Remington core-lokt ammo

Has anyone else ever had issues with remington core-lokt ammo? I've been using this ammo for years without any issues, and have had very good results with it, but in the last 2 deer seasons I've had two times where the cartridge did not fire when going to shoot a deer. Very frustrating when that moment you have a nice buck in your scope and you go to shoot and nothing happens.

I examined the cartridge, thinking that possibly it was the firing pin on my rifle, but there is clearly an indentation where the firing pin struck the primer.

Just curious if anyone else has had this happen?

N.B.

Always had good luck with it, BUT that is with ammunition bought 30 years ago. I WILL NOT buy Remington ammunition made more recently.




Charlie

I stopped buying and using it because of mis fires, and poor groups. I have boxes of old .243 that shoots amazing , the new stuff in the same gun won't hold a decent group, and I've seen a few missfires. It's not the ammo it was.

I'm not saying it won't work for hunting. It's perfectly fine in the woods with shorter ranges, but a 2 inch group at 100yd from a new box, doesn't come close to groups from the same gun with a twenty year old box.

never had an issue and hope I don't in 3030's

What type of rifle, and how old is it? I just had a good friend experience the same issue with an older remington auto in .270. Pulled the trigget and reloaded 15 times before the rifle went off.
He called a gunsmith who said. "Most of the time the reason modern ammo does not go off is usually due to worn firing pin, a weak pin spring, or dirt and crud". My friend admits that he rarely cleans the rifle, just wipes it down and puts it away. Maybe a good cleaning is in order, and then if that does not help a trip to the gunsmith. Regarding the accuracy, I too have experienced less than satisfactory accuracy with the Remington core lockt made today. It always goes off, but the accuracy is just not there. My family and I have pretty much switched to Winchester ballistic silvertip, and Hornady ammo and handloads.

Knock on wood never had a problem with core lokt. but Remington rimfires are junk I get at least 2 duds for every 10 and I will send through the gun twice to make sure

I've been shooting Core-Lokt most of my hunting life. I buy in buy in bulk and my current stock is more than ten-years-old. With all the bad reports on newer Remington ammo and the poor quality I've seen in their newer firearms, I doubt I'll buy anymore.

Was the dent in the misfire the same as in one that fired? If not you may need to do some cleaning. I reload everything I shoot and I have only ever had one actual misfire due to the primer. Others were due to lite strikes.

been using cor-lokts for years haven't had any problems. knock on wood. cheapest ammo around these parts.

I went away from it 15 years ago ...glad I did

30-06 Shoots consistent groups of 1” or less with it with never a problem.

Stopped using it in my 6 mm 4 years ago little or no expansion. Shoot hand loads in my 6mm My 700 270 won't group them . All over the target . No pattern just slings them every where. Shoot Federal 130 gr power shok in the 270

I have seen numerous problems with it over the years. I reload all of my stuff but I sure would never use Remington store bought stuff when it mattered.

The most memorable was an entire box of 35 Rem that would not fire.

I'd be checking the gun first. Alot of folks never take the firing pin out and clean them. Not something ya have to do regular, but once in awhile doesn't hurt.

Second guess is the ammo was stored improperly once apon a time.

Used it when I was a kid and never had any problems with the cartridge itself I just hated ruining a lot of Meat when those bonded bullets hit bone they come apart and you get blood shot and bullet fragments everywhere. Didn’t shoot any of it for 18 years but Remington just started producing shells loaded with Barnes tsx bullets Now I have a bunch of Remington ammo again.

Always had good luck with Remington Core-lokt ammo, but have not bought a box in years. I reload now and shoot Nosler Partitions now.

I’ve had nothing but problems with those core lokt bullets. 15 out of 20 in this box didn’t fire.

My guess is bad primers.

I’ve never had a misfire with corelokts
I use newer ones with no issues. Have taken almost all species with this bullet in 270. Not sure if it’s the gun for you but I hope so.

Just shot about 40 rounds of new corelokt in 222 , 243 , and 22-250 sighting in my Remington 788s. Not one misfire.

JP,
Those look like awful lite strikes to me.
If I got a box of ammo like that I'd find somebody with a gun in that caliber and see if they fired in their rifle. At least then you could confirm it was the ammo and not the rifle.
There are a lot of components being shipped into this country and used by ammo makers. Harder/ thicker cups on primers have been noted by reloaders also.

I imagine that remington uses their own primers. Not sure about their rifle primers but I found that their pistol primers are one of the softest. CCI were the hardest. Test method was a 357 pistol with a weak spring.

I used them for probably 30 years till i started handloading. One time trying to shoot a buck i ejected 2 before the 3rd one went off. I had used some 3 in one oil on the fireing pln and it was really cold out and made the fireing pin slow enough to dent the primer but not enough to ignite it. Took my bolt apart and used it dry. Never had a problem after that.. Started useing CLP. It has some crazy below freezing temp before its affected.

A buddy of mine started having problems with his savage 270, would misfire the first shot he would take for the day. Ended up just being his firing pin and spring were just full of rust and trash from never cleaning it and getting rained on a few times. Some pb blaster and a good wipe down and he has been back in business. So if you are getting lots of misfires, clean the bolt first then try again. Not that im defending remington bullets. Would not surprise me at all if it was junk these days. Just another reason to load your own. AT this point every load i have is more accurate and reliable than anything you could pull off a shelf at a store.

No problems firing just my gun won't shoot them.

Looks like some pretty light strikes on those primers

Try them in another gun

Northwoods Bandit, tear that bolt apart and get it squeaky clean. Check the striker spring for breakage. If you must lube it dust the internals with graphite powder or molybdenum disuphide powder (very slippery stuff and my preference). Reassemble and go shoot. Cold, congealed, gunked up, or mummified oil is your worst enemy when it gets cold. It really slows that firing pin down. Can even stop it. I shoot my own rifles dry or lightly dusted with the moly-disulphide.

Jurassic Park, looks like you have the same problem. I know of very few people that actually tear their bolts apart and clean them properly if at all. Getting the firing pin channel really clean is the toughest part. I've seen some that were so bad they had issues in nice warm weather.

As a side note, when I get a new rifle to add to my arsenal. The first thing I do is buy a box of Remington Core-Lokt to use as a control in my load development. I find them to be reliable, accurate, and consistent. I have never had any issues in 40 years of working with rifles. My most recent is a 300 Win Mag, a Rem 700 BDL, for my son and his upcoming moose hunt and a 300 Win Mag for myself, a Rem 700 Long Range, just for giggles. Both guns put 3 into an inch or a bit more at a 100 with the Core-Lokt. They were both pillar bedded and barrels floated before scopes were even bought. The Long Range just needed the recoil lug bedded. My sons BDL prints 3 into 3/4" at 100 with the second load I tried and the Long Range does 3 into 5/8" at 200 with the third recipe. They will get better. Deer season does slow down the load development. I did toss the original trigger in the Long Range (it was horrible, a lawyers trigger) and replaced it with a Timney that I have set at 28 ounces (1.75 pounds).

I checked the primer, and it looked like the same size strike as all of the other rounds that had fired in the past. I fired the gun later on that day, when I returned to the camp and it fired just fine. I do maintain my firearms pretty well, and keep everything lubricated, so I'm thinking it could have just been a bad primer or something? Just very frustrating when the opportunity at a nice buck is blown because of a situation like this. I will keep the remainder of the rounds for sighting in/ target shooting, but will definitely be switching to a different brand of ammo.

Did you take the bolt apart? The ammo might not be the culprit. You can take a horse to water but........

My Mossberg rifle has a "bad" firing pin. The primers were dented, but only slightly. sometimes... not always.
I put the rounds into a different riffle, and BANG !

I need a new bolt, but I retired the rifle for range duty until then.

Had a Mossberg 12 ga. Bought in the late 90's. Everyone that I know that shoots tried to shoot that gun. couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it. at 40 yds. the pattern was inconsistent. It's free to anyone that wants it... Bring scuba gear and a wet suit you'll need it.

My son-in-law just last week shot a box of new core-lokt in his 25-06. 2 out of the 20 didn't fire in his new rifle. He brought them to me and I tried them in my 25-06 mountain rifle and they wouldn't fire in mine either. The primers are no good.

I can’t recall ever having a misfire with my Remington 721 and I’ve shot hundreds of rounds through it. 130 gr. Core-lokt is my cartridge of choice.

if anybody has 30-30 rds they want to part with pm me.. 150 and 170 gr it makes no diff

May not be the problem at all, but I have seen people open the bolt and spray down their guns with wd-40 if they had been out hunting in the rain or had the gun on a trip in an open boat.
WD-40 will sometimes soak through the seam around unsealed primers and cause them to fail. Same thing with revolvers. Of course water can soak through as well. ALWAYs make sure your primers are sealed on ammo you will be hunting with. (In some parts of the country your life can depend on it.)

Another problem I have ran into is that sometimes a gun will come from the factory with quite a lot of graphite (dry lubricant) inside the bolt. If you get water or wd-40 inside the bolt that graphite will turn into a paste that can gum up the spring and firing pin inside the bolt, creating enough drag the firing pin will not hit hard enough to sufficiently dent the primer and will result in a miss-fire. When you buy a new gun take the bolt apart, or if you don't know how, take it to someone that does and have the graphite removed. For wet conditions it's a better bet to lightly oil the firing pin than to use graphite on it. (Graphite is fine in dry conditions as long as you don't hose it down with penetrating oil, and of course in really cold weather you don't want any lubricant at all inside the bolt.)

Also too much headspace can pad the blow from the firing pin enough to cause occasional misfires.

And of course, it may just be a bad batch of primers from the factory. Lots of possibilities.

For safety's sake I want to mention that any misfire is a potential "hang fire". If the gun clicks, wait at least one minute before you open that bolt. In a misfire the primer may smolder a few seconds (just long enough for you to get the bolt open) and then fire. Dangerous deal.

I have had issues with Remington ammo in the past. Prefer to use Federal now.

I’ve never had a miss fire but Stopped using it due to accuracy issues.
I use Winchester Ballistic silver tips. Yes they cost more but worth every penny IMO

I try to buy ammo within the same lot number if I can. If there's an issue, odds are it will crop up within the same lot. It's hard to go back to factory ammo after you've reloaded your own rounds but I've found the Remington ammo to be quite consistent.

Four hundred yards off the rail of my truck in a pretty stiff wind. Not bad for factory ammo out of a production Model 700. 7mm Remington Mag

One thing that jumped at me in this thread was that folks use WD40 on their rifles. That stuff should not be anywhere near any kind of firearm. If you want an easy to use spray cleaner / lubricant / rust preventer. Do yourself a favor and get a can or five of Ballistol. If you want to put a rifle or scattergun away for longer, spray the outside of it with T-9 lightly. WD40 turns into a yellow grunge over time that will not help the workings of your firearms at all and keep it away from locks while you are at it.
Can't help with the Remington ammo as I roll my own.