Sportsmans guide POF surplus 9mm

[jwe2]

Recently purchased some surplus 9mm from sportsmansguide.com. stuff was pretty cheap, so i figured I'd try some for plinking. Went to the range today and only one round fired out of about thirty. I tried it in two different handguns, my taurus pt92 and my s&w 39-2, both of which had no problems shooting winchester whitebox immediately after. All the rounds that I tried showed light primer strikes. looked like the firing pin wasn't hitting the primer hard enough, yet the guns do fine with any other ammo I've tried.
Any suggestions? Is this ammo just bad? Thanks

[Dave_n]

POF = POS! Pakistani Ordnance Factory ammo is roughly the equivalent of a cap pistol in terms of its reliability. Pull the bullets and throw the rest away. Dave_n

[Asmodeus6]

OK. Since this stuff is floating around and I made a thread about it a month or so ago I'll give you some details.

POF comes in 2 flavors. 1Z and 2Z. 1Zee's (ha ha) is pistol ammunition. 2zee's is SMG ammo. Look at your primer hits compared to WWB or CCI Blazer etc. My glock will put rectangle imprint of the firing pin hole in the primer along with a huge strike in the center of it. The 2Z stuff only a faint outline of the firing pin hole and a normal looking strike in the center. They are HARD primers for open bolt guns. If your weapon does not hit this stuff as hard as a SMG it IS NOT GOING TO GO OFF.

Which is why you'll hear everyone talking about it's crap - garbage - doesn't work - unreliable etc. Since I bought some I spent the $3 on a 6# striker spring (up from factory 5.5# spring) and had not a single FTF issue.

It's basically the fact people in general are stupid, think their firearm is perfectly suited to anything they might want to do at the time, or just don't understand much about them.

I was warned it was going to be all over the place - or so hot it would blow my gun up etc. It was no hotter than Speer Gold Dot +P. In fact probably less. It does stink and it is probably corrosive or uses corrosive primers. Consistency and accuracy was better than WWB or CCI Blazer Brass. But WWB does not shoot well from my pistol at all.

This means you need to clean your firearm WELL after shooting this stuff to prevent corrosion. Outside of that - I have no issues with it. And will continue to shoot it. The cases seem strong enough to prevent a KB but do come out of shape enough I would not reload this brass out of a Glock pistol - to be fired again in any pistol. But I'm not a reloader I just was watching for signs of overpressure or issues with unsupported cases showing signs of imminent failure.

If your pistol is having a hard time setting this stuff off it is simply not bringing enough "ass" to the party. Get a Wolff +10% hammer or striker spring and see if that works. They are cheap, and a maintenance part anyway. Meaning they do wear out over time and you should have spares anyway.

[jwe2]

Very informative post, thanks for that. You're right about the ammo, the boxes I have say "2z" so that is definitely the problem.

I've seen other surplus 9mm online that was labeled for SMG and I purposely stayed away from it. Just wish Sportsman's Guide would have mentioned it. Good thing I didn't buy too much of this. WWB from Walmart is basically just as inexpensive anyway.

I'll try getting another spring since like you said, it's a part I'll use eventually anyway.

[Asmodeus6]

Here you go sir!

http://www.gunsprings.com/index.cfm?...s&cID=1&mID=65

They are $4.29 each for your hammer springs. STD Power in your PT92 should be 18lbs. You could try a 19lb or just a "fresh" 18lb spring depending on the round count on the one in there. They go UP to 20lbs and down to 16lbs if you'd like to try to tune the pistol up a little.

I don't know how changing a hammer (main) spring on that weapon will effect the trigger pull though. So you might want to be careful. On MY pistol the striker spring is cocked BY the last bit of take up in the trigger pull (Glock) so it's strength directly effects mine. So I ordered an extra power trigger (helper) spring to even it out a little which ended up being very similar to stock with MORE stiking power! I don't know enough about that pistol but you might be able to do something similar - or it might not effect the trigger pull at all.

IMO this stuff shoots better than WWB. But it might just be my pistol. I really think though for the cost of a $4 hammer spring you might be able to shoot it no problem. Wolff (gun springs) is a PA company too. So you should have it quickly and cheaply as well.

Hope this helps!

[jwe2]

Thanks! I ordered a couple different hammer springs, trigger springs and magazine follower springs for both guns since they were inexpensive. I figure it can't hurt to have spares lying around anyway. I'll try this ammo out again and hopefully have good results. :-)