Alrighty, just got off the phone with Kevin of Underwood!
Very helpful and willing to take the time to answer all my questions and offered some things I hadnt considered or thought of.
First off, he stated the goal of Underwood is to produce a consistent and top quality round, no matter the caliber. He feels their loads are comparable to match quality ammo, meaning extremely tight tollerances on bullet weight and velocities. They dont blend powders and are not beholden to any manufacturer, allowing them to continue testing and experimenting for best performance from anything available. Due to their demands for consistency and quality, Hornady bullets are exclusively used in rifle ammo. Kevin said nothing else comes close in regard to consistent bullet weight.
Also, Winchester and Federal primers are used. He said CCI had been experimented with but it didnt produce consistency because it seemed to require a heavier strike and didnt always ignite. Now, they test thousands of rounds and I dont know the percentage of failures, but he said in the cases of failures from Winchester and Federal primers, each was a malfunction of the firearm used.
They do use once fired brass which is carefully policed. Literally policed as the brass come from police ranges which dont allow reloads. He doesnt use nickel plated cases, which was another of my questions. He mentioned he has never seen a once fired brass case split ever, but has had nickel cases split. Apparently nickel plating, while it works well for its intended purpose, is not as well suited for reloads in his experience. (this is a point I'm not familiar enough with to argue the merits of, I'll leave that to experienced reloaders) The link to the .223 Rem I posted above will contain ammo from once fired brass. He said an "R" in the product number denotes those loads. These will be the ones I mentioned that are $20 for 50 rounds. Kevin said folks will often purchase a few or several boxees of both the reloaded ammo as well as the new. When they order again theyll purchase solely reloads because (they comment) they cant tell a difference between the two. He said all the once fired brass is resized, trimmed, and cleaned to the point its as new as anyone can get.
Another thing he told me as we talked, he said he got my email and saw the "mossbergowners" at kinda a weird coincedental time as he had just ordered 8 Mossberg rifles! All in different chamberings like .300 WinMag, .338, .270 etc. for test rifles.
He said Underwood could produce less expensive ammo if quality wasnt a top priority, but that they wont sacrifice that to be competitive with WalMart, which he said especially is the case with 9mm ammo. WalMart prices are hard to beat in that arena, but Underwood wants to produce ammo that is better in quality than mass produced factory loads, therefore in some regards their prices wont be as competitive.
Underwood isnt payin me anything for this, I really just like researching products and understanding as much as I'm able so I can share the info here. Lookin out for my peeps!
Next time i order ammo though, I'll be tryin out some of what Underwood has to offer!
EDIT:
I forgot to mention, the FMJ BT bullets from Hornady in their .223 is cannelured! He says its comparable to Hornady's match ammo! Gonna try it out soon I hope!
EDIT EDIT:
Another thing I forgot, when you click on the product for more information, youll see a box that shows discounts for bulk orders, like 5-9 boxes at xxx price and 10-19 boxes at xxx. Looks like about .25 cents per box when you step up in quantity
