Bad Experience - Ventura .38 Special 125gr TMJ FP

[jfwright1955]

So, I thought I'd go the inexpensive route and order some Ventura Tactical .38 Special 125gr TMJ FP Ammo. While I've had good experience with remanufactured ammo from places like High Country Ammo and Freedom Munitions this is the first time I'd tried anything from Ventura. At 28 cents a round the price was right so I thought I'd give it a try.

I headed up to my local range (WSA) this morning with my M&P R8 revolver and took along the Ventura .38 Special ammo. It was evident from the get go the rounds were very softly loaded. Even one of the RSO's made comment about the powder load because of how quiet it was. Well, after only 24 rounds I got a squib. As I didn't have my squib rod with me the M&P R8 had to go back into the range back while I continued to have fun with my M&P 40 full-size and Shield and my M&P 15.

When I got home I removed a bullet from one of the Ventura rounds and poured out the powder to see how much was in the round. I compared it to that from an American Eagle 38 SPCL 130gr FMJ round and there seemed to be a difference in both the amount of powder (though to tell in the pictures and appearance. As I'm not a reloader I don't have scales to measure the amount of powder and I thought I'd ask those of you that do reload if it appeared at least from the picture if the powder charge seemed sufficient?

Ventura Tactical .38 Special 125gr TMJ FP

Ventura .38 Special 125gr TMJ FP Round.jpg (57.49 KiB) Viewed 1625 times

As a point of reference the following image is of the American Eagle 38 SPCL 130gr FMJ round.

[Car Knocker]

The weight of the proper charge depends on the burn characteristics of the powder; that is, given the same bullet, case and primer, a lesser amount of fast-burning powder will generally be required than if a slower-burning powder was used. The powder in the two photos appear to be quite different, so without knowing what the burn rates are, it's not possible to determine whether the cartridges from Ventura were adequately powered merely from looking at photos.

Ventura appears to be a distributor of ammunition sourced from a number of manufacturers rather than being a manufacturer itself. As such, I'd expect a certain amount of variation in quality depending on the source of the particular batches and the quality control of these manufacturers.

As in everything else, caveat emptor.

[jfwright1955]

I sent an email to Ventura right after I got back from the range with pictures and an explanation of what I ran into. Keeping in mind it's Sunday I got a response from them no more that 15 minutes later!. Wow, that's customer care and service for you! They said they fully stand behind incorrect or malfunctioning ammo and that they'll take care of things for me.

Turns out they were aware of a bad batch of primers and, although they thought they'd caught them all and pulled them from production he said judging by the picture I sent him some may have made their way through. Regardless, they're going to make good on their word.

Turns out the guy I'm emailing back and forth has quite the pre-70's revolver collection, mostly .38 Special/.357's, so now we've moved on to gun conversations.