Review: Fiocchi 9mm ammo

Dirty Dog

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A friend of mine gifted me with a few boxes of Fiocchi 115gr FMJ 9mm ammo. I've never used this brand before, so when we went to the range today, I tossed them in the range bag.

Guns:
A Glock 26, factory stock except for some TruGlo fiber optic sights. One standard 10 round magazine, two with 3 round grip extensions.
A Glock 17, modified with TruGlo Tritium/Fiber optic sights and a Glock Store pyramid trigger system set up for a 4lb pull. 3 standard 17 round magazines.

Shooting impression:
I am not impressed.
8% of the rounds were duds. Yes, 8%. With 100 rounds through each gun, the G17 had 7 duds and the G26 had 9. That is completely unacceptable.
Both guns have at least a thousand rounds through them, and neither has had any difficulty, even with el cheapo ammo like Wolff steel case ammo.
I put an an additional 100 rounds through each of the guns, using Remington in the G26 and Winchester white box in the G17. No problems. 100% fired, no misfeeds, nothing.
As I said, I've never used this brand before, and it's certainly possible that I managed to get 4 boxes of unusually bad ammo. But given a ridiculous 8% failure to fire rate from guns that have performed flawlessly before and after with multiple brands of ammo, I cannot recommend Fiocchi ammo.
If someone were to give me more, I'd use it, and I'm open minded enough that were it to perform acceptably, I'd revise my opinion. But I'll certainly not go out and buy any.
 

Grenadier

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I'm very surprised at this. Fiocchi ammo has always been excellent plinking ammo for me. It's usually loaded a bit hotter than the usual Winchester USA or Remington UMC fodder, but that's never been a problem.

While the primers used are about the same hardness of CCI primers (going by memory, from the Fiocchi primers I used for handloading back in 2000), I've never had a problem detonating them in any of my Glock pistols.

An 8% failure rate is certainly indicative of a defective batch, possibly an entire lot. Do you have the lot number from the boxes? If so, Fiocchi would certainly reimburse you.
 
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Dirty Dog

Dirty Dog

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I probably should have kept the boxes for the lot numbers. Stupid of me not to do so.
I've put all kinds of cheapo ammo through these guns and never had a problem. When I had the initial problems with duds in the G17, I thought it might be because of the Pyramid system, which includes a skeletonized, slightly longer striker pin. But the failure rate stayed the same when shooting my wives factory stock (except for sights) G26.
 
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