Lost River Ammunition Company 44 Bear Load FAILURE

[JCS271]

As some of you know, I live in Grizzly country and have the occasional one wander around my house. So I carry one of my bear guns daily when I'm outside. I generally use Underwood or Buffalo Bore heavy for caliber hardcast rounds.

I had read some good reports about Lost River Ammunition Company So I placed a large order for 10 mm, 40 caliber, and 44 Magnum hardcast ammo.



I ordered the 300 grain bear load for my Smith & Wesson 4 inch 629.



A cursory examination showed that they came nicely packaged and appeared to be well made.

I didn't have a chronograph available but the recoil impulse felt appropriate for the advertised 1100 foot per second load.

After firing the first five rounds, I examined the sixth round and it showed obvious bullet creep compared to a fresh round that I put in there for comparison.



I left it in the cylinder and fired several more rounds. That round continued to creep and was soon protruding from the face of the cylinder sufficient to bind up the action.



It took significant Force to get the cylinder open. And shaved off a little bit of lead in the process.




This is completely unacceptable for a premium loaded bear round.



The crimp was completely inadequate and my $130 worth of Premium carry ammo is unsafe for anything other than range plinking.

Less than 2 hours after they were delivered I fired off an email to Lost River and it has now been 3 days with no response. That too is unacceptable.

I still have not tested the 10 mm or .40 ammo but at this point even if they work well, they'll probably be the last rounds of lost river that go through one of my firearms.

Very disappointing!

 

[Steve300xcw]

I bet he gets back to you. Not everybody is glued to the computer 24/7.

 

[Kyguy]

Why don't you shoot the rest of them and report back if the issue was isolated to one round or if it happened to multiple rounds?

 

[JCS271]

If the owner gets back to me I will let him make that call. It didn't occur to me to look earlier, but I imagine the number five round was also jumping the crimp but I will never know.

My concern is that this batch was all done at the same time with the same level of crimping and I take my bear ammo very seriously, so truthfully I'll never carry this ammo outside of my house simply because I don't trust it.

Frustrating situation all the way around.

 

[texag10]

The owner is pretty active on pistol-forum.com. I think he has had some health or family issues recently.

Doesn't change anything about the issue, but it might explain the current lack of response.

 

[JCS271]

I always enjoy his posts on a number of forums. We had very prompt communications all through the ordering and shipping process......

 

[pacoalcracker]

This is not uncommon for heavy loaded ammo in lightweight revolvers to jump the crimp after a few rounds are shot. Thats why you check and/or rotate your ammo to prevent a cylinder tie-up when you want your gun to work. Ive been loading heavy ammo for decades for revolvers all the way up to single action 4" barreled 500S&W and 475 Maximum including plenty of others like 454 Casull, 475 and 500 Linebaughs, 445 Supermags, 44 mags etc. etc. This has nothing to do with the quality or depth or tightness of that roll crimp. This is just a fact of bullet inertia you need to live with. Some I know use superglue on the bullet but so long as you know the gig and what to expect and rotate the ammo it;s not necessary.