9mm tulammo

[JoJo]

Walmart sells Tulammo and it is real cheap. I would like to try it but would like some opinions on its performance? I read good and bad reports on it but they seem to be biased. What say you?

[DMCakhunter]

Not 9mm but their 7.62x39mm has been fine.

[thatGuy]

I've never had any real problems with Tula 7.62 but I don't shoot a lot of it.

[CJS06]

I have run a few thousand rounds of Tula 9mm.  It is fairly dirty though not much worse than say WWB.  It does have hard primers. Not a big deal for most pistols, but if you have a gun set up for gaming (light striker or hammer spring) or even a stock gun that has light primer strikes you could have some FTF problems.  I had that with one gun that I set up as a race gun. Every 4th or 5th round would not fire.  I could take those rounds and run them through my other guns just fine.

[Grudgie]

It does have hard primers. Not a big deal for most pistols, but if you have a gun set up for gaming (light striker or hammer spring) or even a stock gun that has light primer strikes you could have some FTF problems.

This is some good intel here. I am having a little trouble igniting primers in my AK from Tullammo and this may be the reason. Hard primers you say?

Another thing about Tullammo is that it tends to be loaded weaker than most American ammos.

Here is a quick chrono chart I found that scott63 did on AKfiles.com:

Winchester 9mm 115gr fmj:
Average velocity:1238.5fps
Standard Deviation for 15 shots: 14.81fps
This ammo was extremely dirty, and while shooting it there was a consistent glitter looking(unburnt powder?) substance flying about, so much so that my son asked if Winchester put pixie dust in their ammo. Accuracy was the same as the TulAmmo.

TulAmmo 9mm 115fmj:
Average velocity: 1186.1fps
Standard Deviation: 29.30
This ammo was much cleaner shooting than the Winchester. No noticeable difference in accuracy, no noticeable difference in felt recoil.

The 'cleaner' shooting Tullammo he cites could possibly be because there is less powder to burn?

[CJS06]

Grudgie

I find Winchester particularly White Box (WWB) ammo to be extremely dirty. I believe it has more to do with the quality of the powder they use than the qty. Blazer Brass can be dirty as well, but that seems to be lot driven.

If you are getting a bunch of FTF due to light primer strikes with your AK get yourself a new hammer spring.  It may work fine with "good" ammo but really needs to work with any ammo. The wound springs in Aks tend to be fairly durable and have a long lifespan but for a very low dough fix($10) it is worth installing an extra power spring. Here is a decent replacement  http://www.carolinashooterssupply.com/product_p/jte-main-spring.htm  It is worth it having a rifle that fires whatever ammo you put through it.

[Grudgie]

Thanks for the tip CJS06. I was just shopping around for a heavier hammer spring.