I heard about load-x from a friend who said he saw someone shooting their ammo at a local rifle range in Marin. I know a bit about handloading, (don't handload myself but best friend does avidly), and thought I would call first to find out something about the ammo. I spoke with Steve, I assume he's the owner. Told him I was interested in purchasing .300 Win. Mag. ammo and found out the only thing available was remanufactured. Conversation was difficult at best. Really got the feeling that he was bothered with the few simple questions I had about bullet type, reloading methods and price, but did finally get the info. I was looking for, albeit very uncomfortably. I'm into long range shooting and shoot a Remington 700 tactical 5r and have had some work done on it by GA Precision, (stock inletting for Badger bottom metal and installation of a Holland brake). Rifle is virtually brand new, only about 100 rds., and was broken in properly to GA Precision's protocol. Rifle has worked flawlessly with Federal Gold Medal Match and Nosler Custom match ammo. I was told over the phone that he only had 180 rds. of 190 grn. SMK's so I decided to drive up and purchase it all. Deciding to buy it was my biggest mistake. Took the ammo to the range and shot 17 rds. and gave up on it. More than half of the 17 rds. jammed in the gun and required quite a bit of extra force to open the bolt. 3 out of the 17 rds. jammed in the chamber completely. I could barely get the bolt open at all. REALLY had to force it and almost had to resort to whacking it with something to get it open, but it finally did. Cases stuck completely in the chamber and had to be pounded out with a rod through the muzzle, (you heard correctly!), I probably should have stopped sooner, but I couldn't believe the ammo was this bad as I had had a fairly informative conversation with Steve who said he full-length resizes every case, (one of the only reasons I decided to buy the remanned ammo).
After this ridiculous range session I called load-x immediately and got Steve again. I explained to him what the ammo was doing and told him I had shot some of my friends Nosler custom ammo at the same time to compare, which had cycled flawlessly and shot better. Told him I wanted to return the ammunition or see if he could do something and was rudely told he wouldn't do anything, that I was stuck with it and then hung up on!!!
I COULDN'T RECOMMEND LOAD-X TO ANYONE BASED ON MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE AMMO AND WITH THIS STEVE PERSON'S TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. WHAT I GOT WAS ABSOLUTE CRAP AND PROBABLY DAMAGED THE RIFLE. I'M LEFT WITH 163 RDS. OF AMMO I WOULDN'T EVEN GIVE AWAY! read more