than the above-mentioned brands.

A somewhat informal study of "cheap" ammunition was done by the guys at Box O Truth. It was fairly interesting to see the results between WWB, Wolf and other ammo.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu6.htm

russ wrote:

wilder wrote:I've shot plenty of the monarch and the remington and never had a problem with either. The remington is loaded noticeably hotter than the monarch so I usually buy the monarch for target shooting.

Any difference in the 2 types of monarch Blue or Green box.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I have only used the green box Monarch and it cycles in all of my guns just fine.

russ wrote:I have been buying my 9mm target rounds at Acadamy (Monarch in the green box of 50 9.99) or Walmart
(Winchester target rounds 19.98 for 100) I also noticed Walmart has Remington UMC which in a 250 is still cheaper than both i mentioned. Just wanted to get opinions and or comments on the different brands of ammo you frequent shooters use. I shoot around 650-800 rounds a month, all my handguns are 9mm XD9SC Glock 26 and a Kahr PM9. I have yet to try any Blazer or Monarch blue box I have heard they are not very good and kinda dirty but they are the cheapest of all the 9mm I have found.

reload. save money and it's fun.

russ wrote:

wilder wrote:I've shot plenty of the monarch and the remington and never had a problem with either. The remington is loaded noticeably hotter than the monarch so I usually buy the monarch for target shooting.

Any difference in the 2 types of monarch Blue or Green box.

I don't know about practical differences, but one box color (I believe blue) indicates Russian-made ammo while the other is Serbian. I am not sure if it gives the country of origin on the box other than that color. Specs are supposedly the same, but they're different factories in different jurisdictions, so blue-box 9mm Luger (if you can get it; the Russian standard in that class is 9mm Makarov) may behave differently in your gun than green-box.

As far as UMC, that's all I ever shoot. It burns cleaner and is smoother-feeling to me than WWB. Whenever I get a 50-box of WWB for a quick outing or to top off ammo stocks, the WWB rounds ALWAYS flip harder, and 50 rounds gunks my gun up as badly as three times that much UMC. The Remington is great stuff for range and plinking.

Blazer is aluminium-cased. It's cheaper because aluminium is cheaper by volume than copper and zinc to make brass and also slightly cheaper to work with (though the process is nearly identical, aluminum, being softer than brass, causes less wear and tear), because it's made outside the U.S. where UMC and WWB are made in the USA with accompanying labor costs, and because the round only has to do its job once; Aluminium cases cannot be reloaded and Blazer's only loaded to standard factory pressure, so the casing doesn't have to withstand the stresses of being resized, reused or overloaded.

Wolf, I think, is steel-cased. It's a little cheaper on materials because steel is stronger than brass for a given thickness so you can use less of it (and the quality of steel is nothing you'd make fine cutlery from; it's mostly recycled scrap from junked cars and ships), but mainly it's cheaper on labor. I think Wolf has a lead bullet; it may be jacketed sintered iron which isn't affected by the commodity price of lead (currently quite high because of two wars, the small-arms buildups in Russia, Iran and Syria, and China's industrialization).

russ wrote:Any difference in the 2 types of monarch Blue or Green box.

Blue box is coated steel cased, green box is brass casings. I have noticed no difference in performance between the two.

DoubleJ wrote:

russ wrote:I have been buying my 9mm target rounds at Acadamy (Monarch in the green box of 50 9.99) or Walmart
(Winchester target rounds 19.98 for 100) I also noticed Walmart has Remington UMC which in a 250 is still cheaper than both i mentioned. Just wanted to get opinions and or comments on the different brands of ammo you frequent shooters use. I shoot around 650-800 rounds a month, all my handguns are 9mm XD9SC Glock 26 and a Kahr PM9. I have yet to try any Blazer or Monarch blue box I have heard they are not very good and kinda dirty but they are the cheapest of all the 9mm I have found.

reload. save money and it's fun.

you can load 9mm for about a 1/3 of the price.

To start reloading 9mm and save 2/3 of the cost 200 rounds per month or $10 per week on Ammo. that is $28 per month in savings.
What is the initial cost of reloading (decent reloading kit plus Media, Cases, primers, and Bullets).

How many rounds are needed to recover initial cost and start effectively saving?

Thanks,

Beiruty